3. Working Hard and Smart. One Step at a Time (5).

Study smart simply means studying in the most efficient and effective way for you. For me, these are my way of studying smart:

1. Take personal notes.
2. The superiority of understanding over memorizing.
3. Finishing your assignments early.
4. Love your exams.
5. Manage your time.
6. Keep a Healthy Body.


2. The superiority of understanding over memorizing.

Do not merely memorize facts, try to understand it. If you just memorize it, there is no guarantee that you will understand it. However, if you understand it, there is a good chance that you can retain it in your memory. Of course understanding and memorizing at the same time will be even greater. However, if you have to choose one, understand first, and the memorizing part will come easy. That is what I meant by the superiority of understanding over memorizing.

Unfortunately for many students, they spend most of their times in memorizing facts and numbers. Sometimes this is done with elaborate methods and complex associations. I sometime wonder, if they can apply such complex ways of memorizing, why don’t they just apply the principles in understanding the facts instead. My memory is pretty good, I noticed it and so too other people. But I do not claim that I have a photographic memory. However, I do not want to rely on memory alone, I still try to understand every concepts and facts. Once I understood it, I find that I do not have to memorize it anymore. It just stuck there and easily retrieved once the keywords are punched. May be it is because of my ability to understand better which enables me to memorize better. I believe so!

Let me give you an example. What is the formula for velocity (V)? When I was first introduced to this formula in Form One or Two, I tried hard to memorize it. Velocity is equal to Distance (D) divided by Time (T) or V= D/T. In fact, I even created a triangle to simplify the formula in my personal notes. It looks like this;

With that pictogram, I thought it would help me to easily remember all the relevant formulas for velocity, time and distance. Unfortunately, sometimes when I redrew the diagram in an effort to retrieve the memory, I got confuse as to where are the D, T and V supposed to be. As you can see, if I misplace the D at the bottom instead of at the top, I will get a wrong formula. Soon it became apparent that memorizing the pictogram was very tedious. Not to mention, there are many more pictograms like this I have invented to simplify my methods of memorizing. I could easily confused one pictogram over the other.

Then I put a bit of effort in asking question like, why does Velocity (V) equal to Distance (D) divided by Time (T). Then I started to imagine a car racing from Apin-Apin to Keningau (60 km), and I can imagine the car will arrive in 10 minutes (1/6 hours), while bicycle takes 2 hours to get there. Knowing that the car is speedier (high velocity) than a bicycle, I tried to make sense the reason behind it. Suddenly it hit me like a revelation that a speed (velocity) is just a measure of how far (distance) you have covered in certain period (time). Eureka! That sentence summed up the whole thing. That understanding makes the pictogram above absolutely redundant. Needless to mention, I did not need to memorize the pictogram anymore. (You may need to read the above paragraph more than once to grasp what I meant).

Of course some facts need to be remembered or memorized with no understanding necessary. But these are exception, and very few of them. Examples are some names, places and dates. Formula is definitely not to be memorized, they are not only can be understood, they also can be derived if you know (not memorize) the principles behind them. For these facts that need to be memorized, I usually developed a simple way of association. There are various ways of strengthening our memory with association, and many books are written about it. I shall not divulge it further here, except to say that try to understand as much as you can. If it is an absolute fact and there is nothing there you need to understand then go ahead memorize it.

3. Finishing your assigments early (to be continued ... )

3. Working Hard and Smart. One Step at a Time (4).

Study smart simply means studying in the most efficient and effective way for you. For me, these are my way of studying smart:

1. Take personal notes.
2. The superiority of understanding over memorizing.
3. Finishing your assignments early.
4. Love your exams.
5. Manage your time.
6. Keep a Healthy Body.

1. Take personal notes.

I started to take personal notes when I was in Form Two. Did I hear you say 'but I started taking notes as soon as I learn how to write' I know, I know…. We are all used to take note (copying) from whatever the teachers write on the blackboard. That is not what I meant by taking personal notes.

Personal notes is what you write down from your own understanding of the topics presented by the teacher using your own phrases. Obviously, for you to do that, you have to understand the topic as fast as it is presented before you. This is why this method is very difficult but yet effective. Because you are taking personal notes, and you are to make you own words after understanding the concepts, you are somehow conditioned to be more attentive and more actively using your senses while listening and looking at your teacher.

Often when your personal notes are empty for a whole session, you know you did not understand a single idea of what was being presented. Other than that, this personal note is also a collection of tips, shorthand, mnemonics, unconventional formulas etc. In short, your personal notes are everything that is not available elsewhere in your textbooks or standard reference books. After a while you will see that making personal notes are not only handy but also an absolute necessary.

Initially I copied mine on a piece of paper. Soon I discovered very often that valuable piece of paper is always missing when I needed them the most. Then I started copying them in the ‘555’ notebook. As I got more enthusiastic in copying down personal note, a single 555 notebook gets filled up very quickly. Finally I bought an inch thick of hardcover notebook slightly larger than pocket size. It lasted me the whole year. In Form Three, I had to have two notebooks, one for Mathematics and one for everything else.

I first saw the benefit of doing this when I began to constantly referring to my personal notes and started to show my superiority in remembering things. The other students soon started copying what I have written down. Almost overnight it became a very precious item for me. In fact I guarded it fiercely because the possibility of it getting stolen was high. Some students actually offered to buy it from me; luckily the price was not very enticing.

Needless to mention, the notes gave me an edge in every test and exam. So much so other students also started to take their own personal notes. Of course some of them cannot differentiate personal notes and the verbatim notes (word to word copied from the teacher), thus rendering their ‘personal notes’ ineffective.

This habit of taking personal notes continued all the way to my university life. Again, I must stress, this is not a lecture notes which you copy from the board or any other form of presentation. This is your very own handwriting, words, phrases and understanding of the subjects. They are not available anywhere else. They are collection of tips, secrets, examples, parables, key points, mnemonics, shorthand etc. They are you top secret documents for success!

Write your very own personal notes. Keep it!

2. The superiority of understanding over memorizing.

(to be continued ... )

3. Working Hard and Smart. One Step at a Time (3).

I am sure you have heard of study group. This method has been proclaimed as the most productive and beneficial for studying. Let me give you a bit of shock. I found it the most inefficient, ineffective and unproductive way of studying. Complete waste of time. But hey, that is just me. May be this method is suitable for you. Let me share with you my experience. I have tried studying in group in Medical School. Our group consisted of all the Malaysians studying in my class. This was to ensure no language or cultural barriers in our discussion.

When we met, everybody was supposed to share on what they have learned from a particular subject. Then each person was given a task to study a topic. When the members meet again, we supposed to share what we have learned, hoping that one did not have to go back and read what the other guys have researched.

However, because of the nature of our study (medicines), we were very critical and thorough in every topic. This made us wanting to know more and often not trusting the person who presented the topic. Everyone thought that there could be more to learn. On top of that, everyone was hoping that everyone else has done a better job than himself and waiting to be corrected or filled up with a better way of understanding. This resulted in everyone start flipping the books and looking for facts to support their statements. Soon the meeting was very quiet with everyone fixing their eyes on the books and occasionally making a remark. Before long we were essentially studying on our own while sitting in a group. At the end of the meeting, often there was more confusion. Slowly each member started to learn on their own, and only start discussing for very critical topics. In the end, everybody agreed, studying on our own was more productive. The discussion, we left it during our outing in a beach, coffee shops and movies.

Once again, study group was not for me. However, it doesn’t mean it could not be yours. You just have to find the right way of studying, for you.

STUDY SMART - REVISION

When I did my revision, I always do it in at least 3 cycles. The first cycle would be reading and accessing the material at one goes. I tried to absorb as much as I can, getting the whole picture. If there were something I could not understand, I simply skipped and proceeded. I would do this for every subject. Depending on the study load and the length of time available for revision, first cycle usually last about 3-4 days. Then I would start the second cycle. In this cycle, I would skip the topics which I have already understood before starting the first cycle, re emphasis that topics I have just understood in first cycle and trying to understand the topics I have skipped in first cycles. This usually takes 2-3 days. The third cycle would be just going through the topics which I have just managed to grasp in second cycle and some of the most difficult topics which seemed I could never understand. At this stage also I would decide which topic I should get help from friends or tutors. Third cycle is usually very fast. No longer than a whole day worth of work.

The whole three cycles takes at least a week and should not be more than 10 days. Revision longer than 10 days is not a revision anymore, but just an ordinary study. (Revision by definition is the study you are doing in the last week before exam and strictly studying AGAIN on what you have studied before).

NO SHORTCUT AND NO CHEATING!

There is no short cut; you have to work hard to succeed. Even if there is a short cut (cheating or leaked questions etc), the success you will get is only a superficial and temporary. If you cheat, you may score all As in you exams, but still do not fully grasp the important issues and thus make you life more difficult in the next stage. This will prompt you to even more involved in cheating you way to ‘passing’ the exams.

For example, you may do not understand what F=Ma is, and instead of trying to understand it, during the exams, you happened to be so lucky and managed to copy the whole solution from your much brighter friend sitting next to you. Sure you will pass, but the next stage (you are now in matriculation, after passing Form Five from cheating), you will find that not only you have not understood F=Ma, but now you have to understand various other formulas which needed you to grasp the basic F=Ma first! Here you will find yourself suddenly in hell!

The same case applies in university life, example are abounds where students work hard to cheat all his way throughout the university life. After ‘graduation’, he suddenly finds himself very difficult to secure a job due to failed interviews. Even if he is accepted in a particular job, the chances are, he will be having a hard time working in a place where he is only ‘paper-qualified’ but not ‘brain-qualified’. These cheaters will endlessly cheat in trying to secure jobs, in trying to secure promotions and ranks and ultimately in handling financial matters. Soon time will catch up with them, and they will find themselves breaking the laws.

As you can see, the shortcut to success will eventually brings you to no success at all, but possibly humiliation and jail.

STUDY SMART!

Study smart simply means studying in the most efficient and effective way, for you. For me, these are my way of studying smart: (to be continued ... )