This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Virginia Tech chapter.

Do’s

Reading and rereading a textbook can only help you study so much, but using active recall is much more effective for actually remembering the material. Active recall allows you to make sure that you are not passively engaging in the material, like how you can sometimes zone out during reading a textbook. Doing practice questions or exams is a great way to implement the information you’ve learned, and it allows you to see what areas might still need some work. Flashcards are also a great way to quickly quiz yourself on definitions or concepts you need to know while also identifying problem areas.

While it’s especially tempting in online classes to just type up notes on your laptop during lectures, research shows that handwriting notes aids in memory and recall abilities. Also, handwriting notes cause you to be more engaged in the material at hand since you have to consciously choose what to write down, versus just typing everything up verbatim. Because your class notes might be a bit messy or unorganized at the end of a fast-paced lecture, rewriting your notes can be very beneficial. Not only are you bettering your understanding and memory of the material, but you can also restructure your notes to make a more cohesive outline for studying.

Just reading the textbook or memorizing definitions might give you the knowledge you need, but it won’t help much when it comes to retaining and understanding the information. Contextual learning is the idea of taking the concepts you’ve learned and connecting them to each other and other situations, i.e., actually using the definitions in practice. Coming up with real-world examples related to one or more of the ideas you’re studying is a great way to connect concepts together. If you prefer visual aids, creating a concept map or a diagram showing the connections can also be very helpful in understanding the relationship between ideas.

Whether you can practice on a friend or simply have to say it out loud, taking the information you’ve learned and attempting to teach it to someone is shown to be a very effective way of breaking complex concepts down into simple ones. This is a great way to take very daunting information and separate it into more readily understandable concepts, which can be built back up into the whole. Explaining it to a friend who does not know the subject works best, but even if you are by yourself, acting as if you are explaining the concept to a child accomplishes the same task.

Don’ts

Although it’s important to make sure you have a firm grasp on the material you need, repeatedly reviewing concepts that you are fairly certain you have down can be a time-waster. For example, rather than going through the whole set of flash cards again, focus on the ones you missed the first time, and continue until you have none left before starting the deck again. Once you have gone through a few times successfully, it’s probably time to move on to something else.

It kind of goes without saying that the best studying would be the most focused, but are you removing all distractions you could? Especially when preparing for a big test, it’s crucial to be able to devote your time and attention to what you need to focus on. Whether that’s as simple as only focusing on one subject at a time, finding a quiet room to yourself, or turning your phone completely off, giving your full attention to the subject matter at hand will yield much better results than if you are constantly dividing your attention.

Another obvious one, but important to note. Trying to fit all your review into one study session is not only very time-consuming, but it is also not nearly as effective. Instead of blocking off hours to review your notes, do flashcards, and take a practice test, spread that time over multiple days, allowing you to be more efficient with your time as well as better retain the information you need. Cramming is also dangerous because hours on end of studying with no breaks can lead to exhaustion and burnout. Research shows that the most effective strategies include studying for maybe a half-hour or hour, with ten- or fifteen-minute breaks in between each period. Even on a full night of studying, this will lead to much less mental fatigue and allow you to get more studying done in the long run.

While it’s very easy to get caught up in hours of material, try to stay conscious of the last time you ate or got a drink. Getting hungry or dehydrated is only going to impede your process by not only making you more tired, but your brain won’t have the necessary energy to devote to processing the information you’re attempting to remember. Your studying might not necessarily be in vain, but it definitely won’t be as effective as it could be, and the last thing you want is to have to waste time going over concepts again that you might not have needed to.