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Refine your private
STUDY TIME
Chapter 12 of 12
Learn how to...
...make sure that any time you spend studying is most beneficial.
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DREAM college/university placements and careers
are often made secure with this advice.
DREAM to
DESTINATION
We’re going to go out on a limb and guess that you don’t need to be told that to achieve most things in life you need to work hard and to study. You might call it ‘homework’ or ‘revision’ or ‘extra schoolwork’ and we’re down with all of that, but for the benefit of this page we will simply call it ‘studying’.
Quick message before we start to the few of you who are reading this under duress who really have no intention of ever studying anything ever. We urge you to contemplate that studying is simply a form of exercising self-discipline and we all know that without self-discipline we won’t get far in any area of our life; from work to relationships and beyond. So whether you feel you ‘need’ the grades or not to get onto your next placement you really do need to learn to study and exercise self-discipline.
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So now that you’re hopefully all on board we’re going to let you into a BIG secret when it comes to studying that could increase your grades significantly. We mean that too. The benefits are nothing short of humongous.
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The Power of Analysis
When it comes to private study few of us know where to start. So we tend to go for whatever we feel like in the mood we are in. Oh our moods may fluctuate and be influenced by recent exam results, apathy towards a subject, what lesson or topic we are currently enjoying. Lots of things. But few of us really get to the heart of analysis. Professional sports stars don’t leave it to chance or mood on what area of their bodies or sporting prowess they work on each day. They plan and meticulously analyse. Studying for a set of exams is no different.
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So at this point those of you who are switched on may be feeling rather reassured.
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Maybe you recognise that when you are struggling in a certain subject that you need to work harder at it and study more. That’s good. Maybe you realise that if you are struggling with a concept in class then you need to spend some time outside of lesson mastering it more. That’s better. But there are still a few more levels we can go up. Interested in finding out more? Of course you are. Keep with us. We’re about to give you a piece of information that is absolutely priceless when it comes to study.
PhD in Analysis
Want to be a world class study analyser? Ok, let’s go.
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So imagine that you are studying four subjects: Maths, History, French (as a foreign language) and Biology. Odds are when it comes to revision you do more Maths and Biology revision than History or French regardless of what your weakest in. Why? They are both ‘fact-based’ and therefore easier to revise alone. Chances are that you also spend more time doing a type of History revision that revolves around fact-learning more than writing. Even though your History exam may be essay based. Why? You’ve got it. Nobody wants to write an essay when they don’t have to, right?!
Ok, so you’re thinking in this instance then I probably need to study more French. Well maybe. Let’s go with yes that would be beneficial. There’s more to it than that mind as you can imagine.
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So you’ve decided to study some French. Cool. Ok. Just to explain to any non-linguists out there a French exam will cover all four of the following skills sets: Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking. Now which of those four do you feel that students practise the most in their study time? Think about it, it’s easy when you do. Got it? Scroll down and see if you are right…
Reading! Correct. Why? Same answer as before. Because it’s easier to study alone. Writing, plah, it’s difficult, listening involves needing to log into an account, find your head phones…I mean what a drain. And as for speaking. Well, who wants to speak alone to themselves in a bedroom? That would be ridiculous!
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All of this we are not disagreeing with. But let’s imagine that the Speaking element to your French qualification counted for 35% of your overall exam. Whereas Reading was say 15%. And Writing and Listening made up the other 50% of your exam. That would mean that a. one of your four subjects you are sitting exams for you barely ever study alone and b. the area where most marks are available (i.e. Speaking) is something that you barely ever touch. Now that cannot be wise can it if you really are serious about getting the best exam grades you possibly can and building your DREAM future.
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But hopefully you know us well enough by now to say that this isn’t a guilt trip so much as a wake-up call. We’re on your side after all.
Analysis in the micro-level
Quick re-cap with hopefully a helpful diagram above to showcase where we are as we are almost there but not quite. We have one more layer of analysis to go. You’re doing good. Hold on with us.
So we have learned so far that we study four subjects: Maths, History, French and Biology. We have learned that our bias is to study certain subjects over others and out of our example list French is probably the one that gets touched the least. Out of French we probably do less Speaking than of the other skills needed for our exam. Let’s imagine that in Speaking there are four areas that you get marked on: fluency, opinions, accent and vocabulary. We would hazard a guess that if these were the four areas where you earn your marks you would probably spend less time on accent than anything else.
Let's be honest practising your accent just feels weird. Regardless of the marks attached to it. Hmm. Tough pill to swallow is this.
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Ok, one final twist to come…
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Planning your study time
You want every bit of your study time to be effective. It’s important to plan the time in the week when you are going to complete it (check out our default diary section here if you missed it). But it’s arguably just as important that you work out what to study as much as planning the time to study. Now we are here to explain the process but not to breakdown every syllabus for every type of exam that you may be taking. That’s a conversation between you and your teachers / professors. And so it may be that actually your French accent isn’t worth that many marks after all. And although it’s your weakest part of French Speaking, it’s not worth much time for that reason. So you need to use your judgment on that one. But you already knew that didn’t you…
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My Subject Analysis Tracker
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To guide you in making sure that your private study time is as effective as it can be, you really need to check out our Subject Analysis Tracker (found on page 38 of your workbook, link to download below). Just keep in mind that your time is precious and when it comes to private study you need to follow your head (logic) and not your heart (emotions) and you’ll be fine.
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Have a think...
1. How do you currently plan your study time?
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2. Are you aware of what subject(s) you really need to concentrate on to secure your DREAM future at this moment in time?
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3. How much do ‘external pressures’ contribute towards you deciding what you spend your time studying? E.g. do you have stricter teachers in certain subjects that you aim to impress more? Or do you have a subject that has a lot of ‘in-house’ exams which divert your attention?
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Another chapter complete.
One step closer to your DREAM future secured.
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Don't forget to complete your workbook* as you go
and we'll see you in the next section soon.
