Study Skills Guide How to study effectively for

Study Skills Guide How to study effectively for assessments

Get organised • Find out what you need to know! Your teachers will tell you exactly what you should be studying. Break this down into chunks that you can revisit regularly. • Create a study plan of what you want to study and when. And make sure you leave some free time on it. • Find a quiet space to work and avoid listening to music • Put your phone away while you are studying • Take regular breaks. A 5 -10 minute break every 40 minutes and a longer 30 minute break every couple of hours is ideal.

Look after your brain • Get a good night’s sleep! It’s essential for memory, and it helps keep you in a positive frame of mind too. Experts recommend teenagers get nine hours a night. • Get fresh air/ exercise. Take breaks away from your desk and get outside. Its good for both physical and mental health! • Eat a well-balanced diet. Remember to have breakfast before study sessions and assessments. • If you are feeling stressed, anxious or overwhelmed, talk to someone. There are some links in the final slide with advice for dealing with exam stress.

How to study effectively • Space your revision out - 1 hour a day over 10 days on a topic is better than 10 hours in one day • Dual code – add visuals to your notes to aid your memory • Retrieval practice – when you are studying, your mind should be working to retrieve information from your memory. Simply reading over your notes is not enough – you must test yourself. See the examples on the following slides…

Flashcards • Write a question on one side of a card, then write the answer on the other. Then test yourself or ask someone at home to test you. • Make sure you write down the answer or say it out loud before flipping the card over. This ensures you retrieve the information from memory, rather than thinking “of course I know it” and flipping the card over too early. • Shuffle your deck each time you go through it to challenge yourself, instead of going through it in the same order again and again.

Mind Mapping • The best way to create a mind-map is from memory • Try revising a particular topic for 10 -15 minutes, then cover it over and spend another 10 -15 minutes creating a mind map of what you just revised • Alternatively, you could spend a short time turning your class notes into a mind-map with text and pictures to aid your memory. Then cover it over and try to create it from memory.

Brain dump • Take a blank piece of paper and write the title of the topic or section you have been studying. • Then ‘dump’ as much knowledge as you can about a specific topic onto a piece of paper – it doesn’t matter if its messy! • The idea is, if you do this regularly, with revision, you should get more information on the paper each time • A good idea is to ‘dump’ all your information in one colour of pen. Then check what you have missed in your notes or with a friend and use another colour to add this information to your dump

Past Paper Questions • Practicing past exam questions without notes ensures you can retrieve the answers when you need to • Past papers will help you identify the command words of the questions. Knowing how to approach different types of questions is the key to success • Past papers will help identify any areas of weakness • Remember – you don’t always have to write your answers down, if you are short on time, try saying them out loud

Useful links • SQA Past Papers -https: //www. sqa. org. uk/pastpapers/findpastpaper. htm • Childline advice for exam stress -https: //www. childline. org. uk/info-advice/school -college-and-work/school-college/exam-stress/ • 3 minute breathing space -https: //soundcloud. com/hachetteaudiouk/meditation 8 -the-three-minute-breathing-space • Young. Scot ‘How stress affects you’ resource - https: //young. scot/getinformed/national/how-stress-affects-you