What Are 5 Effective And Important Study Habits?

Hi all, My name is Shamim and I am a tutor on TutorHunt. My specialty is in GCSE Maths, A Level Biology and medical school applications! I also teach GCSE Biology and Chemistry and A-Level Chemistry.

In this article, I would like to discuss 5 important study habits and techniques that you absolutely should include in your study strategies!

1. Regular breaks. This is absolutely crucial for success. Your brain will quickly tire out if you do not reward yourself with rest breaks. Typically, it is suggested that after an hour or so you tend to lose focus. Now there are a few ways of incorporating breaks into your study strategies. The first is for example: 45 minutes of work followed by 15 minutes break and repeating 2-4 times before taking a larger break of around 30 minutes to an hour. Another is the classic `Pomodoro` technique which involves 25 minutes work following 5 minutes. Whilst both strategies, have their fair few advantages, I prefer the former as 25 minutes tends to be too small an amount of time to get some serious work completed in. However, if i am tired in the evening or working on a project, I will almost always use the Pomodoro technique. I tend to use my breaks to stand up, move around a little and drink some water to stay hydrated.

2. & Active Recall. Another important strategy to include in your revision schedule. The exam will always test what you know and what you can remember. The best way to prepare for this is to test yourself in advance for the exam. Regular assessments of your own knowledge through practice questions, previous exam papers from your exam board and other methods such as flashcards or the classic `look, cover, write, check` method are key to ensuring that you are retaining the knowledge that you study. It also gauges how well you can understand a topic.

3. The Feynman Learning Technique. Another fantastic method to check your understanding of a topic and ability to explain it. Sometimes, the best way to check how well you understand a topic is to see if you can explain it to others. As the classic goes, `to teach is to learn twice`. In this technique, you will study a topic e.g. DNA replication and then try to explain it in very simple terms. You may imagine that you have to explain this topic to someone from a different age group (much younger) or someone with know knowledge of your subject. Ultimately, you are checking your understanding - the more you understand a particular topic the better you will be at explaining it more simply. It is important to review content regularly and you can do this by having a timetable and scheduling in some time a few times each week to review last weeks work. Ideally, before an exam you would like to have reviewed and repeated your studies 2-3 times.

5. Work-life balance, time-management and organisation. It is incredibly important for you to have a plan at the beginning of each week/month. What are your goals? What tasks would you like to accomplish? By having a plan, you are always aware of what work remains to be done and you have something pencilled in that you need to do each day you wake up. Work-life balance is also as important - you should be planning activities or down time to relax around your work schedule to avoid becoming burnt out during your studies.