How to study properly? (1 Viewer)

[purplegerbera]

Hey all - I've studied quite a few ways for english in the past, namely reading notes, summaries etc etc. Does anyone have any creative and/or effective ways to cram all that info in?!
Thanx loads!

 

[Lullaby]

i dont know how creative this is but i have in the past for example in clueless/emma drawn pictures of the characters and significant events in either texts and related quotes and ideas to these it also works for frontline and in my case gwen harwoods poems.Also ive found mind maps on large project sheets placed around my room helps these are just a few different ways ive used hope they help in some way.

Lullaby

 

[kini mini]

When on the bus, I think of a question and try and come up with a plan by landmark x, flesh it out a few traffuic lights later....

If I can't organise all my knowledge of the text like that on the fly there's something wrong!

 

[kate@bangas]

its definately not creative, but if you have a spare two hour or even forty minutes, sit yourself down and say 'i am going to write an essay on..........'......

 

[Minai]

keep writing essays
everyday, write at least 3 essays on the same thing (change or watever)..once in morning, once in arvo, and once at night, after a couple of days, u'll have memorised it word for word

 

[freestyler__54]

3 essays a day...
for more than one day?

thats dedication!

i dont think its even healthy to take the hsc (especially english) that seriously

 

[Dan_the_man]

3 essays a day...... aaargggggghhhh..... might start it actually... it might drill some knowledge into me I won't last long

 

[Mistress Lilith]

3 essays a day is the way to go!
I wrote six essays for change when we first started doing it, and i've pretty much written that essay in any assessment we had to do (half yearly, trials, class essays)
i know it word for word!
now if only i coud do that for something else..

btw, writing 3 essays a day (40 minutes each of course) helps increase how much you can write, because it's just recalling stuff not actually having to think everything through!

 

[Wintermute]

For each topic, are you writing many different essays, or just a couple and then rewriting them so that you memorise them?

 

[Mistress Lilith]

Originally posted by Wintermute
For each topic, are you writing many different essays, or just a couple and then rewriting them so that you memorise them?

For each essay I write, I have a different question. However, I have the same essay body--the introduction and conclusion changes according to what the question is, and occasionally during the body i make reference to some part of the question again. It works well, because I know all my points, and my quotes and my arguments, and all i have to do is change stuff around a little bit to suit the question
The questions can never really be all that different, that's what you have to keep in mind
And even if you don't get asked to do an essay--say you get asked to do a feature article, you can still use the same points, it's just the way you word it that makes the difference.
If you get asked to do diary entries (think Powerplay--catholic trials.. grr) then you can improvise--make use of ALL the quotes you memorised and make sure your writing reflects all the ideas you wish to communicate if it WERE an essay

 

[boycalledfox]

egad! 3 essays on the same topic a day? you are inhuman. what about the time to study you're other subjects?

 

[CHUDYMASTER]

Well...

As Mistress Lilith said, 40 minutes each (because that's the time you get in test conditions).

So if you do 3, that's only 120 min or 2 hours.
It's doable, trust me.

 

[Mistress Lilith]

Originally posted by boycalledfox
egad! 3 essays on the same topic a day? you are inhuman. what about the time to study you're other subjects?

I do study for my other subjects... I guess my priorities lie in English because I know what I am capable of doing. I'm aiming for above 90 in english, that's far more important to me than a 60-70 in physics...

Originally posted by CHUDYMASTER
As Mistress Lilith said, 40 minutes each (because that's the time you get in test conditions).

So if you do 3, that's only 120 min or 2 hours.
It's doable, trust me.

Exactly right, 2 hours doesn't seem that long to spend on english

 

[Chicken]

The exam goes for that long anyway, so it's good practice!

 

[Leap]

different ideas

This may sound stupid, but I've found that a really good way to study is to record yourself reading your notes aloud on a cassette tape. It helps a lot, because you can listen to it at any time - especially the night before an exam, when you're really stressed.

Also, if i need to know a lot of facts for an exam, or heaps of quotes for english etc, I write them all on little bits of paper and stick them around the house, like on the fridge, and the back of the bathroom door. Its cool because my family often read them aloud and crack jokes about it, and it helps it to stick in my mind.

 

[!meeee!]

i find a lot of it comes down to how you make your notes
-ideally have a techniques focus rather than an ideas focus
-come up with a couple of theses that you can apply to any basic question
-list random techniques (eg. imagery in harwood's in the park and a quote) and then just manipulate your techniques to backup however you want to argue the question
it's not creative but it works
and yes, practice essays are the way to go
but you have to decide do you want to be one of those ppl who do so many they have them memorised or one of those ppl who do them just so they're able to answer any question they get?
i fall into the second group