destinii

15/05/2020

you want to give the words your undivided attention. don’t study if you’re not in a fit state to focus—period. this means don’t study sleep deprived, while “multitasking”, etc. just don’t study unless you’re willing to give all of your brain power to the subject for at least a few minutes.

the idea is this: 5 minutes of complete focus and attention > 2 hours of “half-focus” or dissociative studying. for example: you can “read” a book as much as you want, but if you’re not really focusing on the words, you will not absorb anything.

that being said, let’s get into it!

take a 2 minute break to zone out or meditate every 5-10 minutes of studying the words. as humans, our attention spans are pretty short. we will naturally go into autopilot after studying for a certain period of time. but you want to study HARD, and with complete focus in order to learn the words faster and make them stick. think of it as jogging versus sprinting. sprinting might require more breaks because it is harder, but it will get you to your destination much faster. so just try your best not to go into autopilot, and save the zoning out for your break!!

..Why why why did I not capitalize stuff up there? Nah I ain’t fixin that

Learn the word before studying the word. Don’t just jump into a random quizlet set and start guessing away—give each word a little bit of attention at first, and implement deeper thought into them.

Consistency > Cramming. A few minutes of review everyday will always beat 3 hours of studying once a month. But you knew that, didn’t you?

Be interactive with your vocabulary. It will help you stay focused. When learning the word, say it out loud and write it down. Also, make sure you’re looking at the word (and ideally an actual image of it) as you learn it.

Divide your sets up to be smaller. This is less overwhelming, which means you’re less stressed, which means you’ll remember better.

If your target language requires a lot of conjugating, it may be smart to learn the nouns, adjectives and verbs separately at first.

Implement associative learning. This also ties in with the deeper thinking as well. This brings us to two kinds:

Imaginary: Basically, look at the word and form a unique opinion/thought about it. Use your senses and memories. For example, what does the word look like? If words had a taste, what would it taste like coming out of your mouth? What would the word feel like in your hands? In your mind, what does it smell like? Create an emotionally touching story in your head that relates to the word—Why?Because emotions trigger memory.

Real-world: While studying the word, you can associate it with a certain image, location, thing, gesture, song, smell, or even taste. If you smell a certain perfume while studying your set, I wouldn’t be surprised if you remembered the words better the next time you spray that perfume. The same applies with the other senses. You could associate every single word with something different. You can also associate the word with a real memory that you’ve had. (Experiment: When learning the word “sweet”, eat something sweet. See if you remember it better later).

Surround yourself with it. Podcasts. Songs. Youtube. Shows. Follow native speakers on social media. Put sticky notes everywhere. Download Tandem and Hello Talk to actually speak to native speakers. You get the idea.

Start decoding stuff. Songs, children’s books, novels. It is meant to be challenging, that is what makes it work so well. Don’t skip over stuff just because you don’t understand it.

052220 - 17/30 days of productivity

I was in a meeting today and it hit me again how difficult this time is for everyone. I've been keeping myself busy lately, and I realized it's probably because I want to distract myself from worrying and thinking about the whole situation. Many of you are probably anxious and restless too for many different reasons, so if you ever need someone to talk to, feel free to message or ask me. :)

quarantine day ??????

Throwback   May 15 2020

It’s raining outside and I want to sleep instead of writing notes

How to Conduct a Close Read by academiix

Disclaimer: I’m an Aussie so some of this advice will relate more specifically to VCE than other international systems. Also this is what works for me personally, it may not work for you.

1. COMPLETE PAST EXAM PAPERS I can absolutely not stress enough how valuable these are, I complete as many as I can possibly get my hands on. (For Victorians, VCAA has previous exam papers for every year and every subject published on their website. It’s a new study design this year for most subjects (2017) so keep an eye out for any questions on topics you won’t need to know. You should also be able to find stacks of “unofficial” papers from various companies) -I didn’t usually worry about time limits or being under exam conditions. Reality is that your parents are going to interrupt you to ask you to unpack the groceries or you’re in the middle of babysitting your siblings or something. There’s nothing wrong with completing sections at a time.

-The more you do, the faster you’ll become. Your thinking processes will become more efficient, you’ll write faster, and you’ll begin to whip through any multiple choice sections.

-If you really struggle staying within time limits, my psychology teacher recommends practicing “one minute per mark” e.g. Only spend 4 minutes on a question worth 4 marks

-I found, especially with my science classes: one mark will equal one dot point.

-Try to stay within the space you’ve been given. Sometimes you haven’t been given enough space or you need to go over to get your point across but most of the time you’re just not being concise enough. Work on it and think about how you write your answers before you commit them to paper.

2. GO THROUGH YOUR COMPLETED EXAM PAPERS AND EXAMINER’S REPORTS This is just as important as completing the papers themselves. Here’s some specific advice: - If you’re going through the 2016 Biology Exam and see that only 16% of the state got full marks on a cellular respiration question, you should study cellular respiration inside out. Make it your strength. Cohort’s don’t change much, weakness don’t change year to year. If you see that under 50% of the state is getting full marks on questions about a particular topic, you make sure you know that topic and you’ll have one up on most of the state.

-Make a list of every topic you got wrong, be specific (do this for every test or set questions you do for a class). Note if you got it wrong because you didn’t read a question or if you didn’t know enough about a topic. You’ll see patterns. In math, I kept on missing out on the end of a question that mentioned how many significant figures to round to; I picked up my mistake and fixed it. In biology, I regularly got questions about whether a solution was hypertonic, hypotonic, or isotonic wrong: I focused on osmosis for a while in my bio class and got better. There’s always a pattern in your errors. Find it.

-Look out for topics that reappear pretty regularly. Questions about that topic can be VERY similar in each exam E.g. If you go through VCAA biology exams you’ll find pretty much the same transcription and translation question every year. I became familiar with responses out of examiner’s reports for these types of questions and was able to use them out in my exam (or at least apply them). It’ll make you feel more familiar with your exam when you sit it, maybe even make it more predictable.

3. DISCIPLINE > MOTIVATION

For the first 2-4 weeks of the year motivation will have you studying from the minute you get home til the second you shut your eyes to sleep. You won’t even feel like having breaks. Next minute you’re in the midst of the month of hell (i.e. May), you have three assessments this week, you managed to get an hour of study done this weekend. I don’t really think of discipline in the normal way when it comes to study, for me it means knowing how I work best and how to keep myself on track without relying on random energy spikes.

-Get in the habit of breaks from the very first day of term 1. You may not feel like it because you’re well rested, fresh off the beach, and motivated to get sh*t done. But take them. You’ll get so so sick of studying early on and you’ll burn out well before Easter holidays.

-Work out when you work best. If you are one of those people who can get up at 6am and work productively (please tell me your secrets) then do that. I study in the afternoon, usually from 4:30-5:00pm onwards.

-Work out how long you’re able to work at your best each day.I study 45-60 minutes per subject (I have 4 ¾’s) with 10-15 breaks in between. A guy in my class will study in 20 minute blocks with 5 minute breaks in between. Sometimes I don’t worry about timing myself and will just have breaks after I’ve completed a task. Don’t be afraid to change it up, especially if you’re tired.

-Also this may be contradictory to my main point, but “if you don’t feel like painting, don’t paint” (Credit to random ATAR Notes guy). You need to keep an eye out for when you need to take a night off. Sometimes you just need to take a nap. Interpret that quote however you want, it just felt like good advice to me.

4. COMPARE THE PAIR I’m really conflicted about comparing myself to others. VCE is a system entirely structured around rankings. Your study scores are ranks based of where you sit in the state which are based of where you rank in your class. I’m a very competitive person, so comparing myself to others motivates me. However there’s a line to this. It’s significantly less stressful to run your own race. I can’t just tell you to stop comparing your marks to others, because I know it just isn’t that easy. Just try and recognise your own progress too.

-Try working on your perception of failure. Harness it to motivate you to do better next time.

5. TEACHERS Your teachers teach the same content every year, they know it all back to front. Use them.

-If at any point in time you think “I don’t get this” write it down, sticky note it, set a reminder to ask your teacher about it. Question, question, question.

-Learn their approach to teaching early on. My math teacher lets everyone work at their own pace while my health teacher is free with detention slips when worksheets are handed in late. Try and get on their good side.

-Your teachers mark your assessments, if they hint at anything to do with how they mark, write it down and keep it in mind. Also they may have previously marked exams for VCAA, if so they’ll what you need to include it certain types of questions to get full marks. They’re like a walking, talking previous-exam report. Ask for their advice.

-If you really struggle learning from your teacher, ask your classmates (remember you guys are a team NOT competition), visit forums, and seek out other teachers who also teach the subject. Even if your teacher is great do this. The more people explain something to you, the more you’ll get it and the easier you’ll remember it.

-Don’t be afraid to send them emails, they take their job home

-Ask them to mark any extra questions you do out of your textbook. You often will not have the answers yourself and they can give you feedback

6. GET AHEAD DURING THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS Phew I feel like this stuff is getting out of order by now, but here we are. Doing this will take a whole heap off pressure off you at the start off the year.

-Number 1 thing to do is to complete set holiday homework. There’s nothing worse than starting the school year behind in your work.

-Read your English texts. I had four novels. Write or find chapter summaries for them. Reread them if you have time. You need to be familiar with the characters, themes, and plot. You do not want to be reading 1984 in the middle of August.

-Skim through your textbooks. Summarise chapters.

-Start a list of terms you need to know for each class

-Practice writing, doesn’t have to be essays or anything. The worst thing is coming back to school feeling like you’re wording your sentences weirdly.

-Get to know the study design. Know what you don’t need to know. 7. ACTUAL STUDY It took a more that a few paragraphs to get to the point. -I hate cue cards, they don’t work for me at all. If you haven’t used them to study before, don’t spend hours writing them out for a whole textbook. Try them out with a few definitions and if they work then continue. Don’t force it just because it’s a popular technique.

-I don’t usually hand write notes, it takes a lot of energy and I get sores from pressing on the paper too hard. I type out my notes. It’s up to you as to what you do

-To memories a concept I’ll retype a whole document paragraph by paragraph to remember it (with the paragraph i’m copying scrolled up out of sight). If you prefer writing then try rewriting each paragraph. (This is my main study method)

-To do well you need to know your content and how to play the game. I can’t specifically tell you how to do this but you need to know how to answer questions. This goes back again to doing practice exams

-Have a conceptual understanding of the context. Memorisation can only get you so far. It ultimately comes down to being very familiar with content. To explain: By the time I completed four units of VCE biology I had been introduced to around 600 new terms. Every year there is at least one question that’ll ask for a definition. Now biology is already a very content heavy subject, I couldn’t go out and learn 600 definitions by heart. In the exam I was asked to define ‘vaccine.’ I didn’t know the textbook definition of ‘vaccine,’ but I knew about vaccines, I knew a key word would be ‘attenuated.’ So I came up with a definition from there. Ultimately you need to be able to apply the information you know to unknown situations.

-Immerse yourself in the subject. Make posters and stick them on your fridge and on the toilet door. You may not even read them, but the topics will always be in your face keeping your knowledge fresh in your mind

-Look at as many sources of information as possible, if you see the information in different forms you’ll develop a far better understanding of it. Read your textbook, old textbooks, your notes, company notes, teacher PowerPoints, articles. Trade notes with your friends. Watch YouTube. 8. LOOK AFTER YOURSELF I actually hate that I’m putting this in here. So stereotypical of a study guide.

-have little control of what food I eat, I get what I’m given in my household. So if I’m not eating well I can’t change that. I’m sure nearly all students are in the same position. As much as I would love to have a detox juice for breakfast it’s not going to happen. Just make sure you’re eating enough energy-wise

-Life gets in the way of exercise. I walk to and from school every day and this is enough for me to have a break and think.

-Get to bed before midnight. Sleep is the one thing I will stress about to you. If you aren’t getting enough rest you will burn out. School is tiring even when you’re getting 8 hours of sleep. I’m still working on this one (btw it’s 12:48am atm). School is so much more enjoyable when you’re well rested.

-If you’re overwhelmed, take a long bath or shower. You need to give yourself some time out sometimes

9. ORGANISATION

-I recommend having a diary or at least a notebook where you can write things down

-Write down every piece of set homework, even if you think you’ll remember it because you probably won’t.

-My diary is more of a to-do list. I write down everything that I want to get done in a week, including set homework and study. That way when I have free periods at school and when I get home I know exactly what I can do with my time.

-Highlight important events such as tests and due days so you won’t forget them or look over them in your planner

-Apart from my diary, I write very specific to-do lists for each day. This is especially helpful on weekends and holidays when you don’t have the routine of school