How to Effectively Study for Online Tests
As an online student, how can you learn class material really well on the first try? There are two components of learning; understanding and remembering. Mastering these elements helps people learn quickly and earn good grades on exams.
A Quick Warning
Memorizing is less effective than understanding. The biggest mistake students make is that they are quick to rely on memorization. Especially when they first get introduced to flashcards, they rely on rote learning rather than understanding the material. The key thing here is to not rely on memorization, but instead rely on understanding the material and then use rote memorization to nail down the details. If you find yourself making loads of flashcards for every single lecture, make sure you understand the concepts, rather than memorize them.
Let’s dive deep into the two essential components of learning.
1. Understanding
What’s the best way to understand something? Teach it to a friend! When you teach a subject to someone, then you know that you truly understand the concept. Teaching others can incentivize you to try understand the subject in advance. The key question here is whether you can explain it to a friend. When you read something in your lecture slides, instead of passively reading it, test yourself on the content by asking questions about the topic. Active recall is not just something you do once you have learned the content. It is a fundamental part of actually learning the content in the first place. If you’re taking too much time to understand the material and fall behind on assignment deadlines, we can help. Hire a class taker online to manage your homework and projects. Call us to ask – ‘Can you take my online class for me?’ Our tutors offer quality content that is sure to earn an A or B grade.
2. Remembering
When you study new material and then come across it a few weeks later, you may not remember any of it. This brings up the second component of effective learning – remembering. The two absolute key pillars of remembering anything are active recall (testing yourself) and space repetition (repeating active recall method over a period of time). Active recall can be done in a lot of different ways. You can write questions for yourself, create flashcards, or write everything you know about the subject in the form of spider diagrams. It really doesn’t matter what you do, but the point is to test yourself. The more you try to retrieve the knowledge from your brain, the stronger those connections are going to be encoded. Otherwise, you’re going to forget it because of the forgetting curve method, i.e., over time you forget everything that you’ve ever learned unless you revisit it by testing yourself. Spaced repetition is the method of interrupting the forgetting curve at spaced intervals so that you can keep material in your brain for a longer period of time.
Memorization does not work consistently in the long term. But if you can understand something and use active recall and the spaced repetition technique, then you’ll truly learn the subject and earn good grades on your online exams.
Read How to Study for Long Hours and Stay Productive to retain 100% of the material you learn. If you have any other tips about study techniques, let us know in the comments below.
