Short-Term Study Strategies: How to Ace the Exam That’s Just Around the Corner

Sheila has an exam coming up in Advanced Biology. It had been announced weeks ago, but she has a full course load. She studies every night for several hours, and sometimes she gets overwhelmed with all she has to do. And that’s the problem: She is so overwhelmed that she completely forgot about the Advanced Bio exam until today. Now it’s tomorrow and she has to study–FAST.

Todd, on the other hand, keeps up with his studies and knows when every exam is scheduled. There’s just one problem. Today, his Economics professor announced a pop quiz for tomorrow’s class. This sends everyone in the class, including Todd, scurrying home or to their dorms, to find out how to squeeze some study time into their schedules.

Obviously, as different as Sheila and Todd are, they have one dilemma in common: a test tomorrow that they have little time to prepare for. So what’s a conscientious student to do? Here are some suggestions for taking advantage of a short amount of study time for that unexpected test.

1) Spend an hour making sure that you have all the information you need. This means you need to find that person in the class who has perfect notes, and find out if he / she can fill in the gaps in your own notes.

2) Find a place with zero distractions. While some distractions are acceptable when you’re studying for a test over a period of days, when it’s an unintended cram session, you have to focus. That means:

* Go somewhere that you don’t have a clear view of lots of activity, or a clear day of a nice spring day.

* Place a “Do Not Disturb” sign at your study spot, and enforce it.

* Make sure you have all necessary supplies at your study spot with you, so you won’t have to keep getting up to retrieve items.

* Turn off the TV and the loud music (Some people do fine with soft music in the background).



3) But the real key to studying on the spur of the moment is operating from an outline of the material to be covered. This doesn’t have to be as difficult as it sounds.

For starters, many textbooks already have fairly good outlines. Either they’ll start the chapter with one, or the section headings themselves make good outlines. Either way, copy it out into your notes. The writing helps you to remember it, plus, it keeps all of your study in one area: your notebook.

Even if your textbook is not a great place to start for outlining, some people take very organized notes. These notes, when well-done, are a good source for your outline, or in many cases, are already done in outline form.

You can either make an outline as you make your notes, or use the textbook outline.

Once you have your outline, your study time can begin in earnest. Read through it once, just to get basic information. After that, reread it to make sure you understand all of the terms.

If you have time, use the outline to make some questions and put them on flashcards. Put the answers on the back. To truly understand the material for most tests through flashcards, you need at least 30 cards.

Read through the outline once, just for basic information. Then, read again and make sure you understand each term. If you are studying with someone, you can quiz each other by using the outline; make each heading into a question and try to answer them.

After you’ve gone through your outline thoroughly, it’s time to work on a point-wise summary. To do this, make up a brief summary of the chapter or material that you’re studying. Do this in such a way that all contents are in the form of points, and arranged in a logical order. This means that you’ll have a main title first, followed by subtitles, and then points that illustrate the main point. Assign numbers to these points so that it’s easy to remember them. It might even be smart to make another set of flash cards, with each point, in order, so you can quiz yourself with them.

Make no mistake: This method will take several hours of intense study. But it will help you ace that test that comes up on the spur of the moment.

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