Study Strategies

I want to know about your studying strategies, beyond just quiz and recall. While I do find the quiz and recall method to be VERY helpful it doesn’t offer much structure in comparison with say the SQ4R or 4S=M methods. Is there a way to reconcile these methods with your quiz and recall method? Perhaps you can describe your blow by blow study sessions including what you do with the notes you take in class.

Cal responds:

I’ve never met a high-scoring student who used a system like SQ4R. The reason: they’re too time-consuming! What these students do instead is discover simple, streamlined and devastatingly effective heuristics that can be easily adapted to specific classes. The three biggies described in How to Become a Straight-A Student are:

* Quiz-and-Recall: Review by explaining the idea or demonstrating the problem out loud, as if lecturing a class.
* Question/Evidence/Conclusion Note-Taking: Gather the information in lecture and reading assignments into big ideas — described by a question, a conclusion, and the bullet-point notes that connect the two.
* Sample Problem Gathering: In technical courses, attempt to gather as many sample problems as possible. If you don’t understand the example or technique being explained ask a question right away.

All of my studying follows from some combination of these simple techniques…