Study Tips

Hahaha this is my (Kai Wei) first attempt on giving study tips! Well, as you know our blog is called STUDY HARD, WORK SMART. So this blog is not all about our business model which we are going to post soon. As i talked about myself on the "About the Team" section, I HATE studying, but there are reasons why I still study hard (Go read the section!). I am not SUPER, SUPER, SUPER smart but at least I try hard and score decently in school. (Aggregate score of 7 in "O" Levels and top 3% in my current Junior College) I DID MY VERY BEST! But let's be honest, I still lose to many students. I believe that if you are to follow my tips step by step, you can score!

When you are studying:

Step 1) Have an aim, have a goal. You must learn to set target! Yes, I know it sounds like what you get in primary school but seriously, why study when you haven't even create a path for you to follow, right? I would usually set a target for each of my subjects and they must be achievable, of course. You must also bear in mind all of your targets set for each subject, be serious about it and always ask yourself why do you study so hard for? 

Step 2) Time management is one of the most important aspects to doing well in school. I am sure that you have heard of everyone saying this, right? Well, I always manage my time when I was in secondary school. For example, I plan out what subjects and chapters I am going to study throughout the examination period. You can do this by writing down on a piece of paper but usually I plan all these in my head because I am lazy. What's most important is that you should always allocate buffer time just in case you do not have enough time to study what you intend to study. Also to plan to study within your capability!

Step 3a) This is a tricky one, developing YOUR study method. I believe some of teachers you have met would say "your studying methods are wrong". Well, have you ever wonder why some people can just score so high even though you put in the same amount of effort as them? Their secret to success is "how to study" and not "how long to study". Let me cite an example, if you are to study for maths, are you going to really memorise all the formulas which are actually going to be given? OR are you going to start practising and familiarise yourself with all the different types of questions? I believe you would choose the latter(If not, Kill Yourself). Everyone has a different preference on how to study a certain subject. For me, I like to study maths by doing questions chapter by chapter while you may like doing maths practice papers. You may like to practise questions for Chemistry while I may prefer to just read notes :). You would have to experiment different studying methods and use one that suits you and remember, DIFFERENT SUBJECTS require different studying methods!

Step 3b) Another point I want to convey is that some people are just champions at rote-learning. Trust me, rote-learning GETS YOU NO WHERE! I have a friend who always top the class in his secondary school through rote-learning and once he came to Junior College, BOOM! Failing tests and everything. Why? Because there is no way you can memorise SO MUCH INFORMATION!! To be frank, I was once like him, memorising and memorising, and you know what? I even memorised a whole secondary two history textbook in two days WORD BY WORD! But what's the point? My good friend didn't even study much and topped the cohort for history (I was second in cohort for history then). I then went to ask him how did he do it, and his reply really made me reflect upon myself. "Understand, remember keywords, write with your own language, score" was his answer. So I followed his way and eventually got second in cohort for my overall results :) and the best part? I DIDN'T even spend much time STUDYING. After much thought, I realised that understanding concepts is the most important when it comes to studying. It is because after you memorise keywords(noun, verbs, adjectives and adverbs), you are able to use YOUR OWN LANGUAGE to fill in the gaps between the keywords to complete an answer for the questions asked in exams. This is especially helpful if you are to attempt questions that demand a lengthy paragraph of answer, because you are able to visualise in your head the concepts you have learn. For example, if you are to describe the whole process of photosynthesise and able to visualise the whole process and remember keywords such as "glucose, carbon dioxide, water, conditions, transported, etc..", it would be simple to craft your answer by filling the gaps in between.

So this is the first part of the tips I have written, I hope you find it useful! I would be writting the second part which is studying tips when you are at home, school and with friends. ZM would be posting the business model soon and I sincerely hope you guys would join! Furthermore, he would also be posting on how to do well in your Co-Curriculum Activities(CCAs) (Trust me, he's the man, being the vice president of a CCA in secondary school and president in junior college). 

BTW, if you have any tips you can also share by commenting below hahaha.