January…
for everyone… winter, snow, cold, wind, football playoffs for sports fans and … for academics… midterms and SAT and ACT exams. It’s one of the busiest times of the year. And one of the most important grade wise.
August… September…
school resumes… you need to organize your information… you are busy…
So what’s your plan?
Are you using the principles in Maximum Education to make the grade?
You will need a plan for:
Information Management
Time Management
A coordinated academic effort
Here’s one of the systems that I teach for time management.
First, you have to know what you have to accomplish. When are your midterms? What is on your midterms? What chapters do they cover? What formulas do you have to know and so on.
The simplest process is to divide your work load over an extended period of time and plan what you are going to study. This is covered in chapter 1 of Maximum Education. So let’s say that you have 10 days to prep for your Math midterm and you have 5 chapters to cover… here is a sample plan:
Day 1 review chapter 1
Day 2 review chapter 2
Day 3 review chapter 3
Day 4 review chapter 4
Day 5 review chapter 5
Day 6 review chapters 1 and 2
Day 7 review chapters 3 and 4 and 5
Day 8 review chapters 1 and 2 and 3
Day 9 review chapters 4 and 5
Day 10 review all 5 chapters
Now that you have a time framework, the questions is HOW are you going to review? The key is an active study process. Do not simply scan your old notes… saying ‘ah ha it get this’ to yourself… what you need to do is engage actively and redo problems, create outlines, reorganize information or other process in which you are actively working WITH the information. Also consider the style of the midterm… is it multiple choice (which would indicate a detail / fact based exam).. are they essays or shorter written answers (which would indicate that you will need to explain the information in more detail)?
There are many other details that I could cover here, but the clear message is ..
PLAN AHEAD AND THEN WORK YOUR PLAN
