Let’s Face It and Study It

Studying is a necessary evil at Stuyvesant. Developing good study habits and using time wisely can help make study sessions more effective and maybe even less time-consuming. Stuyvesant students share some of their favorite studying tips and tricks:

Detailed Notes in Class

No one likes the feeling of having to go over loads of material the night before a test, especially if the test covers various units or multiple weeks of content. One way to avoid the overwhelming pileup is to take detailed notes in class. Sophomore Marie Check explained, “I don’t have time to write everything down [when studying] that I need to remember for my traditional classes, but I try to take insanely detailed notes in class.” The best time to fully understand a topic is when it is first taught. Though taking lots of notes during class can seem strenuous, it really helps in the long run. Check can attest to this: “When you write something down, you also say it to yourself at the same time, so you can fully absorb the information.” Taking this extra step tests whether the student really knows the concepts. If there’s any confusion, there is a teacher nearby ready to answer questions.

No Distractions

Most people find that studying is one of the more boring things in life. It is very easy to get distracted while reading over class notes, especially when a phone is sitting nearby, buzzing with notifications. Many students find that limiting distractions in the study space is one of the most effective tactics. Junior Sunny Bok shared, “You need to make sure there is silence, no food near you, no people, and that you are warm, but not too warm, or you will fall asleep.” Bok also added, “You need to work with a bright light and make sure there are no shadows obscuring your vision.” Finding the perfect condition with no distractions allows the brain to fully focus on the material at hand. It also means that studying will be way less time-consuming. One solid, distraction-free hour of studying is worth just as much as three hours punctuated by five-minute Facebook breaks.

Practice Problems

A great way to study is to solve practice problems, particularly for subjects like math and computer science. “Doing practice problems allows [...] you to see how the concepts are applied,” junior Christine Yan shared. Most of the time, simply memorizing a formula isn’t the most effective way of studying. Redoing problems given in class or doing a little hunting on Google to find practice problems not only makes sure that the information is memorized, but also that the student knows its application and its relation to other topics. Practice problems can almost always give a preview of the types of questions that are going to be asked on the assessment. Because questions on the test could be similar, junior Tiffany Wu added, “The morning of the test, you should look over the trickiest questions and make sure you fully understand the [concepts] thoroughly.” Noticing mistakes made on the practice problems can help you avoid losing valuable points from making those same mistakes on tests.

Study Guide

Studying for an exam will be a lot easier if all the information being tested is consolidated in one place. Having a study guide helps separate the crucial facts from the excess information that isn’t needed for the test. According to Wu, the study-guide-making formula is this: “Get a piece of paper at the beginning of a unit and keep adding formulas and rules you learn over the course of the unit.” Adding information incrementally saves the student from having to write a seven-page study guide the night before the test. It also provides a good reference sheet that only contains crucial information, and it can be flipped back to and used as a memory refresher on the material from one day ago, one week ago, and even one month ago. Online study guides can also be shared with friends, so everyone can contribute and make sure no information is left out.