Without fail, whenever I give a lecture or tutor a student I get asked some combination of the following:

• ‘How should I study?’ / ‘How did you study in VCE?’
• ‘How often should I study?’ / ‘How often did you study in VCE?’
• ‘How many practice exams should I do?’ / ‘How many practice exams did you do?’

And honestly, I’m never sure how to answer. Everybody needs to hear a different answer. Unfortunately, studyis a difficult skill to develop and is quite individualised.

However, I do think there are 4 principles which everyone could benefit from following a bit more (including myself). Here I’m going to outline what I think they are, and some suggestions for how you can better implement them into your study.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this post you should be equipped to:

• Apply the four principles of good study to your own habits so studying better fits you (and your skills, schedule, interests etc.)
• Use your mistakes / failings to improve
• Enjoy studying just a little more
• Experiment with new study techniques to see what works for you
  • (Bonus Challenge) Be more kind to yourself and your body during VCE

Principle 1. Find what works for you

We’re all different, so why do we insist in on studying the same way? We enjoy different things, have different writing and note taking styles, different schedules etc. Please try a few different studying styles, times and techniques to see what works for you and your lifestyle.

Some ideas to try:

• Studying with people power / pressure
  • Using YouTube study with me videos / online studying groups
  • Studying in nearby libraries
  • Studying with friends on Zoom
  • Checking in with your friends / family / pet each week
• Studying at times which suit you better
  • Have a random hour where you need to walk somewhere? What about a podcast / video / song / book?
  • Work better in the morning? In the evening? After you’ve gone out for a run?
  • Have a boring monotonous task to do? Anyway you can relate it to what you’re studying? (For example: Think about hydrophobic and hydrophilic reactions whilst doing the dishes)
  • Have a 30 minute break at work where you’d normally just sit there, do nothing and be bored? (… 🥴 yeah so that was me in my high school job)
• Writing your own tests and questions
  • Making Kahoots for you and your friends
  • Flashcard applications where you can also create quizzes (like Anki, or Quizlet)
  • Writing VCAA style exams and elaborate marking schemes (especially good with friends as you can mark each others! Start thinking like a VCAA assessor!)
• Writing notes in unusual and colourful ways
  • Drawing colourful mind maps
  • Testing out different free note taking apps (Evernote, Notion etc.)
• Learning through song and video
  • Using podcasts to revise when you are travelling to school, work etc.
  • Going down a YouTube / Google / Wikipedia wormhole
  • Making your own terrible songs which nobody else will ever ever hear
• Developing really personalised memory tricks (for example I used to remember ‘anabolic’ as being a reaction type which requires energy because I knew an Anna who could really suck the energy out of the place … yes I am a terrible person)

Principle 2. Make studying fun (as possible)

Believe it or not - studying doesn’t have to suck. If you’re really bored when you are studying, all you’ll remember is how much you hate studying, and not the material you were supposed to be learning! Making studying fun can mean you focus on all the important things you were trying to learn instead!

It’s true that study is probably never going to be more fun than binge watching Netflix, but why can’t it be at least as fun as other things you do often without complaint, like showering or brushing your teeth? (… At least I hope you’re doing those often without complaint 🙃).

Part of this also falls into making study adapted to you and your lifestyle. You’re much better at studying when you are well rested, happy and healthy! Make sure you have regular breaks and lots of fun things to look forward to!

Tips / Ideas to try:

• Rewarding yourself for studying
  • Use lists of tasks so you have something to check off and reward yourself for!
  • Use apps to reward yourself for studying (see for example Forest which plants a tree every time you focus on a task for a period of time)
• Making sure you are happy and healthy
  • Continue doing all the other things you enjoy doing (sport, art, Netflix etc.)
  • Look after your mental and physical health
• Focusing on studying (and not how much you dislike it)
  • Study in small sections with breaks (you could even try the Pomodoro technique)
  • Study with friends who help you stay on track and hold you accountable
• Making studying better suited to how you like to learn (also see Principle 1.)
  • Use study techniques which are less based on rote learning, and are more specific to you! (add colour, music etc. to your study!)
  • Relate parts of your studying to your everyday life (for example in maths, What real life objects do different functions look like? In Biology, How does immunology explain your cold? Or your allergy? )

Principle 3. Get comfortable with your mistakes

Sometimes you will make mistakes. In fact you’ll probably make a lot of them.

When trying different study techniques, you may try one technique, take a test or do a SAC and find you do badly. That’s ok! Truly, that’s ok! In fact, if you step back for a minute and think about why you did badly (is it your study technique? the topic? the style of questions?) that’s actually really good!

I know doing badly on a SAC, assignment, test, exam can suck (Believe me, I know. Boy, do I know.). But doing badly can actually be a great thing - if you can learn from it. So, take some time. Be comfortable with your mistakes, your bad test scores and work out what went wrong. What needs to change for next time? In the long run, you’ll be a better student if you can accept your failings and come back stronger and smarter. (I promise - even messing up your ATAR is no biggie if you are willing to take the time to learn from your mistakes!)

If you think the reason you did badly is something out your control, go talk to someone about it. Maybe they know something you don’t. Maybe you need more support but don’t know how to ask for it (… been there done that 😕). Maybe they can just have your back whilst you’re feeling a little hard done by.

If there’s no one in your life you feel comfortable talking to consider talking to a mental health professional (which could be through an online service such as headspace). Talking to someone about your situation can help get the disappointment and anger you feel out of your system. You could also go do something distracting and fun!

Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. If you truly cannot change it, it’s not worth wasting energy on.

Tips / Ideas to try:

• Be nice to yourself when you fail
  • Remember your mistakes are not personal failings, they’re learning experiences (also remember everybody messes up badly sometimes - they just don’t like talking about it)
  • Take some time off studying and go do something enjoyable and distracting
  • It’s ok to feel bad if things didn’t go the way you were hoping, give yourself time to feel bad and then move on (Remember the 5 stages of grief ya’ll)
• Pause and Identify: What went wrong?
  • Look over your mistakes; is there a common theme? A particular type of question? Topic?
  • Looking at old VCAA examiners reports: Are there particular mistakes that students are often making? Are you perhaps also one of these students? What does the report suggest you need to do to get the full marks?
  • If you feel comfortable, talk to your teachers and discuss your test answers and assignments
• What do you need to change in your life to do better next time?
  • Is there another way you could’ve have approached this test / assignment / exam etc. ?
  • Is there another study technique to try? A style of question you didn’t practise with?
  • Did you spend enough time on a particularly difficult topic? Do you need to look at more resources? Do you need to talk to a teacher or tutor? Try more questions?
• If you can’t change anything: vent! (A problem shared is a problem halved)
  • Mental health professionals can be great people to talk to!

Principle 4. Break it down and plan: What should I study?

One of the most important studying skills is knowing what to focus on. You cannot know absolutely everything there is to know about your subject - so what parts of the subject are you going study? What are you going to spend your precious time focusing on?

The first step of this principle is breaking down big study topics into smaller areas and goals. Then, I would highly recommend asking yourself:

1. What is examinable? (VCAA study designs really help here)
2. What do I suck at? (dislike, find hard, don’t know etc. - also see Principle 3.)
3. What is highly likely to come up?
4. What are the low hanging fruits? (i.e. the material that is easy for you to learn and get full marks on)

What you study in should focus on subject areas that fall under the most number of these questions. Prioritise studying different topics and ideas! Study smart - not hard!

TL;DR

• Make your studying style match you - and not the other way around! It’s more fun that way!
• Look after yourself and your physical and mental health
• It’s ok to make mistakes and fail! Give yourself space and time to move on, and grow!
• Break up big topics into small more manageable areas and goal
• Think about what material is the most important for you to study. What’s examinable? What do do you struggle with?
• Good luck - you made it this far, I’m sure you’ll do amazing things!