Do you want to know the 7 study hacks guaranteed to lift you out of constant C’s and B’s and onto nothing less than A’s with no stress and a lot of fun?

If you said yes, then read on to learn all of these hacks right now!

Let’s start with the first hack:

1. Focus on the Concepts

You might have been in class and the teacher or professor told you to know “these” things for the exam without explaining to you what those things meant and the significance of those things.

This is the wrong way to go about learning (unless they’re the actual questions and answers to the test; something this professor would do as an example).

The correct way to go about the learning process is to learn the concepts behind what you are doing instead of memorizing solutions or potential answers to questions.

You can honestly do this by watching YouTube videos on the subject you are learning and by reading books.

They typically have everything you need to know in order to understand the concepts fully.

Why is this correct? Because when you learn the concepts behind what you are doing, you understand how things work and as a result, you see why everything is working the way they are working.

This allows your brain to flow your thoughts into the page naturally without doing “the grunt work” of nit-picking every detail needed for every single question.

Does this make sense?

If you are not convinced, there has been plenty of research done on the subject of conceptual learning vs. rote memorization.

Testimonials in this research say that conceptual learning results in people generating real world solutions to real world problems that you cannot figure out with rote memorization.

This is because when you memorize things, you don’t get the opportunity to see how things work together.

You can’t see the roles they play and you cannot see their physical significance.

This is why you can’t use the material and hence, you forget about it.

When your brain understands the concepts behind what it’s learning.

Hence you retain more of the material and perform better on exams and in the real world.

Now do you understand what conceptual learning entails and why you should use it?

Provided you know this, the next point will put your exam scores over the top, so keep reading to see this hack.

2. Handwrite Your Notes

You might have typed your notes while in school or college, but research says otherwise.

Research done from 2 professors at Princeton University and UCLA revealed that when students took notes by hand over the laptop, students comprehend the material better and their exam scores go up.

Every laptop user was instructed to copy the notes verbatim (word for word) and to use it as the study guide without writing the notes down at all.

The results:

In every case where the laptop students had an advantage, they did not outperform the group who took their notes by hand.

Why is this the case?

Let me explain.

For starters, when you take your notes by hand, your brain is reframing the material in a unique way that it understands without molding itself to the confines of someone else’s words.

This makes the brain more comfortable and certain in its abilities to use the material and see applications of it not just for tests and exams, but in the real world.

This is why inventors and creators are able to do the things they do because they understand how everything works instead of memorizing for an exam.

And it all starts with writing your notes down the old way.

So write your notes down on paper and you will benefit from it greatly.

Trust me.

Now solely writing your notes on paper is not enough. You must do more than that. And you do more than that with this:

3. Active Recall

This is the superstar strategy of super elite students.

Here’s what you do:

After or before you write your notes in your own words, you verbally say out loud a summary of what you read or watched with your eyes closed.

You keep doing this again and again every time you read or watch something new.

You also do this after several days or a week after you learned the material for the first time to keep it fresh.

That’s it.

That’s all there is to it.

To demonstrate, I encourage to do this:

With the points we’ve discussed so far, print this article out, read it and use active recall while writing the notes down for this post in your own words.

You can take the notes on the post itself or on separate sheets of paper.

I encourage you to compare your understanding of this post with just reading it.

Your comprehension will go up tremendously.

Assuming you did the activity, was I right?

I thought so.

Comment below with your thoughts and a big fat “Yes it worked” if you did the activity.

And if you didn’t do the activity, don’t continue until you finish the activity.

Remember, you clicked on the post so you can learn about study hacks, so make the most of your learning experience right now before you forget to!

Please do ask questions about it if you are confused about how to do active recall, I can send a video to you demonstrating how to do it.

I am more than happy to explain it to you again as many times as you need.

Now active recall is one of the golden keys to retaining any information you can think of, but after 4 hours of studying, you feel tired don’t you?

Well, that’s your body telling you something and I am going to explain how to address this issue right now.

4. The 90-30 Rule

Here’s what it is:

You study/work for 90 minutes straight and you rest (take a break) for 30 minutes.

You keep up this pattern with the exception of breaking for lunch or dinner/exercise in which you will allot 1 hour for each activity.

Here’s a breakdown example to show you what I mean:

8 am = Wake Up

9:30 am – 11 am = Calculus 2: Read Section 6.2

11:30 am – 1 pm = Calculus 2: Do the homework problems from Section 6.2

2 pm – 3:30 pm = Do the report for the ENC 1102 project

4 pm – 5:30 pm = Physics 1: Complete the Section 5.4 homework

6 pm – 7:30 pm = Physics 1: Complete the Section 5.4 homework / Read Section 5.5

7:30 pm – 8:30 pm = Walk and eat dinner; note this one; never ditch exercise.

8:30 pm – 10 pm = Physics 1: Read Section 5.5

10:30 pm – 11 pm (or 12 pm for 7 hours of sleep) = Physics 1: Read Section 5.5 / review section 5.1 and 5.2

11:30 pm – 12 am = Read a non-school book

That’s the standard template for the schedule.

Believe me when I say this:

If you follow this schedule, you utilize the correct resources for your classes and you meet the prerequisites for the classes you are taking, you will not have a hard time in your classes.

Ever.

There is a super high likelihood that regardless of what you major in, be it the hardest major or the easiest major, you will not have a problem getting through it.

Of course, you can change the times to fit your particular situation, but following this template exactly will ensure your academic success.

Here’s my proof.

According to a Florida State University study on high performing individuals, working in 90 minute intervals with 20-30 minute breaks in between maximized productivity in these individuals.

Participants cited how this technique positively affected their performance.

You can read a summary of the research here.

Now they did mention something about needing to work at most 4.5 hours in a day, but because this is school, you will need more time to do well (depending on your major).

For instance, if you are in any engineering major, computer science or math/science majors, you must put in at least 60 hours per week in order to do well.

I say this from experience.

If you put less time in, you run the risk of failing your classes.

And that’s the truth.

60-70 hours per week or a bit more with the strategies in this post and the secret to test taking, you are good to go.

In other majors, I can’t speak from experience on those since they were not my majors, but I would imagine you wouldn’t need to put as much time in to do well in them academically.

However, if you do have spare time left, don’t put it to video games or Instagram or your boyfriend/girlfriend; they can wait.

Put it to clubs, extracurricular activities, networking, internships, going to the gym, etc.

In other words, anything productive for your career and your health.

Not a single second should be wasted.

And you must get at least 7-8 hours of sleep every single day and not a minute less (8 hours if you can please).

I encourage you to try the 90-30 rule the next time you study in combination with the techniques I’ve talked about in this post.

You will see your knowledge and confidence levels go up.

I recommend 30 minutes of rest because from my experience using the 20 minute rest, your brain is still not relieved enough to comprehend the material efficiently.

If you feel comfortable enough, you can opt for a 20 minute break instead and get more done.

Try break times between 20-30 minutes and see which numbers works best for you in terms of being well rested and getting more done.

Definitely don’t overdo it working 100+ hour weeks.

You will crash fast.

The exception is if you are broke.

That’s one thing. Otherwise, don’t even think about 100+ hour work weeks.

Stick with consistent 60-75 hour work weeks (80 max) and you will be sharp.

Now here’s the not so super-secret sauce to academic success:

5. Do Your Homework Again

This one might make you pull your hair out, but it’s extremely effective.

Remember this: We are creatures of habit and we tend to do things well when we do them repetitively .

Also, we tend to quickly forget information we don’t use because our brain prioritizes things in terms of what we use more often.

That’s why after a certain period of time since you first learned the material and before the test, you should do the homework (or at least part of it) again.

You can see your knowledge gaps are and perfect the process of doing those problems or spitting out those answers during the test.

This is the method to which you can confidently go into the test and say “I’ve got this” instead of “What have I gotten myself into?”

Take a look at this article here to know the benefits of homework in its entirety.

Note in the article that they say similar problems will show up on the tests.

From experience, this quote is 100% true.

And this is more reason to learn conceptually since you are knowing the concept that will go on the test and as a result, you’ll be able to fit your understanding to each question they give you.

With memorization, you can’t do that since you don’t understand why everything is working the way they do.

And if you practice the concept over and over again, you’ll master the concepts you are learning and you’ll be immune, with my bulletproof test taking plan, from getting anything less than a 90 on each test assuming you have a fair professor who tests you based on what they say they’ll test you on.

You really can’t beat this considering this is all research-backed and tested from experience with not just me, but from many other successful students.

So if you are ready to dramatically boost your test scores, this is the study plan to follow.

Not to brag, but I cannot explain how invincible I was taking tests and studying when I figured it all out. Classmates would always come up to me and ask “How are you doing it all by yourself? We have to study this stuff in groups, but everybody keeps asking how in the world Evan is doing all of this alone. That’s impressive.”

Honestly, it’s not so impressive when you consider the fact that I simply followed the instructions of the research.

That’s it.

And it’s all here for you on a silver platter for you to take.

Medical school?

Assuming you are starting out with a clean record, you got it if you follow this academic plan.

Law school?

BAM, you got it with this plan.

Working at a Fortune 500 company with an Ivy League MBA?

Trust me with this: You have it in the bags already academically when you follow this plan.

Now this isn’t all for the plan, so read on to know the rest of the plan.

6. Exercise

This one is something you can’t miss; no excuse.

Sure, you probably don’t have time for the gym (it does break the plan apart, but if you can somehow make it work, do it), but I guarantee that you have time for a walk, pushups, a run or anything very simple.

I do this every day and I will tell you that this had made a tremendous difference in my focus and my energy levels, especially since I had to spend most of my waking hours studying.

If you are not sold on the benefits, take a look at this study here that shows how our hippocampus (aka: the brain’s memory manager) is harmed as we get older because of lack of exercise.

Trust me, you don’t want this.

You want your brain extremely sharp not just on test day, but for the rest of your life.

And yes, even the studies in the link I posted said that you can prevent memory loss in just three 20 minute sessions of physical exercise per week.

That is the reality that you can’t escape.

The facts are in.

Get moving with the exercise.

And if a smartphone distracts you from doing so, dump it in the trash ASAP.

Trust me, you don’t need that thing.

But you definitely need this:

7. Sleep

Don’t give me an argument about all-nighters and sleeping only 4 hours per night.

I know without a doubt you are lying when you say you did well when you did that on a consistent basis.

Sure, you probably got away with it once, but what about the other times?

Look, you need to rest. Mother Nature set us this magical 8 hour number and, frankly, if you don’t stick to this number, you will not be consistent in your routine and you will sacrifice a good chunk of your day for the worse.

Take a look at this article here that shows why sleeping 8 hours per day is required to perform at your best.

Believe me, the sample schedule I gave to you earlier was not constructed by accident.

Whoever tells you to not get 8 hours of sleep (or 7 hours, but 8 is strongly recommended) and just work throughout the night is out of their freakin’ mind.

Yes, even the billionaires who claim to work over 100 hours per week are NOT worth taking advice from on this subject.

The facts are so obvious I can call on their BS super-fast.

The only way you can get less than 8 hours of sleep is if you have a very special gene that allows you to do this.

You either have this gene or you don’t.

You can read about it here if you wish.

Everybody else who doesn’t have the gene must get anywhere from 7-8 hours of sleep per night to perform at their best.

Nothing less.

Take a look at this report here from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine to send my point home.

I don’t think I need to convince you anymore about sleep. It’s really vital for you in order to do this plan correctly.

Honestly, if you follow this post right to the last sentence, you shouldn’t have a problem with academics at all.

In fact, you should be dominating it once you implement this post fully.

That I guarantee you provided you put in the work.

And to conclude this post, I want to make one thing clear:

Don’t let anyone say that you aren’t good enough.

That is complete BS.

All you need to do is redirect your attention to what you want, take action on it and you will win.

I used to suck at academics to the point where I was scoring the worst on a test called the FCAT when I was in grade school and I was getting straight C’s in the lowest level classes you can take.

Frankly, it was because I wasn’t applying myself enough at the time.

When I realized what I was doing wrong, everything changed to the point where most students from any university, including the Ivies, would poop in their pants if they had to go against me in academics.

This concept of genius is complete garbage.

All of those people who are depicted as “very smart” or have high IQs are using these strategies. As far as I know, there is no way around these techniques for learning efficiently.

Trust me, you can do it.

However, it’s up to you.

Will you seize the moment and claim what’s yours?

I really hope you do. And let me know if you do seize that moment. Shoot me an email at jointheisland@gmail.com with what happened. I will definitely read it and reply to you. I promise you that.

Go get them. You’ve got this.

Until next time,

This is Evan signing off.

PS: If you got a lot out of this post, make sure you subscribe with your email below to Join the Island, the world’s greatest blog, so you can receive even more posts about college tricks and techniques that’ll help you get ahead of everyone else quickly.

PPS: Comment below with anything you want to say about the post. It’d be great to know!

PPPS: If you want to read the world’s most in-depth and detailed post about everything you need to know for college aside from academics, this 25000 + word college tips post is it.

Read and act on it and you will knock college out of the park.

Guaranteed.

But watch out for the challenge!