Good Study Habit: "markamps' way"

Before anything else, I'll be honest to say that I'm a lazy student (a lazy person in general ^_^). I hate to read and memorize terms/words. My mind and body can't survive a 30minute long review. I feel like I'm going to die if I will read school books and notes for that amount of time.

Aside from being lazy, I also have a big ego inside my head. I always believe that I'm intelligent enough to be able to answer all the questions in my exams.

I love to take exams. But I hate to review! I believe that taking exams without reviewing is the best way to measure your learning. If you really learned something from your subject, then you can easily answer all the questions in your exam even without reviewing.

I consider reviewing as a waste of time. It's like redundancy of work. You already studied those topics inside the class room. So why would you study it again?

Because of my attitude and outlook towards reviewing, I discovered a good study habit for lazy but talented students (like me! ^_^). I was able to squeeze something positive out of a negative characteristic (being lazy).

Just a warning before you read my "good study habits guide". My guide will only work for a lazy student who has talent in memorizing and good listening skills. It's also better if you're not a talkative student. My guide requires a lot of focus and concentration. My guide will also help you to remove the need for writing down notes. And one more thing, if you’re a lazy student, your teacher must not be lazy like you or else, my guide will not work and you will still be forced to review.

The Guide:

1. Always listen to your teacher. This is the most important thing that you must do if you want to avoid reviewing during examinations. Don't be an idiot. Don't waste yours' or your parents' money by just chatting with your seatmate while your teacher is discussing in front of the class. You are paying your teachers to teach you about certain subjects. So make sure you learn something from them. Every bits of information that you get from the discussion will be a big help come examination time.

   Words or terms are easier to memorize if you hear them, rather than reading them. Make sure to listen keenly on your teacher's discussion. Try to memorize or understand all the important words that comes out from your teacher's mouth. If your teacher has visual aids, try to read it also. Look for important details that your teacher forgot to mention while he's discussing. If you can memorize or understand most of the stuffs that your teacher tackled, passing quizzes and exams without reviewing is almost guaranteed!

   Teachers do not create questions that they have not discussed during regular class, except for those topics that they have planned to tackle but has no enough time to be able to discuss it. But don't worry, teachers with these cases usually warn their students to read the next topic. Teachers don't want to be blamed by their students if they (students) can't answer their (teachers) questions. If you want to perfect the exam, then you need to read and review the next topic. But if you really hate to review, just be contended with an average passing grade that your listening and memorizing skills can give to you.

2. Take a five minute review. After days or weeks of listening to your teacher, your brain will be filled with tons of knowledge and information. Since human brain cannot handle too much information, you may loss some of the information that you have learned while listening to your teacher. A five minute review will help solve this problem.

   Since you already encountered and memorized all the terms before, it won't take you a lot of time to memorize them again. Just scan your book and your classmate's notes (as I said, you don't have to write your own notes), and you're ready to pass the exam!

   Hey, a five minute review? I thought your guide will help me omit reviewing when examination time comes?

   Five minutes of review is very different from the conventional way of reviewing. All you need is just five minutes compared to hours of reading with the conventional way of reviewing. With that little amount of time, it feels like you didn't review at all! But in fact, you were still able to memorize all the stuffs that your hardworking classmates able to memorized after long hours of review. Since your review time is just five minutes, you can still sleep, watch TV, play games and do other stuffs for a long period of time. Isn't it wonderful? Doing your hobbies but still passing the exam?

   Actually you can opt not to use a five minute review. But that extra five minutes of review can spell the difference between passing and failing the exam. That's why I highly recommend having a five minute review to refresh all the information that you have learned through listening to your teacher.

And we're done! If you can notice, my guide is all about efficiency! You were able to utilize every cent that you were paying to your teacher. And you were also able to maximize your time!

Good luck to your exams! Do not cheat! :)