Excerpts
 

Chapter V
 

Studying Effectively,
and Preparing for Tests/Exams

82. The key to good grades is figuring out how to teach yourself material fast and effectively, beyond the usual memory tricks.
 

It's all in the approach. Successful students have taught themselves how to learn and retain material. Others waste time and flounder.

There are numerous effective ways to teach yourself the material you need to know to make “A”s on tests. They usually require more work than average, but not that much more. It's more important to be smart and aware than just put in hours.
 

83. Create your own study guides like my brilliant “Unconventionally-Typeset” printouts.
 

Think outside the box!

I created an EXCELLENT method that almost always guaranteed me an “A” on a test. It required some work but it was in doing that work that I learned the material because it drove the material deep into my brain.

It starts with good class notes, which is why it is imperative that a student never miss class, and always write down every word a professor utters, or at least the gist of every point a professor makes in a lecture. With notes this good, the student can then prepare for a test three or four days before the test, by first typing into any word processing program everything from the student's notebook that will be on the test.

THEN, to emphasize various notes and drive things into one's brain, the student should typeset those notes in sort of an unconventional way by making important words or phrases bold, by increasing the point size of other words, phrases, definitions and the like, by centering other points, by using italics, by using increased-point-size italics, by using a different type style here and there. The point is to make your notes jump off the page!

In the process of doing this, the material will go deep into a student's brain.

The student should print those creatively typeset notes and staple the several pages together then have one's way with the them by underlining in red or tagging pages or using asterisks or any other method the student likes, to add even more emphasis to the most important things.
 

84. A student who gets behind will find my Unconventionally-Typeset study guide invaluable.
 

A student in danger of failing a course or worse – not being able to graduate – must pull out all the stops. This kind of student would not usually retype the relevant part of his/her notebook before a test, but this is WAR, and whatever a student retypes into Unconventionally-Typeset notes, will be driven deep into the student's brain. Especially if the student then has his/her way with the printout by underlining the most important things in red, using asterisks, highlighting, tagging sections, etc., etc.

If a student has mediocre notes, then the Unconventionally-Typeset study guide will have less value BUT, that being the case, the student should borrow the notes of a classmate or friend. It is far better to go into a critical test prepared than to sit on one's butt and fail a course, or not graduate.

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