How to Avoid Ineffective Study Methods

How do you study? That’s an important question that we should all think about. It doesn’t matter if you’re learning something in a classroom setting or at the office. The way you study is important. Quality studying will allow information to get stored in your long-term memory in a way that it can be easily retrieved.

However, there are popular methods of studying that just don’t cut it. Learn how to avoid these ineffective study methods:

Re-reading the Text

Simply re-reading the text is not a good study method because a lot of the information isn’t being absorbed. Re-reading the text isn’t enough; you must also interact with it. When you interact with the text, you’ll dig deeper into the concepts and reach an understanding of them. Here are some ways that you can interact with the text: annotate as you go along, create questions based on the information you read, make an outline of the content, or create flashcards for the concepts covered.

Highlighting Text

Highlighting the text is part of a good studying method but it doesn’t work very well on its own. First, you have to highlight only key words and phrases from the text. Highlighting full sentences is not effective. Think about it this way: make the valuable information stand out. If you’re highlighting more than the key words and phrases, then it will feel like you’re simply coloring the text. After you highlight a page, the second part is paraphrasing the vital information with a few notes. This allows your brain to interpret what you just read and helps you make sure that you understand it.

Looking at the Solution

This one is primarily addressing math and science. When you have the solution in front of you, it seems like the problem makes sense. This is merely an illusion of competence. You may see how it works, but to truly understand the solution, you must re-do the problem. It is also beneficial to find similar problems to do so that you can apply the concepts you learned. Always strive to be an active learner because being passive is a waste of time.

Do you practice any ineffective study methods? Contact us to find out how you can improve your study methods to get the most out of the material.