5 Simple strategies to help you study effectively for your college exams

Having come to the end of my undergrad career, I have to say that I observed the problem across the board. People are frustrated at their grades time and time again, and the problem I found was in their study habits.

Yap that’s it. If you have made it into college, it’s because you are smart enough.

Natural abilities don’t hold any weight if you aren’t attending your classes or studying the materials. With that said, let’s look into five super simple strategies to make sure you are studying effectively for your college exams.

1.   Attend your classes

I have talked about this in previous posts on getting a 4.0 GPA and on how to boost your GPA, and I shall repeat it here. I don’t know how your college works, but mine had a very strict attendance policy. You miss 6 classes and you get failed. It was ironclad.

Whether you are taking your classes online or in-person, attendance is absolutely mandatory, and if you can’t tell why, I shall link the blog post where I have explained that here.

For schools that have a more laissez-faire attitude to attendance have a threshold for attendance, I think it’s two-thirds or something. Either way, attending your classes is the first step to studying effectively in college.

2.   Know your study materials

When I say know your study materials, I mean you should know all the materials that your instructor is using for each class and use those as a reference for your study sessions.

I actually learned this the hard way one semester and I got a B+ instead of getting an A because I missed one of the study materials during my revision session and the stuff from the missing notes wound up being tested in a 20-point question. After a good cry, I learned my lesson.

Don’t be like me. Make sure you have a list of all the materials you need to study effectively.  Have the list with you when you are studying. Be sure to do this for all your classes.

3.   Study regularly

I said this in the last post, and I’m saying this now. In college, studying is non-stop. Confused? If you aren’t studying for midterms or finals then you are studying for a quiz, if you aren’t studying for a quiz then you are studying as part of a reading assignment.

The truth is that the reading is a train that only stops for the holidays. Make sure you are studying in all your weekly schedules.

If not, then you will fail, let me tell you that right now. And even if you don’t fail, you will get an average grade instead of getting an extraordinary one.

4.   Past papers

Another great way to make sure you study effectively is to use past papers to familiarize yourself with the format of the exams for our different classes. Your college classes will test differently.

Some will use multiple-choice, some fill in the blank and some will use essays. This will affect how you study, so be sure to familiarize yourself.

Don’t know where to find these? Simple, I have written about the magic of course advisers and if you haven’t read it I shall link it here. You can ask them for some and if there aren’t any then simply ask your professor about the structure of his exams.

5.   Write & Review

This is the icing on the cake. When you study, make short notes that will act as a study/revision guide. Can’t you just type them? No, you cannot.

There is a way that our brains absorb information when we handwrite it down in a way that it doesn’t when we are typing that same information. For the sake of your academic goals be sure to write as you study and when you are done you have to review, otherwise, your efforts will be for nothing.

I had to learn these things the hard way, my first semester I wound up scoring very mediocre grades because frankly, I didn’t know what I was doing. I hope this saves you some mediocrity and your GPA.