Sophia Hegedus

1 year ago
Here is my 8 step approach. Read through it, and if you feel its not applicable to
you respond and tell me why. My 8 step approach is really tailored to college
courses and even though you are in AP classes it's still very much HHS based bc you
get a lot more help from your teachers. My 8 step approach doesn't say to ask for
help from the teacher because I rarely need help- however, in calculus and I aced
college calculus it is absolutely vital work through problems and immediately the
next day after class ASK for help on problems you couldn't solve or don't make
sense- that is a huge part of doing well. Record what the proff said and understand
why and hw they got to the correct answer. log this in your notes- you must be able
to work this problem yourself on review days-so try again.Don't worry about looking
stupid. My peers thought I was doing the worst in my calc course bc everday I would
ask the professor for help after class on problems I got wrong that I couldn't
understand by myself. However, test day I came and I would set the curve for the
rest of the class- now who is laughing!

Here is my 8 step approach: #1 might not be applicable to you because in higschool

you don't typically have practice exams (it's been along time since I was in
higschool). Still read #1 as the lecture portion applies to you. In highschool you
are typically given worksheets with problems ( or whatever homework you have)- make
sure you apply this to step #2- after you have worked through "in textbook lecture
problems" because then your homework won't seem so hard. Make sure you notice where
your homework is coming from- are they hard problems from the back of the book?
This will tell you a lot about how advanced the problems are that your teacher is
testing.

1. Familiarize- take out a practice exam before you have even learned material.
Review the questions. Sculpt your focus to practice exam questions! This is what
the proff finds the most imp. This is where you will be very efficient and kick *

you should attend lecture and pay attention take organized notes. review the
lecture and more importantly UNDERSTAND what�s going on. lecture is essential bc
the proff is basically doing the work for you- they are highlighting the most imp
and summarizing the most imp topics presented in the assigned chapter. you will
begin to retain almost all the information you learned because you have tried to
understand it. its really amazing what the brain can do.

-only use the text book if you dont understand a concept/ subject matter this is
where you use the text book as REFERENCE material. it is NOT a novel do not read it
REFERENCE IT, it�s a textbook.

2.memorize, conceptualize

-the key to learning information is testing your knowledge in the first building
block of knowledge

-this means you TEST yourself on the material from the lecture notes from the notes
you made meticulously the day before. when you write notes you do so in an
interrogative manner: ex. the book says �a low ph corresponds to high acidity�
instead in your notes you write a question: a low ph corresponds to: on the next
line you write the answer. when it comes to studying the information it is already
in question format. You avoid the misconception that if you read you learn, no, if
you TEST you learn. Brilliant part is no matter how hard the material you can turn
anything into a question to test yourself.

-you do NOT reread information you TEST yourself on information. Ex are amino
acids. Can you draw out all the structures of the 20 amino acids from memory,
calculate/understand an isoelectric point and explain a titration curve? Can you
explain what happens when ph changes for an amino acid given if it gains or loses a
proton? Yes? Then you can move on to step 3

-buy a white board make yourself draw out tested material: ex draw out all amino
acids till you get it right.

3. implement �Foundational Problems�

-here is where your boring text book becomes vital. Every text book has example
problems to test knowledge you must begin to assimilate the information you have
memorized into testable questions .they will often be harder than you think but you
will realize HOW you should think about information HOW you should think moving
forward with the material.

document your mistakes AND LEARN why you got what you got wrong. Now you are REALLY
studying add this to your notes. Now for each topic you have all the nesseccary
information in one page (some people call this method making condescened notes).

-you are building the basics its not hard yet but you are testing basic knowledge

4. integrate- �Integrative problems = these are so hard make it stop�

-these are often in the back of your text book they test information in a critical
thinking way

-they are not merely �if the ph =7 the amino acid exists as a _ in aq env� they
give you a hard question and you must apply your basic knowledge. A graph may be
given to interpret data. Ect and you must calculate variables ect. you will be
tired and that means you did something right.

- these are the questions that will often show up on exams this is why so many
people struggle and do poorly including myself in the past bc I didn�t learn to
integrate my knowledge and I wasn�t practicing what I have learned in the way that
it will be tested

5. review weekly only review hard material- material that you struggled with i.e.
you should not be reviewing obvious stuff such as what is an amino acid? This
should be a part of you now, and should be very obvious. Perhaps you are reviewing
complicated processes that are harder to remember but you know will be on the exam

6. take a practice exam- these are often provided by proff. Test your knowledge
after all of this How did you do? Why did you get x y z wrong? Lack of info or lack
of concept? Lack of paying attention?

7. target weak areas- this is self explanatory.

8. rock the exam and set the curve and walk away like a boss?

Sophia Hegedus
1 year ago
+Anam M Your very welcome! I forgot step 9!! so read below it's really important! I
love advising and teaching. You will do great- don't give up even when it seems
tough. I know you will succeed because you have done even what I didn't in
highschool- which was ask for help. Knowing when to ask for help is half the
battle- I wish I was as wise as you when I was in highschool. I spent two years
struggling (in college) and I finally had to admit it was probably my studying that
was the problem. No one would help me and I had to figure out everything by myself-
it's no fun, so I promised I would help anyone who was as lost as I was!

Just keep it up if you master these techniques college will not seem so bad and you
will do fantastic. Don't give up- the 8 step method will show results immediately
because if you did day 1 and you try day 2- foreign tough questions melt away and
begin to seem really obvious- this will be a sign that your studying is working.
that isn't to say you will always get things- but problems won't seem so foreign-
its a great feeling. Also I forgot step #9 which is really imp so I suppose its a 9
step method: ITs REALLY important:
step 9: after you take the exam and you get it back (your score) and the actual
exam, evaluate how you did: a, b c ,d , f?? . There is a very low chance that if
you follow these methods you will do that poorly- but sometimes we do mess up.
Evaluate how did you do? A? keep doing what you are doing. B? C? Then take the
exam, and look up where the questions came from. This is really important!! Were
they primarily based on lecture? Textbook? Did you not study hard enough problems?
Or maybe you just got nervous and misread questions?

Don't get discouraged if you get a C on an exam after using my method. The point is
to learn from your mistakes- I used this method for the very first time in organic
chemistry in college. when I got to the exam for the first time, I felt I wasn't
entirely lost and I wasn't going: "where did these questions come from!!?! So
hard!!!" Instead I was pleasantly surprised. When i got back the exam it was a 74%:
At first I was like of course its a c, and I felt dumb. But then I took the
corrected exam and I tried to see what went wrong, after all, I didn't feel lost on
the exam. It turns out, I had misread entire questions- almost self sabotaging
myself which significantly lowered my score. I also learned that it is best to
start from high yield questions on the exam to low yield questions ( or harder to
simpler if the points don't show). The benefit is that the exam is timed, so you
want to put all your effort in answering more brain power questions- and then move
to low yield (less point) or simpler problems bc they will take one second. The
next exam I made sure to pay attention and I worked backward to forwards on the
exam. I left enough time to review my questions. I received a 94% the second
highest score in the class (out of like 200+ students or something).

So don't give up!! good luck and promise you will tell me how it went!

Feel free to ask me any questions and don't shy away from making electronic notes
as it takes way shorter time than paper notes. that will be a valuable skill in
college as there is far too much information to hand write out.?

Sophia Hegedus
1 year ago
+Matt Chang AH, I see you are studying physiology. In that case, what I have to say
you will find is even more applicable. These methods work wonderfully in physio and
any conceptually integrated course such as biochemistry.
I will label your question (1)-(3) and provide my specific answers.
1) YES, I absolutely make all my notes in Q and A format, for the reasons I
explained previously as an answer to one of your questions. It forced me to engage
with the material (active learning) over passive learning. THIS is especially true
for upper division courses as you will find with physiology, where it requires
integrative understanding. This answer connects with your question 2)
2) YES, my answers go in depth as needed. Don�t worry if you feel overwhelmed,
this is a skill and as you practice asking questions and answering them, you will
gage the level of depth you need to understand it. I had the same worry when I
began studying human physiology. The processes can get quite detailed, this is why
my steps are important. You must use exams to gage the level that you are required
to know for your professor. This will come with time, as I said, studying is
alinear. You will figure things out along the way, but that�s ok. This method is
systematic so that you have a foundation to which to build. Specifically, without
knowing about your professor I would say that it is better to ask questions that
require in depth answers (and providing those in depth answers in Q and A) IF you
are uncertain the level of knowledge that is required. It is better than being
underprepared. So absolutely yes, I will often start this on the first exam and
after I see it, I might tone it down a bit if I see that I don�t need such in depth
answers THAt being said, this also ties in your question 3) about short answers. I
can�t be certain what specifically is tested in these short answers, but I can
infer and tell you that such essay questions are usually integrative, hard, and
require at least a mid level to in depth understanding of physiological process.
They are the dreaded conceptual and factual questions. That being said, now that I
know your exam does contain these questions, I can certainly say that your Q and A
should have in depth answers. If you do the q and A notes right, you will already
be preparing for these short answer questions indirectly. Also, sometimes you can
simply ask the professor- professor here is a question and its answer( process) do
I need to know,say this level in depth? The professor will likely answer honestly
and you will have already a lot of information to work with. One method to answer
in depth is simply using flow charts as your answer. Flow charts are great in
physiology because usually that really encompasses what you need to know. For
example potassium channels. There are flow charts provided with this and you see
the mechanism and what is activate and what channels open in the chart. Often you
really need to understand that whole process So I will literally ask myself how are
potassium channels open in such and such place. I will provide a chart. I will
memorize it. It works wonders.physiology is interested in processes, not disctinct
factual information, they are interested in how things work, why thinks work, and
what happens when it goes wrong (pathophysiology). If you know how things work, you
can easily explain how things went wrong. An example of this is diabetes type 1- if
you know that insulin is dominant and triggers receptors in the cell normally in
the presence of glucose, glucose flows into the cell through the GLUT transport,
and this in turn activates the growth hormone, then you can explain to me why type
1 diabetics often present with low growth. If you can also explain to me the normal
process of how all of this connects with glucose levels being increased outside of
the cell, and as they increase if someone is insulin deficient that means less
glucose is entering via GLUT transport in the cell. Exterior glucose is increasing
which exceed standard glucose in body. The kidneys filter this, the kidney of the
glomerulus filtrate cannot keep up with filtering glucose back into the body
because excess glucose in the blood > standard glucose. Glucose is then leaked into
the urine. This ties into osmosis and that water follows glucose. Since water
follows glucose it follows from a lower concentration of solute to a higher
concentration of solute. Glucose in the tubes of kidneys > glucose exterior to
tubes. Water follows high solute levels so it flows with the glucose into tubes and
is discharged with the urine. As a result, you are losing water and higher amounts
than standard. Therefore, this is why diabetics are often thirsty (polydipsia). I
STILL remember all of this and has been over a year. That�s what proper studying
does.
3) Yes, I absolutely review my notes as many times as needed. You will find you
wil ha e a lot of notes( perhaps 15-20 pages) depending per chapter/lecture. This
is why you study weekly not a night before the exam. By studying a little bit
everday you prepare all the material rigorously, and you even have time to review
it as much as possible as needed. One good strategy is to review old notes on the
weekend. Yes, it is a lot of work but that�s how you ace classes. ?
Here is my email Hege0055@umn.edu. If you email me I can send you a sample of my
physiology notes that will help you actually see it if you like. Let me know if you
have any more questions!