There are plenty of articles and videos, some of which I published, that demonstrate how to take effective notes using an array of note-taking techniques. Yet, how are those notes useful? How do you study from them? That is what we will be discussing today.
Constant Revision
One takes notes to revise them later. Notes are composed of useful and sometimes critical information that must be remembered and understood. However, revising is not skimming your notes the afternoon before the exam. Instead, it is the repeated act of re-reading and comprehending what was written. For the information in your notes to be stuck in your head, you want to make a continuous effort to read your notes every few days before the exam.
To keep track of your revisions, you can always create a spreadsheet on Google Sheets, Excel, Notion, etc. In a said spreadsheet, you record how you confident you feel in the level of comprehension of the topic. For example, let's say your notes are over the American revolution. The spreadsheet would be organized by subtopic: battles, important figures, dates, agreements/documents, etc., and for each subtopic, you would either color it green, yellow, or red to indicate the level of confidence and knowledge. This system of revision would be repeated a few times over the course of days prior to the exam to ensure no information is slipping away.
Active revision - color coding, annotating and quizzing yourself
You have your revision system ready to go, and you are starting the first revision session, but how do you actually revise? When revising, you want to be active during your readings, meaning annotate on the margins your thoughts, questions, elaborate on ideas, and highlight keywords and definitions. During your revisions, you will be able to answer your previous questions and expand on your notes by adding new information from lectures and readings. This will create a source of information from which you can quiz yourself and prepare for the assessment.
When quizzing yourself, you want to create questions based on your notes since it is mainly composed of information from your teacher/professor and textbook. The questions you create should be based on the style of question you will most likely find in your actual examination. To do so, write questions similar to those from your previous exams. You could also aks your teacher/professor for an insight on the format. I recommend that you create your question bank on Quizlet since it will automatically calculate how many times you got the answer right or wrong. This will provide you with some insight on which topics to focus on your future revisions (hopefully, these analytics match your confidence level from your revision spreadsheet).
To close...
In my personal experience, the combination of these systems and ideas have helped me tremendously to succeed in school, and I plan on implementing them during my time in university as well. The real studying comes from revising your notes, so you must have an understanding of how to do so effectively. I hope that you will try out these tips and tricks for your next exam or quiz. Let me know if you have a question or a suggestion for a blog post in the comments. See you in the comments!
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