3 Secret Tips on How To Study Effectively

Do you want to know 3 secrets on how to study effectively for exams?

If so, you are in the right place.

This post will share with you 3 effective study techniques of successful students and how you can implement them starting today.

Are you ready for them?

Here comes the 1st secret!

Secret #1: Picture Yourself Earning Your Best Grade

I want you to write down exactly what you want in life.

Write it down.

Don’t lie to yourself.

Are you back?

Good.

Here’s the deal:

Doing well in school starts with a vision of what you want.

Why?

Because it gives you a reason to do well.

The best students have a motivation for doing well in school, not just going in there willy-nilly.

Let me explain.

I was researching stories for this post and I came across an interesting case study about a student in medical school who stated that the most successful medical students are the ones who are the most passionate about the field.

Because their ability to do what they REALLY wanted to do depended on their ability to do well.

In essence, doing well in school became a need instead of a want for these guys.

When you REALLY need something to the point where you can’t live without doing this thing, you do the best job you can.

And you are motivated to do the best job that you can.

In the case of this student and many others, this reality can’t be further from the truth.

And in case you happen to be someone looking into medical school, definitely check out the testimonial here and all of the other testimonials on the site as well. From personal experience, everything they are saying is true and can really help you map out what you’ll do.

Here’s another case study to hammer this point of knowing your end goal before you get started.

I went to school with this girl who dreams of becoming an astronaut.

From the moment I saw her, I already knew she was different from everyone else.

She would walk with extreme confidence and she always spoke with authority that made people wonder what was up with her.

Clearly, what was up with her was she was extremely committed to becoming an astronaut and doing everything she needed to do in order to become one.

The result?

Not only did she do extremely well in her classes, she also landed 2 internships at Lockheed Martin and Boeing and got a researcher position at NASA.

I know without an inch of doubt that she’ll become an astronaut.

Why?

She pictures herself winning every day and because of this, all of her actions are directed towards this goal consistently.

If you look at every successful person (particularly sports teams), they all have their eyes on the prize every day and they do not let any action deter from that.

Understand this clearly.

If you REALLY want it bad enough, you WILL have your eyes on the prize all day and you will take massive action towards this goal.

So I encourage you to find out what you want in life and think about it every day.

Make it your TOP priority.

I promise that everything else will fall into place once you commit to it.

You will effortlessly move yourself towards it; guaranteed.

Now, with the correct mindset, you still need what’s called the correct specific knowledge to achieve your goal.

This post will help you in this regard.

Let’s get into the 2nd successful student study secret.

Secret #2: Active Recall To Maximize Studying Habits

Research and successful students alike deem this strategy the secret to getting the best grades.

Let me show you some mind blowing research that proves this point.

At least 4 studies show that active trumps other study strategies like rereading the passage multiple times and studying the material once and that’s it.

When learners were split into groups, the researchers found that when these groups took their tests, the active recall groups significantly outperformed the others.

How much you might ask?

By up to 20 points. 

That’s a lot when you consider situations like trying to get into medical school where not only your grades need to be razor thin perfect, but your MCAT score needs to be as high as possible to gain access to a larger number of medical schools.

In fact, this technique is so effective that medical schools themselves teach this technique to their students to do well in the classes.

More specifically, they do a variation of it called lecturing to the wall where you verbally say out loud in your own words what you just read.

When you say your information out loud in your own words, you engage your mind to store the information in a way that’s convenient for you.

As a result, you retain more and are able to retrieve this information more easily on tests. Hence, you score higher. 

And because you’ve quizzed yourself so much before walking into the test, your mind will be SUPER sharp in answering the questions and it’ll be a breeze.

Think of it like your studying consists of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. times you take the test and the actual test is like the 10th time you are taking the test.

Without cheating 😉

How does that sound?

Does that sound cool or does that sound cool?

It’s the art of cheating without cheating!

Who would’ve ever thought of that?!

Well, it’s one of the secrets to academic success.

Every single successful student uses the active recall technique.

And you can as well starting today.

I challenge you to try active recall for at least one week and see how much better you feel and how much better you perform.

You notice an improvement in your next test if you try it, even if it’s a mere 5 points better.

Comment below with what happened when you tried it. It’d be interesting to know.

Now I just mentioned that it is one of many successful student study secrets you should be using.

Do you want to know another one?

Read on to know what it is!

Secret #3: 90-20 Rule To Make Studying Productive

This is an uber-productive technique of many high performance individuals in their field.

What you do is you work for 90 minutes straight without rest and you focus your attention solely on the task at hand.

Then, once the 90 minutes are up, you rest for 20 minutes (or 30 if it’s more comfortable for you) and you focus on anything else but the task.

The reason this works is because our bodies work in 90 minute cycles called ultradian rhythms.

Nature dictates this cycle and it controls how we sleep and how we work on things.

Because of this reality, you shouldn’t be working on something for more than 90 minutes straight or you will lose all of your attention on that activity with time wasted and no results to show for it.

That is a big problem when your time is precious.

Let me show you a study that hammers this point home further:

Florida State University conducted a study on high performing individuals from a variety of professions like chess players, athletes, violinists, etc.

The researchers concluded that those who performed the best were using the 90-20 rule in their routines to perform.

Those who did not implement this technique performed poorly compared to the group that did implement the 90-20 rule.

You can read the full study here if you wish.

Now there is another technique that works just as well called the Pomodoro Technique, but that is beyond the scope of this post since I haven’t personally used it.

There is research on it though verifying its effectiveness.

You can use the 90-20 rule or the Pomodoro Technique and you should be fine either way with your studies.

If you use any other technique though, you are putting your grades in unnecessary danger.

Do not steer away from these 2 strategies.

Clearly, research backs these 2 up (along with another one, but it’s a mini version of Ultradian Rhythms).

I challenge you to try Ultradian Rhythms for 1 week and see how productive you become and how much more information you retain.

If you decide to try it for your next test, comment below with how much better your scores were as a result. It’d be great to see you thrive with these techniques!

Now I mentioned some tips on how to study effectively, but are they everything?

No they are not.

Where can you find them you might ask?

They are over here in the article about how to study for a test.

This post contains SUPER secrets successful students don’t tell their classmates about, guaranteed to help you ace your classes provided you use them to the fullest extent.

They are proven to work and many other successful students on YouTube and on blogs testify to the effectiveness of these strategies.

Once you see them, you are more than welcome to Google the techniques up to see those testimonials.

I hope this post helped you in any way. 

If you liked what you read and you want more of the best content for college students like you for improving your productivity and achieving your maximum potential in life in and out of school, definitely subscribe to Join the Island, the world’s greatest blog, below with your email!

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Until next time,

This is Evan signing off.

PS: If you forgot, comment below with the results of the 2 challenges I gave you. It’d be great to see you produce results with them!