The Secret Study Strategy That’ll Quickly Bulletproof Your College Success

Are you tired of struggling in your classes?

Do you want to know the ins and outs of studying for all of your classes?

If that’s you, you’ve clicked on the correct article that will answer all of your questions once and for all.

You might be thinking “Is there a magic way to study?”

“How do I know what my professor can do on the test?”

“How do I know that I can do this?”

“What are all of the students who are getting great grades doing that I’m not doing? What’s their secret study strategy?”

You will get the answers to all of those questions and more after reading this post, so read on to know the 3 secret study tips every top students uses to study smart and ace their exams.

Before I unleash the secrets, let me share with you something extremely important:

Believe That You Can Do It

This is the most important step of them all when it comes to studying.

To get through those times when you are going to bang your head on the wall with really hard math homework, you need to see yourself at the end achieving what you want. You need to have an extremely strong self-belief to the point where nothing can get in the way of your success.

In fact, all of the successful people in this world attribute a large part of their success to this one concept of self-belief.

When you do this, you have no option to quit and you have no option to see another reality other than the achievement of your goal.

This is what success is all about.

You must make absolutely no excuses when you are studying and you must believe and know in your head that you will pass regardless of what everyone else says.

This is so true, especially when you see everyone doubting themselves right before a big test and the next thing you know, they fail the test big time.

It wasn’t because they were not smart enough or because they had a bad day.

It was simply because they didn’t believe in themselves.

And because they didn’t believe in themselves, they refused to use the resources at their disposal and they refused to take the time and learn the correct study strategies to successfully complete their tests.

But you, the ambitious one who refuses to quit.

Combined with your action, you will find a way to get through and you will find a way to not only pass your classes, but crush them with smooth confidence.

Just being here makes you ambitious enough to say that you can do it.

But will you do it?

You will if you read on to find out how.

Here comes secret 1.

The 90-30 Rule

This is the study procedure that I use day in and day out.

It goes like this:

90 minutes studying with complete focus and then 30 minute breaks when I do something to calm my mind down with an hour break for meals.

That’s it.

However, there’s a condition to it.

You must follow the procedure consistently, day in and day out.

Unless you are sick, you cannot take a day off from it.

If you take one day off, your schedule will go out of whack and you will be forced to work hours that are not healthy for your brain to perform at its best.

Why 90 minutes with 30 minute breaks?

Because it is what works for me to the point where I am making the most of my studies and not getting mentally exhausted.

Now granted, this might not be the strategy for you, so I encourage you to tinker around a bit and see what works for you, but I also encourage you to start with my schedule and see if it works.

Here’s what it looks like in real time:

9:30 – 11 = Study

11:30 = 1 = Study

(1 hour lunch)

2-3:30 = Study

4-5:30 = Study

6-7:30 = Study

(1 hour dinner)

8:30 – 10 = Study

10:30 – 11 = Study

And you do this day in and day out with the 30 minute breaks. Of course, you can change the times if you need to depending on when you wake up and go to sleep.

Now of course, you can squeak in extracurriculars in there in lieu of some study periods to maximize your college experience, but when you do tasks there, do NOT break out of the cycle.

Take the breaks when you have to take them.

Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.

The exceptions to this rule are taking tests, doing an event that requires you to work for more than 90 minutes that’s not studying and driving/cooking/paying bills etc.

If you follow the procedure that works for you consistently, you will see tremendous results with your studies and your grades will skyrocket and will feel like you are in control of your time instead of school’s time.

Now, the schedule is only one component of things, but what about the specific tactics that you must use to ensure your mastery of the material?

These next few sections go into that topic and a lot more, so let’s get to the good parts.

Here comes secret 2.

Focus on the Concepts

This is big.

If you get this point, you will never ever have to worry about failing a class EVER!

This s the secret of geniuses that no one tells you about.

When you focus on concepts, you are learning in a way that you can create what you are doing.

You don’t just learn what you are doing but WHY you are doing what you are doing.

When you focus on concepts, it’s like you are taking all of the pieces of the puzzle and already knowing where they go because you know why everything is working the way they are working.

And when you get this down, there will be no point in memorizing the steps to every question because you already know what to do.

And the beauty of it?

It’s stress free and your thoughts just flow out of your head smoothly.

Now how do you get to the point where you can understand the concepts of what you are learning?

Well, I know 2 ways you can accomplish this:

1. Read your book

Provided that it’s a good book, it should explain to you everything you need to know with respect to the class you are taking in a way that’ll make you understand concepts.

However, I only encourage you to give it a try at first.

It might not work for you if you haven’t thought about concepts before.

If option A) doesn’t work, here’s what you can do:

2. Take a problem solving class

This type of class trains you to think conceptually rather than on memorizing a bunch of facts.

This is particularly useful if you are going into any major involving STEM where you must rely on your concepts to get you through or you will fail.

Now, you can take this class at university where they usually make students do it during any higher level classes like Physics and before taking any engineering class.

When you learn how to think in concepts though, you must know this:

It comes with practice.

That’s the key.

Without practice, you will not get good nor great at it.

And also, you must write your notes down in your own words.

This is one of the most important keys in retaining the most information. I see so many students typing their notes on the laptop and the next thing you know, they bomb the test or walk with a C or B.

It’s unbelievable how technology changes habits!

There is research to prove that writing the information down increases retention and will improve your grades.

I can say from experience that this research is 100% correct and there is no fluff in it.

You can read the research here if you wish.

Also, there is a bonus YouTube channel that I want you to check out if you REALLY want to master conceptual learning, especially if you are taking math classes. Check it out and you’ll thank me later.

Now here is secret 3, the granddaddy of all study hacks in the world.

Active Recall

This is a super hack.

Every top student does this.

It separates the good students from the great students.

What you will do is you will finish writing your notes. Once you do that, you will close your eyes and recite the information to yourself in your own words.

So for instance, let’s say you finished writing the sentence “Dynamics is the study of bodies in motion.”

What you will do is you will close your eyes and you will recite out loud “Dynamics is the study of bodies in motion.”

There is an overwhelming body of research to back up the claim that active recall is by far and away the most effective way to study.

Essentially, you are talking to yourself when you study.

I have done it and when I implemented it, my grades skyrocketed above everybody else to the point where I literally can go into any exam and assuming it was a fair test, crush it and beat it to the ground day in and day out.

Here is an excellent resource that explains this brilliant technique further with a lot of evidence.

Now in order for you to make this work, you MUST write down your notes like we’ve talked about before.

There are no shortcuts to that.

Let’s say you have a basketball team and you have the superstar, the star, the 6^th man and the role players.

In the context of school, let me tell you what each component of studying represents:

Self-Belief = The Role Players

The 90-30 Rule = The 6^th man

Focusing On Concepts = The Star (For basketball fans, think of Scottie Pippen, Dwyane Wade, Jimmy Butler, Anthony Davis)

Active Recall = The Superstar (Ex. LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant)

Now there’s one more ingredient and that’s the coach, which we’ll talk about right now.

Schedule the Day

This is important.

If you don’t schedule the day, you are not being disciplined enough.

And without discipline, you will not get any progress in your life.

And it’s the same with school.

I gave a schedule earlier where I talk about the 90-30 rule, but how you make it up (or edit it) depends on how well you know your team and your opponents to put your team in the best position to win.

And that is the coach’s job.

And for each session you do, you will strategically outline what you will do and how you will do it to knock out your task.

Let me give you an example to show you what I mean.

Let’s say you are taking a class and you have 2 opponents.

The material and the professor.

As your own coach, you will outline what are your strengths and weaknesses with respect to the material and how you will correct them.

You can go to office hours, you can reread the material and do many more things that fit your situation.

Now let’s say you have a professor who is known to throw a lot of curveballs (meaning unexpected questions) on their tests.

What you will do there is strategically listen in class to what he or she is harping on constantly.

This is the best indication (aside from your homework) as to what you can expect on the test as a possible thing they didn’t mention.

Also, you can look up their course website and see if there is any additional material for you and your classmates to read about and see if there are any things in there that were not in your homework. These could go on the test (they did for my tests when I had a similar situation).

Thinking way outside of the traditional lecture and outside of the homework can really save you in some cases (not every case though).

Mostly, these cases involve a professor who is notoriously passionate about a particular topic and keeps getting excited about it.

If you get a professor like this, this is the game plan to follow because they WILL throw curveballs.

There are also other tactics for dealing with bad professors that you can check out in the post I just attached.

And that’s not all.

You also have to come up with different ways to answer each type of question that might come your way because just like in basketball (or any sport), the opponent is going to find a way to see your potential weakness or throw you off guard and you need to respond immediately.

But preparation is key for that to happen.

If you prepare for every possible scenario and you take strategic steps to adequately prepare, you will succeed.

I promise you that.

You can read another post I wrote about scheduling your day that has worked for me right here if you wish. You’ll very glad you took action on it.

And now here’s a very important step that you must understand right now and for the rest of your career (not just school).

Stay Focused

Always.

It’s so easy nowadays with all of the technology to get caught up in watching someone’s Instagram video that might be fun in the short term, but as far as your goals are concerned, they are going to eat you up alive without you even realizing it.

You must be petal to the metal when it comes to getting what you want.

In fact, let me tell you a really interesting story that will show you what I mean.

Did you ever see LeBron James when he was a member of the Miami Heat?

If you recall, in 2012, his team was down 3-2 in the series to the Boston Celtics going back on the road to Boston, which is a notoriously hostile environment to play in.

Everyone, including me, thought the Heat were going to lose that game.

I was completely wrong.

LeBron James was a MONSTER during that game and he literally cut everyone’s throats while he was playing.

In fact, before the game, Dwyane Wade said that LeBron told him “Don’t worry about losing today; I’ve got this.”

LeBron went for 45 points, 15 rebounds, 5 assists on, get this, 73.1% shooting, which in basketball world, is UNHEARD of when you are playing for almost the entire game and taking every shot.

Now how did he get this?

2 reasons.

1. He redirected his sexual energy towards winning the championship, which they did
2. He blocked everything out of his way and snatched it all up.

That’s it.

And that’s what you have to do as well.

You have to redirect everything below to tap your inner genius and then you have to block out all of the noise and do whatever you need to do to accomplish whatever you want to accomplish.

In short, dominate, don’t compete.

If you are not sold on what I mean. Just take a look at LeBron’s face during the game here (scroll a little down the article to see it). It was iconic.

Do you think anybody is going to beat that?

No way.

But you can do the same while accomplishing your goals.

And that’s a secret no one tells you about.

Just look around at the vast majority of college students.

Do you think they have that killer instinct?

I thought so.

Most of them are on their phones all day and during class and they will never develop the skills and ambition required to succeed in whatever they are doing.

And this is a gold mine for you.

If you simply become obsessed with what you are doing, you don’t have to worry about job statistics or whether the economy is going crash or what the next president will do in order to guarantee your success.

Your determination, will and drive to succeed will dictate everything that happens in your life.

In fact, if you really want to know how you should be thinking, watch this video here and it will tell you everything.

51-0.

All from that mentality.

Don’t tell me that Muhammad Ali is a better fighter than Floyd “Money” Mayweather.

I dare you to challenge me in the comments.

So there you have it.

The secret study strategy for any college class and any college major that you can think of.

You now know how to study smart.

But you need to practice it and implement it to succeed.

Be disciplined, be hungry and be consistent and you will win.

Remember, winning isn’t a thing; it’s the only thing.

And if you want the complete strategy towards conquering college, check out this monster 25000 word college tips post that I published on the topic that explains how to take your tests, how to view college as an investment and how to set yourself up for permanent success after graduation.

Thank you very much for sticking all the way to the end and if you have any questions or comments, definitely leave them down below and I will be more than happy to answer them.

Until next time,

This is Evan signing off.

PS: If you got a lot out of this post and want more action packed tips on college and productivity sent to your inbox, definitely subscribe with your email below in the action box and you’ll get every new blog post sent straight to your inbox from Join the Island, the world’s greatest blog, when they are published!

PPS: If you REALLY want to know how to study for a test and put you on the College Student Mt. Olympus, click on this link here to see research backed study secrets of college students that you can implement starting today and crush your tests!