How To: Study like a bau6.

Studying is anything from examining museum art to deciphering the size of one's foot fungus. But I think the studying that we are all most familiar with is the actual studying/studious dying that we all experience, most prominently, during our school years. The way we study could define not just our grades but also our wits. Unfortunately, for most people around me, studying means cramming a portion of the textbook and releasing it into the test paper. That might work sometimes, but it's bad in the long run.

Anyway I'm going to be productive (just like I promised in my previous blog entry), and even if I'm probably not the best person to give study tips, I might as well just share a few mistakes and methods that I found that sort of helped me during the atrocious exams that I've faced throughout my life. I think this is helpful especially for lazy people like me, but hey, you have to decide if it will work for you.

1) Look at the time- Do you have 3 hours or 3 years before a paper? If you have 3 hours, you probably want to cram and look at key points at the last minute. If you have 3 years, you probably should shave your head and stare at the mirror till your hair grows back. Either ways, it is Father Time that shall determine your wit and your answers in the test paper.

2) Stop eating- I don't think anyone can disagree that we all need food. After all, even staring at a blank page causes strain to so many muscles that you need your pringles and a can of coke so you won't grow weak and die of fatigue. However, let me tell you something here. You're binging not because you're studying, but because you're bored. Binging in fact, is one of the most elementary forms of procrastination. I personally discovered this a few weeks ago when I realized that when I actually study, I don't feel hungry. I'm too busy thinking about John Keats' affair with an urn to think about my own affair with food. 

Of course, I'm not saying don't eat when you are hungry, I don't want to be blamed for w(there's a huge mosquito in my room oh god)orld starvation. Assuming the beautiful fiction that the whole world reads my blog. Please excuse me, I'm going to stop typing and day dream for some time. 

...

3) Stop daydreaming- I get it, your dreamworld is SO much better than the reality, where your crush likes you back, there are chocolate fountains and you've won the Noble Prize. But none of this will help you get a good grade. Your crush doesn't give a crap about you, there are chocolate fountains but you're a fattie, and Noble Prizes are not for dumb people like you. GET IT TOGETHER! And I'm not entirely talking to you over here... I'm talking to myself actually. It's just so hard for me to stop dreaming and doodling that I just couldn't distinguish between the dreamworld, the real world, and my doodles.

4) Go on Social Hibernation- Now, I always had to deactivate facebook and all other forms of social networking because I get really distracted. But this is subjective. I know that there are many people who have great self control and are therefore able to have just the right amount of communication and study at the same time. But I get extremely distracted, so what I'd do is that I would switch off my phone and laptop, after deactivating all social websites, and hide it somewhere, because I know I'd be too lazy to get up and retrieve my electronics. That way, I force myself to sit and study.

5) Attack the book- Before you stop thinking about studies and start dreaming again, ATTACK THAT BOOK! Just delve deep into it and don't stop till you finish say, at least one page. It is really important to remain focused on that book and that book only, because even one second of "Hmm I think I'm gonna check my phone" could end up being 5 long hours of discussion about nail lengths with an old acquaintance. (that totally does not refer to me heh)

6) Day or night?- I've pulled thousands of allnighters throughout my school life and literally survived on caffeine in order to keep my grades up. However, it was at the end of twelfth grade that I realized how unhealthy and unhelpful that is. Of course, initially, studying throughout night seemed very helpful. But I'm going to tell you when it's helpful and when it actually becomes harmful. 

Studying at night can be helpful if a) You have quite some time to study, and b) You're totally demotivated. Often it happens that you just have absolutely NO motivation to study. I would fool around the whole day, but then at night I'd just be like Fuck. That's when I awaken myself, become completely attentive, tell myself that I will NOT sleep until I have studied a certain amount, and sit throughout the night. Nights are helpful because with the darkness comes an air of urgency. Maybe I'm the only one, but nights always make me want to hurry up, with sleep being my motivation. And then when I do sleep after finally having reached my target, I am able to sleep peacefully and feel proud of myself.

However, this only works to an extent. After a point, studying at night could just freak you out. As time ran out for me while studying, I realized that I'm thinking and focusing less on studies, and thinking more about how screwed I am and how less time I have. Thus I freak out, loose focus, and end up staying up all night without learning or understanding a single thing. Moreover, I end up sleeping till like 2 the next day, thereby wasting precious morning hours, gaining criticism from my parents on my nocturnal habits, and having learned absolutely nothing. That is when morning comes in.

I am not a morning person, but I can't deny that studying works best in the morning. Go to sleep at 10 and wake up at 6 with a cup of coffee to keep you going, and you are good to go. Mornings are relaxing, for me for eg, because I feel like I have the whole day ahead of me. It enables me to learn a large amount of things with full concentration, without panicking, and well, it's really helped me a lot. At night I often give up and loose motivation because I'd be too sleepy, but in the morning, I had already slept and wouldn't have to worry about sleep, at least for a while. 

7) Write it down- Now, this tip is useful only if you have a fair amount of time to study. What I'd do is I would read a certain portion or page in my textbook and write down whatever I have understood. However, I'd always write down in points, in the exact order of appearance. I'll give you an example. 

Suppose you have to study this, uh, song (assume that the song is a poem)-

I like big butts and I can not lie

Your other brothers can't deny

When a girl walks in with a itty bitty waist

And a round thing in your face you get sprung.

(oh god I'm going to lose readers if I go on like this....)

So yeah, I'd think for some time then jot down points like this- 

1) The narrator likes big buttocks (reason not given yet)

2) He says he can not lie, implying that he is seemingly honest

3) "When a girl walks in"- hypothetical situation/explains his usual habits/he has seen girls before

4) Description of the girl's buttocks- buttocks="round thing"

5) Main idea- the man gets a certain kind of pleasure by witnessing a good-sized feminine buttocks 

^Thereee you have it! A comprehensive study of Sir Mix-a-lot. (Pls don't unsubscribe for this)

8) Have conversations with the book- This is actually something that is reaaaallly stupid, but really helpful for me. I often get really bored while studying, so I pretend that my textbook is an actual person and I have conversations with it. It's pretty much similar to Write it down, except this time, you're being a little casual. You're thinking/speaking of the same things that you would write down anyway, but this time you're being all like "Hey book! let's check this poetry out, mhm big butts" Sometimes it's helpful to express your own opinions or get emotionally involved with the text "that's kinda weird, he likes big butts? Well these days most guys like big butts, but it seems as if this song occurred at a time when big butts was not really a thing".

9) Cross questioning- At the end of the day, your exam is going to be filled with questions that you have to answer. It's always good to question yourself to see if you remember stuff. Of course, by now you probably have learned several things, but one of the biggest challenges is, I have realized, to retrieve all that information from your brain so that it spills out into your answer. Often, we are unable to remember what we have learned. What we need sometimes in those cases, is a trigger. For example, while giving your exam, if you're having trouble thinking of the main idea of the song we just discussed above, you might get reminded the second you see a person walking in with an unusually huge posterior. If you keep asking questions to yourself while studying ("Who is the subject of the poem/song again?") you will train your brain to retrieve answers again and again, and this in turn comes in handy during exams.

10) Triggers- As I mentioned earlier, sometimes all you need is a trigger to remember something. For example, you might be studying about demand diagrams in economics while eating an apple. So you can just be like "I demand apples because I'm hungry because I'm learning about demand, and when I'm less hungry I'll demand less of this apple". Okay that's a horrible example, but I hope you understand what I mean.

11) Mnemonics help too- I learned about My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets and remembered it even after the nine planets became eight and my milk teeth were replaced by permanent teeth. Mnemonics, as silly as they may seem, are often very powerful. Does anyone remember PEMDAS (Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, and Subtraction) from order of operations? Powerful stufff.

12) Listen to music- I usually keep a little bit of background music playing while studying because it helps me calm down and not get bored. Of course, you should avoid loud, distracting songs, but pick soft, pleasant music (preferably instrumental) that can help you focus. For example, I found this song called Kalimba in the Sample Music folder in my laptop and it had kept me going for a while. Also, you can always find interesting study music on Youtube. I even created a playlist that has less distracting, yet interesting songs, usually from the Alternative Genre because of its stable beats, such as songs by Mat Kearney and Black Keys. Basically anything with stable beats can be very helpful, especially while writing down notes for yourself. 

13) Test yourself- If you have time, it is always advisable to do practice papers before any major exams. Get hold of past papers that you can get from xtremepapers.com or your education board website. This obviously applies to SAT mocktests also, that you need to practice in order to manage your time and answers. It also helps you retrieve information from your brain again, making it much easier and less stressful when you give your actual exam.

13) Before the paper- Contrary to popular belief that one's mind should be absolutely relaxed and blank before the paper, I think that it's important to continue quizzing yourself even minutes before the exam. I CAN NOT stress enough on HOW IMPORTANT it is to REVISE every effing thing that you have learned. I'm telling you this because during one of my exams, because of my lack of revision, I went completely BLANK when I saw the paper. Even if I had studied everything properly, none of my triggers were activated, I couldn't retrieve my information, because I hadn't revised what I had learned. Revision helps you sort of keep everything in place and understand the big picture. You have studied the portions and various aspects of your subject in detail till now, but now it is time to put it all together. If you understand the whole concept, the details will come to you naturally as you write. So please, please do not forget to revise, and always revise every thing, do not leave out anything, because it really could impact your grades.

A quick ABCs on cramming- Obviously we aren't that perfect. Most of the time, I'd be like YES I have 5 days before a paper, then end up jumping around on pogosticks for 4 days then cramming last minute. Of course you should work on preventing such blunders by going through the tips that I have given above, but if you have failed, fear not! Cramming basically means memorizing without learning. It involves a quick reading of whatever you need to study, while memorizing, or trying to remember a few key points. Most of the effort has to be put not in the studying, but during the exam itself. It is important to remember to not lose hope- as long as you're sitting with the paper and pen in front of you, you still have the power to ace that test. Try to analyze and remember as many as you can of the key points, any details, and also, don't be scared to rely a bit on common sense, because not all answers are fixed and a 'definition' does not mean a by-heart defined word by word thing, by your own understanding underlined by a few key concepts. 

Okay, I think that's all. I hope this will help you enough and I hope this was comprehensive enough and if you have any extra tips you wish to share, please comment and let everyone know! 

Also. I have just realized I have no included any pictures in this entry and it is overwhelming with words. So I'm gonna include a random picture here so you'll hate me less.

Aah I need this picture after this overwhelming post. (http://3rdbillion.net/2013/10/tropical-beach-sunset-background-wallpapers/)

Hey also, you can check out my previous How To Series here. Because I know you're dying for guides.

Well best of luck for everything.