#study-spo

5.11.17 - notes from today’s physics class

Hi everyone!  ♥

I’ve decided to share with you some tips that helped me beating test anxiety.

I know how disappointing and disturbing it is when you’re in front of your paper and you start shaking and sweating because you can’t remember anything you’ve learnt. In grade 9 and 10 (IT: prima e seconda liceo) it happened continually, mostly in maths and physics tests. Then, all alone, I’ve learnt how to smash it.

1. Be sure you’ve firmly grasped everything you need to know

This is the first mistake we make while studying for a test. After reading all the information, we often believe we’ve got it. Maybe we actually have but that’s not enough and going through the test we notice it and panic.

The only way to be 100% (or maybe, more realistically, 90%) ready is knowing the topic in depth.

Suggestion 1: If there’s something, even a little thing, you haven’t understood, you’re not done studying.

Suggestion 2: If you’re not sure whether you’re ready or not, try to explain the topic to sb else (a friend, a parent, sb online or even a fictitiuos one).

2. Don’t talk to panicking people

Even if we’re calm, there’s always that one friend/classmate who’s super anxious. I know you probably want to help them but listen to me, till you haven’t beaten anxiety completely, don’t talk to them before tests. Without noticing, they’ll drag you in the anxiety vortex.

3. Stay positive: teachers are not man-eaters (even if some look so)

Erase the idea teachers want you to fail. It’s not true. They want you to pass b/c, remember, your success is their success. So, convince yourself: ‘I’m gonna pass this test because it was made for me to pass it.’. Changing your vision of teachers can really help you succeed, trust me.

4.  Remember: if you fail a test, you won’t be a failure

A test can be important but at the end it’s just a freaking test. Failing it doesn’t mean failing your entire life. This will let you be more relaxed and you’ll surely do better.

5. Don’t look at your mates during the test

Sometimes we instinctively look at others during the test:

1) it’s a waste of time

2) you lose your focus

3) if they’re faster than you, you’ll get anxious. Being fast doesn’t necessary mean making a good test.

So, these are five tips that really helped me improve my marks beating my test anxiety. Hope you find them useful!

I still have some more practical tricks to share with you. So like and reblog and let me understand if you want the 2nd part of this post.

Love you all, keep up the great work! ♥

by Healthybodymindblog

Other masterposts:

I'm just in my second year of college but I was texting someone last night who has been a big influence in my life and they were sharing with me how they had a friend falling behind in their residency program and was about to not pass. They shared the same advice with their friend that they shared with me while I was just starting my first year; the dean who is this person's friend's preceptor emailed them saying how extremely impressed they were with their progress and how they must have just been a late bloomer haha! Looks like their friend is going to finish their residency no problem, so good for them for fixing their study habits!

It's never to late to fix your study habits where ever you are in the game!! It's also good to find a study method that works for you that is very thorough!

Let me share quickly what method they are using/ have used since in college all the way to the last year off their residency...

(1) This is an odd one but very important! FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT:

 Act like you know what you are doing even when you don't! Confidence is huge! When you let your self become nervous/insecure and let it show on the surface others will see it, and it will impact your performance... believe it or not!

(2) Preparing and time management:

 Weekends are the best time to get ahead. Schedule out what you need to get done, making sure studying for exams and completing assignments are at the top. But also make time to read and prepare for next weeks lectures!

Also before you go into class every day, either the night before or before class that day make time to read your notes over (not passively, actually think about the material!). 

(3) After class:

Once again go over you material, you can never know it to well!

One of my psych instructors told my class one time that after a lecture it's best to actively review your notes 3 times with in the first 24 hours after the lecture... granted not everyone has the time for that so make the most of reviewing those notes at least once after class.

(4) Don't wait till the day before a test to get questions answered:

This is something I have learnt over the last couple years! I used to be so nervous to talk to my instructors but then I remembered they are here to help me to succeed, and this is my education so who gives a crap if they don't like answering questions I'm going to ask them anyway.

It's important that if you can't find an answer to your question as soon as possible go and see your instructor. I have generally found that they will explain it even better than they did in class, sometimes I found that as a sign that I will probably get a question about it on my mid term.

Questions are so important they cause you to learn the material so much more!

(5) Understand don't just memorize:

When you graduate and often during first year our first instinct is to memorize because that's how we made it through high school so it will probably take us all the way to our career... think again!

When studying for bio before you start checking to see that you have it in your head make sure you understand it. Ask your self questions as you study, this will help you to be able to recall it later in life. If you just memorize then you will only know it for that exam and possibly your final but a year later you won't be able to recall it at all!

Organic chem is the same! You obviously have to remember specific reactions and models, and etc. But don't just memorize them! Look at how and why they are happening! Mechanisms always help me get a better understanding. Go deeper than just the lecture notes. Organic chem is tough because you will be forced to put together all the individual concepts you learnt into one question. Make sure you understand before the exams how everything from carbocations to bulkiness can play a role in a reaction! Little details are important and can play a huge role in organic chem exam questions!

in medical school all of your lecturers will think their topic is the best, most important topic, and will embellish their lectures with extraneous information that you probably don't need to know. unfortunately they won't always tell you what you need to know, and this causes a tonne of stress, as you're sat, during revision time, staring at a humongous list of details, and you know some of the details aren't needed, but you're not sure which - so you try and learn it all, resulting in panic and burn out and some kind of MI/Stroke-like event.

look at the learning objectives, if they're provided. for every lecture/dissection/tutorial, we're given a list of objectives for that class, which are the bare bones of the point of the class. chances are if its mentioned in the objectives, you're gonna need to know it.

i don't know about your lecturers, but mine love a good story - they love to tell you the direct translation of a latin name, or the story of the discovery of a certain molecule. i personally just disregard that - we're not going to be quizzed on the controversy surrounding the discovery that the body doesn't actually work on the basis of balancing the humors!!!

how many slides is the information on? how much time does the lecturer take to explain it? if they take half of the lecture explaining it, learn it. if its in the corner of one slide in a fifty slide lecture, and they don't even mention it, maybe save that for later.

does it have a real life application? our examiners love to set questions which integrate clinical scenarios with biochemical and pharmacological principles. soooo if you're taught that a certain drug has a certain half life, which then corresponds to the likelihood of withdrawal symptoms, it'd probably be best to learn it. whereas if you're taught that Cystic Fibrosis is caused by any of a bunch of mutations in the CFTR gene, don't sit down and memorise every single mutation in the gene - because they all cause cystic fibrosis - instead, learn maybe the top 5 most common mutations, and leave it at that.

listen to the lecturer and read the slides. we've all fallen into the trap of hearing the lecturer say "this is for interest only" or reading a footnote on a slide that says "not examinable" and thought "I'm going to learn it anyway". NO. i know, it feels wrong and you're used to learning everything just in case it comes up - but seriously, your lecturers want you to pass. they know theres a shit tonne of information that gets dumped on you each semester, and they're just trying to help out by telling you whats not necessary to learn. believe them, and save yourself the torment.