Study Tips
Watch Saundra McGuire’s video. It’s the most productive 45 minutes you’ll spend this semester.
Study early. Begin reading several days before a topic is covered. Leave yourself plenty of time to seek help.
Study often: 30-40 minutes at a time, 3 to 4 times each day. You should average at least 2 hours per day (more for a 7 week summer course!), EVERY DAY and that should include:
Watching any relevant course videos.
Reading the assigned readings in the text:
Pre-read to put things in context.
Read paragraph by paragraph, taking notes (not highlighting) and paraphrasing.
When you come to a worked example, cover up the solution and try the problem on your own. If you can’t do it, go back in the text and see if you can find what you’re missing. If not, uncover the first step and try again.
Do any in text practice problems as you encounter them.
Explaining what you are studying to someone (your roommate, your cat, your grandmother).
Review the material before watching lectures.
Review your notes after watching lectures.
Try some problems from the end of chapter
Read the text!
.....BUT, don't simply read the text over and over! This might make you feel like you know the material better, but at best you only know it at the Retrieval level. At best. To really get it, you have to work with it.
And don’t keep doing the same kind of problem over and over until you get it. It’s better to mix things up.
Relate what you are studying to things you are familiar with. By making connections to existing knowledge, you make room for more stuff. For example, when you boil a pan of water, think about the physical changes going on. Draw a picture!
Challenge yourself to describe familiar things on multiple levels - particulate, macroscopic and symbolic.
Study the material as you would if you had to teach it to the class next week.
Don’t cram for the exams! Not only does it not work as well as spaced out studying, in chemistry it’s actually detrimental. When your working memory is filled to overflowing with 1000 factoids you stuffed in there and are trying to keep from falling out before you need them, you have no working memory left to think about the problems on the exam. The exams are not about retrieval, they are new problems that require you to apply your knowledge. That takes thought.