Study Skills

The Center can work with students on honing your study skills to make your studying more efficient and more effective. Below is a list of these study skills.

• Reading Comprehension
• Concentration
• Test Taking
• Time Management
• Listening & Note-taking

Reading Comprehension
Reading critically and remembering what is read are extremely important skills for college students. These skills can mean the difference between success and failure. Not comprehending what you read can lead to poor test scores, poor performance on papers, and an inability to keep up with class lectures and discussions. How you approach what you read, where you read, at what time you read, and what you do as you read all impact how well you comprehend the information and whether the information is actually stored in your long-term memory. The Center can help you increase your comprehension, which will lead to better exam preparation and increased learning.

Concentration
If you read through textbook chapters and then can't remember what you've read, you may have trouble with concentration. If you can't focus on what your professors are saying or find your mind drifting as you read or listen, then you may have a concentration problem. Improving your concentration may simply be a matter of changing where and when you study.

Other factors that may be involved in poor concentration include where you sit in class, how good you are at managing your time, how much sleep you get, how much stress you feel, and how you actually study or listen. By targeting what distracts you or what prevents you from concentrating, we can help improve your concentration as you read and listen. Improving your concentration can also be accomplished by working on how you are taking notes and reading your books.

Test Taking
Being a good test taker is part strategy and part knowing the material. Some students do well on homework and papers and do poorly on tests, while other students do poorly on homework and well on tests. In most cases, the latter students are good test takers; the former know the material. Being a good test taker begins with how you read your textbooks and how well you take notes in class and ends with how you approach the exam itself.

How you study for an exam should be linked to what kind of exam it is (objective or essay or a mixture of both) and what the discipline is. Good test takers know that you do not approach studying for a math or science test the same way that you approach a test in a history or literature class. Knowing not only the material your test will cover but how to approach knowledge in that field can improve your test-taking abilities.

The Center can help you devise mnemonic devices to help you recall that hard-to-remember information. We can offer strategies for studying in the various disciplines and for approaching the different kinds of questions that will be asked on the exam. We can also help you with test-taking anxiety.

Time Management
Knowing what you do with your time, and how you may be wasting it, is the first step toward successful time management. You also need to determine how much you can actually do. Some students are capable of balancing a full course load of difficult classes with work, several co-curricular activities, and a busy social life. However, many students find one aspect of their life interfering with the others. If you want to increase your control over your own time, then visit us for help with time management.

Here are a few tips for managing your time:

• Determine how much time you really need to have to make the kind of grades you want to earn.
• Incorporate study time--and enough of it--into your weekly and daily schedule.
• Space study periods with rest periods.
• Stick to your schedule.
• Prioritize your tasks.
• Be specific about goals you want to accomplish and reward yourself when you meet those goals.

Listening and Note-taking
Since many professors test from their class lectures and discussions rather than the textbook, taking good notes in college is a vital skill. However, many students assume that taking good notes is easy, but if you have a concentration problem or if you are dealing with unfamiliar information, you may find yourself with notes full of gaps and misinformation.

Notes are only as good as the note-taker. The first step to good note-taking is to devise a system of abbreviations and signs that will help you write faster. Students who try to write a transcript of a class lecture, inevitably miss important information. Good listening skills are also important to good note-taking. Listen to your professor's verbal cues, such as, "The 4 main causes of the Civil War were. . . ." Verbal cues will identify main points from minor ones while repetition is a clear signal of important information. After a lecture, read through your notes immediately and fill in gaps. You may want to visit your professor in office hours to ask questions about things you missed. For more tips on taking good notes or on common abbreviations, visit the Center for Academic Excellence.

If you want to discuss your own study skills, your strengths and weaknesses, or if you simply want to hone the skills you have already mastered, visit the Center for Academic Excellence.