A Complete Guide on How to: Create a Study Guide
Creating a study guide for school can be difficult, but here's how to do it flawlessly.
Creating a well-structured study guide is an essential step toward academic success. Here's how to create a study guide that's effective and can help you navigate through complex course materials, prepare for exams, and reinforce your understanding of key concepts.
Whether you're just starting high school or you're looking to study a little more effectively, understanding how to create a study guide tailored to your needs can significantly impact your learning experience. These practical techniques and strategies for creating comprehensive and organized study guides will enhance your retention of information and boost your academic performance.
This post is all about how to create a study guide.
Create a Study Guide
1. Gather Your Materials
The first step to creating any successful study guide, it to collect all of the materials you can access in order to start studying. Here are some of the places I normally get my study materials from:
- Class Notes: Ensure you have all your notes from lectures and class discussions
- Textbooks and Readings: Gather all textbooks, articles, and assigned readings
- Assignments and Handouts: Include any homework, worksheets, or handouts given throughout the course
- Previous Tests and Quizzes: Review past exams and quizzes for recurring themes and important concepts
- Online Resources: Don’t forget any relevant online resources, such as lecture slides, videos, or supplementary materials provided by your teacher
Once you have anything and everything that could be helpful, it's important to organize all of these notes before you get started. You can try and break everything into piles of:
- Main Ideas: Notes with all the major topics covered in your course
- Subtopics: Ideas that break down into main topics, these are usually smaller, key concepts
- Important Details: These can be notes with definitions, formulas, key dates, and significant events or processes
After you've done this you should have piles of well-organized notes that are relevant to the test or quiz you're studying for. This step is also beneficial because by just organizing your notes, you've already begun to review everything.
2. Block off Time
It's essential to have a certain amount to time set aside for you to work on your study guide. Think about all your commitments, including classes, extracurricular activities, work, and personal obligations. You should try to set time aside to work on making the study guide AND time to actually use it. There's no point in making one if you can't use it. The time you set aside to use the study guide can be small blocks of time, even just 30 minutes. With studying, small, frequent bursts can be super helpful to keep you focused. Besides that, my biggest tip is to just pick a time and stick to it. Go into your study blocks expecting to spend that time on school work and only school work. Try your best to minimize distractions.
3. Use Previous Tests
Your biggest asset when creating an effective study guide will always be previous tests in that class or subject. When you're looking at your previous tests identify:
- Frequently Tested Topics: Look for recurring themes and topics that appear across multiple tests. These are likely to be important and worth spending extra time on
- Question Formats: Pay attention to the types of questions asked (e.g., multiple choice, short answer, essay). This can help you understand the format of future exams
- Mistakes: Identify questions you got wrong and understand why. This will help you pinpoint areas where you need further study
Once you do this, you can rewrite the test question in your own words. Practicing writing test questions is a great way to actively engage with your study materials and can be highly beneficial on the actual test. ALSO, you can then use those questions to create a practice test. This can simulate the test-taking experience and improve your confidence.
4. Create Learning Goals
Setting goals for yourself before and while you create your study guide is SO IMPORTANT! When you have specific goals, it's easier to stay motivated. You know what you need to achieve, so you’re more likely to stay focused and keep going. Plus, every goal you hit feels like a win, which makes you want to keep pushing forward.
Here is an example of how I would set study guide goals for an upcoming biology test:
- Overall Goal: Get at least a 90 on the biology test.
- Break Down Material: Chapters 1-5.
- Specific Goals:
- Monday: Read and summarize chapter 1.
- Tuesday: Create flashcards for Chapter 1 vocabulary.
- Wednesday: Review Chapter 1 flashcards and do practice problems.
- Repeat for the other chapters.
With goals, you can study more strategically. You might focus on the hardest topics first or start with easier ones to build confidence. This way, you make the most of your study time and perform better on tests.
How to Use the Study Guide
5. Answer all of the Questions Once
Once you have your ready-to-go, it's important to know how to use it for the most effective studying. You want to start by just taking the test once. During this, you should try to simulate testing conditions as much as possible. Make sure you have a quiet spot to test and give yourself the same amount of time you would have on the actual test.
Even though you made the questions do not have the answers anywhere near you, and don't allow yourself to look through your other materials. This should be as close as possible to the actual test.
6. Review Subject Material You Got Wrong
Once you're done actually taking the test, take your time to "grade" it. Go through and mark all of the questions that you got wrong. But, don't write the answers on the test. Leave the test with your original answers. I like to mark my questions with red, green, or yellow. Red is for questions completely wrong, yellow for questions that might have just been a mistake, and green for anything correct.
Go through the answers to each question you got wrong and really take the time to understand the mistakes you made. Then, quickly come up with one or two more examples of why the correct answer is correct. Once you've done this, then you're ready to take a break.
7. Take a Break
Taking a break in between reviewing a practice test can allow you to slightly forget the information so that you can re-answer any questions you got wrong. Breaks allow your brain time to process and consolidate the information you've studied. This can improve long-term retention and make recall easier during exams.
I like to wait at least 2 hours, but sometimes it can be helpful to wait until the next day. Adequate rest, including sleep, plays a crucial role in memory consolidation. Taking a break gives you the opportunity to get quality sleep, further enhancing your learning.
Go through any questions you marked yellow or red and answer them again. This time there should be fewer questions you get wrong. Make sure to continue marking missed questions in red or yellow until they are all green.
8. Repeat This Process
You should repeat steps 5-6 with the questions you got wrong as many times as you need. AND remember the more you use the information you're trying to study the better you will remember it. It's SO IMPORTANT to use the study you made regularly leading up to the test. Every time you review your guide, you add another layer to your understanding. Regularly going through your study guide helps you spot and clear up any areas where you’re confused, leading to a more complete understanding of the material.
Overall, by using your study guide regularly, it becomes much more than just a reference tool. It's a core part of your study routine. Use it to help you understand and remember the material better.
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