December 3, 2020 Learning Techniques, Preparation Strategies, Private Tutoring, Raising Awareness, Strategies, Test Taking Tips 0

How to Retain More Information When Studying

Have you ever studied for countless hours, only to forget all that you learned on exam day? Do you struggle with memorizing terminologies, equations, definitions, and the like? If this sounds like you, don’t fret – it’s completely normal to struggle with studying, and usually, the culprit is because of the studying method, not the student themself.

Here are some steps that all students should follow in order to retain more information when it comes to studying:

Balance your time wisely

It’s important to not overstudy because you will likely forget a lot of what you learned. When you study too much, you aren’t giving your brain enough time to relax and process the information, which leads to you not being able to make connections as sufficiently or quickly. On the other hand, if you don’t study enough, you won’t be able to grasp all of the material needed.

So where can we find a middle ground here? It’s quite straight forward but requires dedication and motivation. In order to study more effectively, you want to study for about an hour a day for each subject, but this depends on the circumstance. If you have an exam next week, it would be beneficial to study for one hour in the morning and one hour later on in the day. Obviously, you will study differently for an exam than you would with homework, so it’s important to be able to differentiate between the two. Ultimately, if you take too much time to study, you can do yourself a disservice, and the same goes for if you don’t study enough.

Take good notes

It’s imperative to take good notes in order to efficiently organize the information you need for homework, exams, tests, etc. If you don’t take good notes, you will end up studying more than somebody who does. Taking notes will help you to highlight the most important and vital information that you need to know.

You don’t just want to take good notes, you want to also organize these notes in a way that will be even more beneficial to you. If you write one page of notes with no spaces in between or no subheadings to identify which section is which, it will be harder to decipher and to pinpoint the information that you need to locate when studying. If you organize by subsection; such as important people/dates/formulas (this all depends on the specific subject), then you will find your notes being of more use to you.

Limit distractions

Don’t keep your phone close to arm’s reach if you know you tend to pick it up every 5 minutes. It’s all too easy to pick up the phone, start scrolling through apps, and then low and behold, an hour just flew by somehow (we’ve all been there). Also, avoid having the television turned on when you are trying to study as this will just be an additional distraction that will prevent you from learning to the fullest.

If these sorts of distractions have been causing you problems, you will see the difference in your ability to study once you eliminate them for good.

Take care of yourself

In order to study to the best of your ability, you want to take care of yourself, physically and mentally. If you only got two hours of sleep last night, you won’t be able to study half as well as if you had gotten 8 hours. If you eat junk food often with little to no whole foods, your mood and motivation won’t be the same as if you did. Taking care of yourself is not only important for your studies, but it’s also important for your overall health and wellbeing. If a car is poorly taken care of, it won’t perform the same, and the same goes for you! Take care of the machine, and it will run well.

Miles Smart Tutoring can assist you with your educational endeavors to ensure success

Miles Smart Tutoring, a family-owned and operated company headquartered in St. Petersburg, provides tutoring online and in-person for all ages and from all walks of life. We offer a multitude of subjects, including mathematics, English, test prep (SAT, ACT, LSAT, etc.), history, economics, language, and more.

We hire 2 out of every 10 tutors we interview based on our highly selective process. Our top-of-the-line tutors are rigorously trained so that we can best serve you – our students.

We have helped students gain over $24 million in grants and scholarships due to an increase in SAT, ACT, and LSAT scores. We were the recipient of the 2019 and 2020 ‘Best of St. Petersburg Award in the Area of Tutoring Service,’ and we are proud to consistently receive 5-star ratings from happy students and parents.

We truly care for our students’ wellbeing, and that’s what makes us different. Miles different.

If you are interested in learning more about our services, you can visit our website: www.milessmarttutoring.com, or call us: (813) 328-3036. We look forward to hearing from you!

Balance your time wisely

Take good notes

Limit distractions

Take care of yourself

Miles Smart Tutoring LLC © 2022. All rights reserved.