How to Study When You Have Absolutely No Idea What’s Going On
So you haven’t been to class in three weeks, you’re totally lost when you do somehow stumble into your tutorials, and you have a test next Monday. You don’t really know what’s going on in your course but you need to get that content mastered ASAP. I’ve been in this situation far too many times (hello Calc I, II, III, Real Analysis and Electro-Magnetism), so I know how to get through it. These tips probably won’t get you an A, but they may help you pass.
1) Time-frame: Depending on your workload and how fast you work, this will be different for you. Usually, for me, it takes about a week of studying hard (usually two hours a day) to go from knowing absolutely nothing to knowing enough to pass. Know your time-frame, and plan study time accordingly. Break your content up across your time frame so you know what you need to finish on each day. It’s usually easiest to break the work up by chapter if you don’t know what’s happening.
2) Resources: If you’re at university, your prof probably uploads his or her lecture notes to some sort of online platform. If not, you probably have a textbook. Gather all your resources together because you will need all of them.
3) Get a fresh notebook. You probably need to - literally - turn over a new leaf. If you’re doing something that requires a lot of practice, like maths, I recommend getting two notebooks - one for notes and one for practice questions. They don’t need to be fancy notebooks, or even new - they just need to be fresh.
4) Start at the basics. If you start somewhere and don’t know what’s happening, go back a chapter. Start with the easy stuff and work your way through the material. Make notes in that fresh notebook. Write stuff in your own words. Talk out loud to teach yourself the work if you need to. Google stuff you don’t understand. Even the most basic stuff - if you don’t know what it means, find out and take things one baby step at a time. Work at your own pace.
5) Do practice work. These may be problem sets, or tutorial questions, practice essays…whatever you have available. If your textbook has extra questions, mark off the interesting ones and get to work. Download a solutions manual if you can, so that if you get stuck you have it as reference. ONLY if you get stuck. Do not abuse textbook solutions. In any case, you’re going to need a lot of practice in a short amount of time to get on track with your work. I recommend doing some practice questions immediately when you learn something, and marking some off to revise later.
6) Enlist help. Find your classmates, your prof, your TAs, Sal from Khan Academy (bless him)….whoever you can. If you get stuck on something with your practice work, you’ll need to ask someone to help you. There’s nothing wrong with asking someone for help.
7) Practice exams/tests. Now that you’ve gotten up to scratch with the work you should have learnt three weeks ago, it’s time to test how well you know it. Find practice tests or exams, and work through them. First do some with consulting your notes, then without. This will help you fill in the gaps in your knowledge.
8) Trust your work. The day of the big test has arrived and you’re feeling stressed. Trust that you put in the hard work and you actually know what you’re talking about now. You can do this.
I hope these tips are helpful! If you have any questions, feel free to send me an ask! You can also find my study instagram @ munirastudies where I post my studyspo I deleted tumblr mobile because it was too distracting.
Disclaimer: this is what works for me, personally. These tips are based off my experience. Everyone studies differently so these tips may not work for you. I hope they help anyway.
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