An article deliberately written the way most study-tip articles tend to be. Your task is to be skeptical of it.
Support Material • Chapter 2
10 Tips for Studying Better
For readers coming from the book
This page is part of the “Today’s Experiment” in Chapter 2 of Mastering the Leitner System.
Read each tip and ask yourself the same question Leitner used to ask the study guides of his time:
“Okay, but exactly how is this tip going to help me?”
Make two columns: tips that tell you what to do and how to do it, and tips that sound good but are too vague to put into practice. Then open “My Analysis” at the bottom of the page and compare your answers.
1
Read the ten tips with Leitner’s question in mind.
2
Sort them into two columns: “tells me how to do it” and “too vague.”
3
Only then open the analysis and compare it with your list.
The article
10 Tips for Studying Better
01
Study regularly
Don’t leave everything until the last minute. Ideally, develop the habit of studying a little every day so the material doesn’t pile up.
02
Read everything carefully
When studying, focus on what you are reading. Careful reading makes all the difference when it comes to understanding the material.
03
Stay focused
Studying requires discipline. Keep your goals in mind and don’t give up at the first obstacle.
04
Leave your phone in another room
Turning the screen face down isn’t enough. Put your phone in another room while you study and only go back to it during your break.
05
Reread your notes several times
The more you reread the material, the more it sticks in your mind. Set aside some time before the exam to reread everything you wrote down.
06
Discover your learning style
Some people learn better by seeing, others by listening, and others by doing. Find out whether you are a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner and study in the way that suits you.
07
Close your materials and write down what you remember
After studying a topic, close your book and notebook and write down everything you can remember on a blank sheet of paper. Then open your materials and check what you missed.
08
Organize your schedule
An organized student gets much more done. Plan your routine and set aside time for studying.
09
Space out your reviews
Instead of reviewing everything at once the night before, return to the same material one day after studying it, then three days later, and then one week later.
10
Believe in yourself
Confidence is half the battle. Think positively and remember that you are capable.
Pass the test
4 • 7 • 9
Too vague
1 • 2 • 3 • 8 • 10
Concrete, but wrong
5 • 6
Of the ten tips, only three pass Leitner’s test without any help: 4, 7, and 9. They tell you exactly what to do, when to do it, and how. By the time you finish reading them, you already know what to do next.
Tips 1, 2, 3, 8, and 10 aren’t wrong. The problem is something else: they describe an outcome (“study regularly,” “stay focused,” “be organized”) without telling you how to get there. Study regularly how? How much time, with what materials, doing what? No one disagrees with these tips, and that is precisely why they aren’t very helpful. Tips 1 and 2, in fact, are almost the same kinds of statements Leitner criticized in study guides from the 1960s and 1970s.
Two tips deserve special attention because they are concrete but point in the wrong direction:
05
Rereading several times is exactly the trap we saw in Chapter 1. Rereading creates a feeling of knowing because the text becomes familiar, but recognizing something is not the same as remembering it. Tip 7 does what tip 5 promises.
06
Learning styles are one of the most persistent myths in education. There is not enough evidence that adapting study methods to a “learning style” improves learning. We’ll discuss this carefully in Chapter 8.
If you came up with a similar list, you are already doing what Leitner did: separating advice that sounds good from advice that actually works.
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