7 Easy College Study Secrets You Can Implement Starting Today

Do you want easy-to-implement college study secrets that are proven to quickly send your grades to the top of your class?

If so, read on because I will show you 7 secrets you can implement starting today so YOU can see your grades flourish!

With that said, here is secret #1!

 

Secret #1: Take Good Notes 

This is absolutely critical when it comes to doing well on your exams for college.

Why?

Because this is the best way for you to not only shape the material in your own words but to retain the material over the long run.

Don’t believe me?

Well, here’s some research to prove why you should take notes.

In a study by Princeton University and UCLA, two samples of students, one who took notes with laptops and the other by hand, were tasked to watch a TED talk and to take a quiz after watching the TED talk.

The goal of this study was to assess what group of note-takers performed better on factually-based tests (popular in majors like history) and conceptual-based tests (popular in majors like engineering).

The results were extremely revealing.

For factual-based tests, both groups performed well.

However, for the conceptually based tests, the group who took their notes with laptops did far worse than those who hand-wrote their notes.

The reason for this is because when you take notes by hand, your mind is literally shaping the material.

What I mean by this is your mind is experimenting with the material and experiencing it firsthand to understand how it works and how the details need to be lined up so that the concepts are clearly understood.

It’s kind of like a kid playing with clay.

You play with the clay to understand what you can do with it versus just reading about it and speculating on what you can do.

After all, experience is the best teacher.

It’s the same thing with learning.

We learn best when we are actively engaged with the material and being in the field instead of being an observer and watching things unfold without experiencing the details of the events.

Reading the material without taking notes is like watching without actually doing it.

That’s a recipe for failure.

Writing, on the other hand, is being in the field.

You get your hands dirty, you are playing around with things and you are experimenting, which is what learning is REALLY about.

This is why writing your notes down is far superior to simply reading the material without actually comprehending what’s going on!

Now, if you want to take learning a step further, here’s a magic trick that a lot of students don’t know about.

It involves closing your eyes to retain more information.

Here’s how it works:

You read the material one time.

But right after you read the material, you will close your eyes and recite, in your own words, what you just read.

Of course, you will handwrite your notes as well.

Now before you call this concept ridiculous and out of this world, let me show you some research as to how closing your eyes can help you remember more material and help you perform better on your exams.

In a 2015 study by the University of Surrey, 2 groups of people, one that was instructed to keep their eyes open and one that was instructed to close their eyes, were analyzed to see who would retain the most material.

Each group was instructed to watch a video about an electrician stealing equipment and then they were instructed to recall as much material from the video as they could.

Upon conclusion of the study, the group that was instructed to close their eyes recalled up to 23% more material than the group that was instructed to keep their eyes open.

This means that if you studied for a test and you recalled material with your eyes closed instead of doing so with your eyes open, you can expect to earn a 23% increase in your test scores.

I don’t know about you, but a 23% increase in your test scores is a big deal.

Imagine what a 23% increase in your test scores can bring you.

And as you can see, there is documented evidence that closing your eyes to recall material can improve your test scores.

I encourage you to try it out the next time you study and you WILL see an increase in your grades.

Pinky promise 😉 

Now, here’s a research-backed study secret that many of the top students don’t share (until now :)).

Secret #2: Active Recall (The Most Powerful College Study Tip)

THIS is the big secret successful students hide from you that you are about to receive right now.

Here’s how it works.

Let’s say it’s been a few days since you last studied a piece of material.

You need to refresh the material before the test.

However, you don’t know if you remember the material you need to know.

Here’s what you do.

You simply recite what you remember as much as possible from the previous material you went over for roughly 15-20 minutes (up to 30 minutes can be fine in some cases).

And you do so while closing your eyes to improve retention.

So let’s say you are going over section 5.5.

Basically, you’ll start at the top of section 5.5 and go all the way through it as much as possible.

While going through the section, you will see where you might have something wrong and make note of these things on the side to check later.

After finishing what you recall from the section, you will go back and check your work to see what you got right and what you got wrong.

For the things you got wrong, you will summarize your mistakes in a little section that you can create yourself that will outline these things and you can review these things in more detail if you wish.

In specific instances, it helps to recall this material through oral recitation while writing your notes and closing your eyes so that you can REALLY nail down what went wrong and how you can improve before you are actually quizzed or tested on the material.

It really helps to specify the details as to why you got something wrong in order to truly understand why a problem and similar problems work the way they do.

This way, you can increase your chances of getting future questions correct.

Multiple pieces of research have been done to show that active recall is by far the number 1 study strategy that produces the best test results for students amongst the strategies that students use to study for tests.

In fact, research into active recall has existed since 1939 and has stretched into the 2010s, which proves that active recall is a timeless strategy that will produce results for you if you use it.

You can see a summary of active recall’s effectiveness compared to other study methods here if you wish.

Another way to think about active recall is as a practice test.

You are in essence taking a test without being penalized for wrong answers.

This is great because you can see what you are doing wrong and have the opportunity to fix it before test time.

Another advantage to practice testing is you get exposure to the real thing before you take the real thing.

This gives you great comfort going into the exam, knowing that you understand what the questions would be like and what to expect when you sit down to take the thing.

You won’t be confused.

This is the power of practice testing and I encourage you to use it to your advantage when studying, preferably in doing homework problems again since you assure yourself that you will pass if you simply do the assigned homework.

Of course, to get an A+, you should do as many problems as you can or if you are doing a memorization test, remember as much information as you can.

And if you do this, you should have a good foundation towards acing the class.

Of course, study consistently and stay with your schedule.

Map it out the night before to know what to expect.

Now, this next tip will make you a productivity superpower, so listen carefully to what I am about to tell you.

 

Secret #3: 90-20 Rule

This is a productivity success rule unlike any other.

What you do is you work for 90 minutes straight followed by a 20 minute break.

You do this throughout the day for the study sessions you have.

This technique works because you are tapping into what’s called an “ultradian rhythm,” which is a biological pattern set in us by nature where we can work for 90 minutes before experiencing a drop-off in performance which requires us to take a break to recharge.

This is a research-backed concept from the Berlin School of Music where they studied this technique on various violinists.

The results showed that high-performing violinists used 90-20 minute intervals to boost productivity and they attributed their high performance to using this technique.

A summary of the research is shown here for you to see.

Another study on this same topic was done by Florida State University, where they studied individuals in various lines of work like athletes, chess players and musicians and how they performed based on what productivity techniques they used.

These researchers concluded that yet again, the high-scoring performers were the ones who used the 90-20 rule for productivity.

Yours truly used a variation of it, which involved a 30 minute break instead of 20 minutes, to earn very high scores in university, including my last 2 semesters where my midterm score averages were 94.5% and 96%, respectively.

I can safely say that this technique had a large part in making these results happen.

So I encourage you to please give the 90-20 rule a try for the next test that you prepare for.

Now, just as it’s important to make sure you follow the correct productivity method, you must also know this next tip to do REALLY well, and that is:

 

Secret #4: Knowing How To Take Your Test

Yes, there is a process for going about this.

Here’s what you do.

You go through your test once.

You just “dump” your knowledge on the page without regard to whether you are misreading a question or not.

Yes, you read that right.

Just get through the test with what you understand and know about the concepts and how you initially interpret the questions.

You just want to get everything in as much as possible without leaving any answers blank.

Dealing with the details in each question will be dealt with in the next step of this process.

After you finish dumping all of your knowledge onto the test, you will go back and do every question again (if time permits).

This time, you will pay more attention to the details when you read the question and catch anything you might’ve misread or skipped over the last time that affected your 1st answer to the question.

Complete each answer like you are doing it for the first time with the previous tip in mind.

After you complete each answer, compare these answers with the answers to the questions the first time around and see if there is anything you know is wrong.

Notice any differences in the answers.

Once you identify these differences, immediately change the first answer to the correct one if you have time.

If you are running out of time, simply scratch off the wrong answer or write a note on your test indicating to the grader that your intended answer is on the back part of the test where your second answer is.

Worst case scenario, see them in their office hours after the grades are sent out to explain your situation and they will most likely understand and provide you credit for your corrected answer.

Now, what if you don’t have time to do the questions again?

What do you do in that scenario?

Here, we need to introduce a concept called “check time.”

What is “check time” you might ask?

Check time is the amount of time you have, on average, to check each answer on the test if you don’t have enough time to go through the whole test again.

To illustrate how you’d calculate this number, let me show you an example:

Let’s say you have 20 minutes remaining on the test and you have 4 questions on it.

You take 20 minutes and divide it by 4 questions to get 5 minutes per question.

The 5 minutes per question is your check time.

In this case, you should be spending, on average, no more than 5 minutes checking your work on each question.

Checking your work in this scenario means glancing through your questions and answers for question misreads and anything you wrote down by accident.

Although this isn’t the most effective way to check your work since writing everything down allows you to see your errors better, if time is an issue, timed glancing is your only option to timely check your work.

Now, you are allowed to spend more time on some questions than others depending on the question’s length and its difficulty.

But the average check time remains the same and it is a rule of thumb to stick by when checking your work.

Now, if you catch an error, you ARE allowed to go over the check time to resolve this error.

The reason is because you know that you are investing your time in a way that will benefit you, so the extra time expenditure is worth it.

The only thing you need to do after correcting the answer is to recalculate your check time.

Again, simply take the amount of time you have and divide it by the amount of time on the test you have remaining.

And stick with this new check time throughout the test.

In case you want a reference, the formula looks like this:

Amount of Time You Have Left/Number of Questions You Have

And last but not least:

ALWAYS PUT AN ANSWER DOWN!

Even if you don’t know the answer, putting an answer down will give you more chances to score some points than not putting an answer down.

Don’t ever leave an answer blank!

If you don’t try, you’ll always lose that battle.

Keep that in mind the next time you are stuck on a question.

I go into detail on more tips and tricks you can use to do fantastic on your tests in this post here, so be sure to check it out to know every insider secret you need to know in order to take tests correctly.

Now here is another tip to keep in mind when you are trying to study for your tests that can mean the difference between passing and failing.

 

Secret #5: Focus On The Concepts

Understanding concepts is the key to having academic success in college.

Without doing this, you will simply stumble and struggle over and over again.

How many times were you told in school to memorize, memorize and memorize?

I thought so.

Let me tell you something.

For some tests, especially those that involve memorizing a bunch of facts (ex. History, any class with slides), you need to memorize.

But for the vast majority of tests in college, especially those in STEM subjects, you can’t memorize your way through to your end goal.

You MUST understand the concepts behind what you are doing to earn what you want.

There are many ways you can go about developing this type of thinking:

The first is by taking a problem-solving class.

A problem-solving class teaches you the thought process you need to employ in order to understand the concepts associated with what you are learning.

It basically rewires your brain out of memorization mode into a mind that can create something out of the material it’s learning.

It’s a rather expensive option, but it’s one you can look into further if you wish with a university course on the subject (very popular before taking Physics 1) or with an online course.

The second option is to simply read books and to do what the books say.

Books can help shape your mind to the point where you can create things.

They are proven to help you become more creative and become more imaginative in what you do, which helps you to get an edge over everyone else in developing new things.

You can see proof of this here if you wish.

The third option (more for STEM majors, but you can still do this if you are not a STEM major) is to watch videos from a professor named Professor Leonard on YouTube when you take your math classes.

I can honestly say that as a result of watching these videos, I became creative, my thought processes changed and my problem-solving skills developed to the point where I could tackle a multitude of problems using different thought processes in ways I couldn’t do before.

Aside from a book called Advertising Secrets of the Written Word by Joseph Sugarman, I can’t think of another resource that provided me with the foundation required to mentally tackle very challenging tasks.

I noticed a substantial difference in the way I processed information after watching Professor Leonard’s videos.

I would strongly encourage you to watch his videos not just to ace your math classes, but to develop the foundation to become a lifelong learner and to be an effective problem solver.

You will not get a better foundation to do these things than to watch Professor Leonard’s videos.

You can see his videos here if you wish.

Now here is a super powerful tip that might drive you crazy in the beginning, but will definitely be worth it in the end.

Secret #6: Do Your Homework Again

Yes, it can be annoying.

However, it is CRUCIAL that you get as much practice as possible in whatever you are doing.

The truth is that we humans thrive when we have to repeat something over and over again.

It’s how we learn and that’s how we adapt to new situations.

Over time, we start forgetting this information if we don’t constantly reinforce it over and over again.

The reason for forgetting this information is because of the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, which proposes that the information we learn will dwindle away over time unless we repetitively reinforce it.

In other words, we need to constantly practice what we are learning in order to retain it.

That’s why homework is given in the first place.

Doing homework again will give you the opportunity to retrain the information you learned so you do not lose the information and give you the best possible foundation for passing the class.

Remember this, most of the time, professors will create the test in a way that makes sure that if you did and understood each homework problem, you will pass the class.

That’s how it works in university.

Of course, there are crazy professors who will throw some totally different concepts into your test.

But for the most part, that’s no how it should work.

They will structure the tests so that if you did all of the homework and you understood it all, you will pass the exam.

And if you repeat the concepts that will be on the test via doing homework problems again (and of course, doing additional problems if tie permits), you will have a much better shot of passing than simply doing the homework once and letting the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve eat you alive.

So, with that said,

Practice, Practice, PRACTICE!

And this last tip will, perhaps, be your favorite tip upon reading it and that is to:

 

Secret #7: Sleep

I knew you would like this one 🙂

Listen, you need to sleep in order to do well on exams.

8 hours per night to be exact.

Of course, if you are broke and you have to stay up to pay bills, by all means, ignore what I’m saying.

But, if you are not in that situation and you will not die from starvation the next day if you sleep, there is no excuse.

You need to sleep 8 hours per night, minimum.

Studies have shown that if you sleep a minimum of 8 hours per night, you will do better on your exams.

Here is a summary of a study from Baylor University on the effect of sleep on test results.

You read that right, the boost in grades came from more sleep, NOT extra marks.

It because when you are sleeping, your brain takes all of the information you learned and stores it deep into its memory bank.

You can’t do this if you don’t get your sleep.

Many studies, including this study from MIT here, show that sleep heavily impacts performance on exams and if you don’t get consistent quality sleep, your performance will suffer.

So, you should hit the sack for 8 hours per night in order to get the grade boost you SO heavily covet.

Research says your grades will suffer if you don’t.

And there you have it.

7 easy-to-implement secrets that will send your grades through the roof if you implement them correctly.

If you implement these college study secrets, you will be far better in your academic effort and one step closer to your career dreams becoming a reality.

So take action on this post and watch the magic happen before your very own eyes.

You’ll be pleased with the results.

If you got a lot out of this post and you want more tips to become an academic superstar and to become massively productive so you can reach your full potential to rule your own world, definitely subscribe to Join the Island, the world’s greatest blog!

New posts will be sent to your inbox the moment they are published!

Happy studying!

Until next time,

This is Evan signing off.

PS: Comment below with what you got out of the post. It’d be great to see the results you got as a result of taking action on the content!