Study Skills & Test Taking

Test Taking

Set up a quiet, distraction-free zone to study; put the technology away unless absolutely necessary. Mute phone notifications
Schedule study time (30mins to 1hr) each night for at least a few days leading up to the test; cramming the night before or day of will not help you in retaining the information
Get a good night’s sleep the night before the test
Positive affirmations
Don’t forget to eat and stay hydrated the day of the test
Use the healthy amount of stress and anxiety to help prep for your test (motivation to upkeep your study schedule)

Good study habits start in the classroom; taking good notes is a great skill to have and makes studying after class a breeze (colour code, cornell notes, etc)
Make a study checklist: it can be a great benefit to write out what you need to study and check it off as you go. This can help minimize what needs to be studied (are there some areas where you feel more confident than others?) and to help schedule your studying prior to a test
Make flash cards; you can practice with a friend, family member, or by yourself

An effective study plan is to break up your study sessions as it is easy to burnout and not retain information if no brain breaks are taken
The Pomodoro Technique is a popular study technique as it incorporates brain breaks and collaborates with the reward system of our brain (after doing a task for 25 minutes, do something rewarding for 5 minutes)

The Cornell note taking system is a study system that was created in the 1950s by a Cornell University professor and is still widely used today
This note taking system is divided into 3 different sections: notes, cues(key ideas/questions), and summary
The notes section is to be filled during class time and the cues and summary sections are to be filled at the end of the class/soon after class.