Outsmart your studies how to study learn effectively hack your memory with faster revision techniques for exam success will

OUTSMART YOUR STUDIESHow To Study Effectively, Hack Your Memory, & Learn Faster William Wadsworth... How to Study Effectively: The Six Pillars of Student Success Pillar 1: Know Where You

OUTSMART YOUR STUDIES

How To Study Effectively, Hack Your Memory,

& Learn Faster

William Wadsworth

Copyright © 2022 William Wadsworth All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or

by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission from the publisher.

C ONTENTS

Introduction

Part 1 How to Study Effectively: The Six Pillars of Student Success

Pillar 1: Know Where You’re Going

Tracking your learning across differenttopics

Tracking your progress in writtenassignments

Matching your studies to the time availableWhat does “good” look like?

Pillar 2: Know You Can Get There

Pillar 3: Make Time for the Journey

Deciding on your routine

Staying consistent

Pillar 4: Eyes on the Road

Controlling external distractions

Controlling internal distractions

Pillar 5 Learn Faster by Retrieving

Studying with retrieval practice

Pillar 6 Remember for Longer by Spacing

The Goldilocks Effect

Putting it all together: building spacingright into your study routine

Part 2 Learning Faster: Six Study Strategies that Work

Strategy 1 Powerful Learning Using the Blank Paper Technique

Upgrading your mindmaps

How to upgrade your note-making

Best practise for Q&A Ultranotes

Strategy 4 Getting Creative with Practice Questions & Past Papers

Four advanced ways to use practicequestions

Strategy 5 Hack Your Memory with Study-Ready Mnemonic Tricks

Mnemonic techniques: helpful for students?What is chunking?

Mnemonics to chunk and remembernumbers

Mnemonics to learn long and tricky lists

Strategy 6 Get Test-Ready for Maths (& More) with Interleaving

What is interleaving, and how does itwork?

Studying with interleaving

How far can you stretch the concept ofinterleaving?

Putting It All Together

Your study system: choosing strategies thatare right for you

Study systems for knowledge-rich coursesStudy systems for less “knowledge-rich”courses

How to get in Touch and a Final Request…

Recommended Reading

I NTRODUCTION

Welcome to Outsmart Your Studies, the bookthat teaches time-strapped students how tostudy more effectively for their exams, so youcan:

Learn faster and remember morePrepare for exams without theoverwork and stress

Get the grades you want anddeserve on test day

These exams you’re working towards could

be standardised tests at (high) school, exams

as part of your university or college course,

or even qualifications taken as part of yourcareer It really doesn’t matter – the strategiesfor effective studying are the same

If you have stuff to learn for your exams, ifyou want to do well, and if you want aneasier path to getting there, then this is thebook for you!

* * * * * * *The first part of this book covers thefoundations: the Six Pillars of StudentSuccess, introducing principles the rest of thebook will focus on:

Pillar 1 – Know Where You’reGoing: have a plan

Pillar 2 – Know You Can GetThere: master your mindset

Pillar 3 – Make Time for theJourney: building a solid studyroutine

Pillar 4 – Eyes on the Road:cultivating unshakeable focus

Pillar 5 – Learn Faster byRetrieving: how to get knowledge tostick in memory – fast

Pillar 6 – Remember for Longer bySpacing: the secret to beating

“forgetting”

Part 2 covers the Six Study Strategies ThatWork It’s not necessary to use all these

strategies – most students get great results byfocusing on just one, two, or three You canread this part in order, but it’s also possible todip into specific strategies that appeal to youthe most.

Strategy 1 – Powerful LearningUsing the Blank Paper TechniqueStrategy 2 – Supercharge YourMemory with Flashcard MasteryStrategy 3 – Q&A Ultranotes: How

to Make Notes You Can ActuallyRemember

Strategy 4 – Getting Creative withPractice Questions & Past PapersStrategy 5 – Hack Your Memorywith Study-Ready Mnemonic TricksStrategy 6 – Get Test-Ready forMaths (& More) with Interleaving

To finish, Putting It All Together explains

how you can use the various strategies incombination to build a complete and coherentstudy system

A smarter path to exam success awaits!

PILLAR 1: KNOW WHERE YOU’RE

GOING

First things first: what do you actually need

to do to succeed in your exams?

Before anything else, you need to be clear onwhat’s expected of you

Tracking your learning across different topics

Have a list of topics/subtopics, and consider asimple tracking system so you can see at-a-glance which topics need more work

A traffic light system can work great for this:red for “needs work,” amber for “gettingthere,” and green for “got this.”

Start with the “red” topics, and once you’redone, move on to amber.

Tracking your progress in written assignments

If you’re working towards a big writing

assignment, like a dissertation, thesis, orresearch project, start by thrashing out the bigbuilding blocks of the task first.

That could be by content area: what differentsub-topics do you need to work on as part ofyour overall assignment?

Alternatively, you could plan the project bywork phase, with new reading first, thenplanning, writing-up, and proofreading

Matching your studies to the time available

Once you’ve made your “map” for whatneeds doing in your studying, do a quick timebudget for it For example, if there are 11

chapters to study and you have 25 daysbefore the test, that’s 1 chapter every 2 days,with a few days to spare.

Does that feel realistic?

If not, how can you prioritise or scale backyour ambitions to make the task fit into thetime available?

Don’t make your study plan too detailed –you’re looking for a birds-eye view of theroad ahead, not a minute-by-minute timetablefor every moment

What does “good” look like?

I would also advise looking down the roadahead a little

As a good example, if you’re learning fortests and exams, most students spend timelearning a topic, then start looking at pastpaper questions

Flip that on its head, and you’ll get betterresults

Start by looking at real exam questions forthat topic – maybe even attempting a few,

making educated guesses wherever you needto.

Then, when you go back and revise the topic,you’ll have a much deeper sense of what youneed to know and why and how you’ll apply

it in the exam That will help the topic “goin” much better – a bit like a farmerploughing his field before sowing crops

But what if you’re working on a project orassignment?

Well, this idea about “looking ahead” mightstretch to finding out what you can aboutwhat’s expected of you in the assignment –look at how they’re marked, if you can, andmaybe seek out any examples of what “good”looks like

Perhaps some past student projects areavailable in the library, or your tutors havemade some model essays available The moreyou understand about what the assessors want

to see, the easier it will be for you to deliver

PILLAR 2: KNOW YOU CAN GET

THERE

Some study advisors recommend settinggoals about what you want to achieve in yourexams

That’s all well and good, but I want you to go

a level deeper and decide what kind ofstudent you want to be

Will you settle for mediocre?

Or will you make the decision to identify as ahigh-performing student?

There’s a magic in deciding to act like a performer because you’ll behave accordingly.That might only mean a small tweak to your

high-habits each day, like working three hoursinstead of two and using retrieval practicetechniques (see Pillar 5), not just re-reading.Small changes sustained each day over weeksand months add up to a massive difference inthe end result.

What if you struggle to associate with thatnew high-performer identity today?

Then PRETEND

Ask yourself: what would a high performer

do in this situation? How would they tacklethis assignment or tricky exam question?Act accordingly

With a bit of practise and time, you’ll soonrealise you no longer need to pretend – youARE the high performer you’ve beenpretending to be all this time

Here’s a really important point:

Ability isn’t fixed Your brain can grow,change, and develop, and with the right kind

of practise, you can get better at things even

if you weren’t so good at them before

So, you don’t believe you have what it takes

to be a high-performer?

Not smart enough?

Not clever enough?

You don’t have to settle with where you’reperforming today With deliberate, sustainedpractise, you can level up your brain andimprove

There’s no such thing as not being “good atsomething” – it’s simply that you’re not good

at it “yet”!

This idea that your abilities can level up iscalled growth mindset, and the more youadopt this belief, the more you’ll be open tothe idea that you can improve at those thingsyou find difficult today with the right kind ofdeliberate practise Studies show that themore likely you do this, the better yourchances at excelling in life, including atschool and college

Pay attention to stories from students like youwho might have struggled – evenexperiencing failure and disappointment at

first, only to keep practising and perseveringuntil they ultimately found success Suchstories can be incredibly powerful forchanging what we believe is possible forourselves.

You can find a wealth of such stories on theExam Study Expert podcast See, forexample, episodes 69 or 73 (examstudyexpert.com/podcast)

PILLAR 3: MAKE TIME FOR THE

JOURNEY

One thing high-performing students have incommon is a great study routine

Your study routine is quite a personal thing,

so I can’t give you a one-size-fits-all templatetimetable that works for everyone But if youdon’t have a regular routine, it’s well worthtaking a moment to sketch out what yourideal routine might look like

Deciding on your routine

Here are some points to consider whenputting together your routine:

When are your energy levels naturally highest? Do you do your

best work in the first half of themorning? Just before lunch? Lateafternoon? Schedule study blocks totake advantage of these peak energylevels Be defensive of the times ofday you have the highest energy andpreserve them for working on yourmost demanding tasks

Leave time for YOU If you’re

ambitious, it’s tempting to cram asmuch work into each day aspossible Resist this temptation.Take the time to rest, eat well,exercise, and sleep properly eachnight, and you’ll be able to givemore of yourself for longer

Start sure If you’re new to your

study routine, don’t aim for gold onday 1 Set your sightsconservatively, with a routine youknow you can absolutely stick to,even on low energy/motivation

days If you feel you can do more,

do more, but it’s far better to exceedyour expectations than set yourself

up for failure and discouragement

Add in some regular spaced retrieval practice In Pillars 5 and

6, we’ll be talking about theimportance of regular (re)-testingyourself on material – the best way

to get knowledge to stick inmemory I’m a big fan of building

in these opportunities for spacedtesting right into your study routine,

so could you, for example, block offthe first and last hour (or half-hour)

of your study day to test yourself onwhat you’ve covered in the previous

24 hours?

My own routine at university level ended uplooking something like the following:

It’s not perfect – in hindsight, the big thingmissing here is some regular exercise to keepenergy levels up, and I’d also schedule somemeditation practise in the morning to buildfocus But, given what I knew at the time, itwas pretty good – fitting in an awful lot ofquality work into each and every day.

A couple of important notes:

I didn’t do this every day I had anearly finish on Wednesdays,Thursdays, and Saturdays (c 5 pm)and only worked in the mornings onSundays, having the rest of the dayoff.

With this extra rest time throughoutthe week, the routine wassustainable for the medium-term:the eight weeks or so I was workingflat-out, preparing for the big year-end exams But I couldn’t have kept

it up for much more; it wasn’t ayear-round plan

This may look crazy-ambitious toyou That’s cool This isn’t a target– this is just what I did Your targetmay be wildly different, depending

on your capacity for work, whichcan take years to build and may beinfluenced by all sorts of factorsbeyond your control, includingphysical and mental health Don’tworry about what I did – you do

what’s right for you Just bedeliberate about scheduling yourday in advance, whatever your daymight look like.

On the other hand, some of you maytry to aim to do even more workthan on this plan I would urgecaution here: try to fit in many morehours than this routine, and at best,you’ll risk reducing your focus andenergy levels – at worst,compromising your health Eitherway, the net result is finding itincreasingly hard to workeffectively, leading to you workingmore hours each day but achievingfar less

Remember, the secret to success is studyingsmarter, not harder – focus on improving thequality of your study hours (with the help ofthis guide!), not the quantity of hours you’respending

Staying consistent

The key to studying effectively (and prettywell everything else in life!) is consistency.The difference between high-performers andeveryone else is often very small:

Imagine two people who want to get a bookwritten One puts in half an hour every singlemorning to write a page or two The otherdoesn’t A year later, one has a book; theother doesn’t

Or imagine two students who both want toget into a top university One spends a quarter

of an hour a night reading around her subject;the other doesn’t Six months later, one haslots of interesting things to say in herinterview – the other doesn’t

Or, for one final example: two students areambitious for exam success One spends tenminutes a night memory journaling (seeStrategy 1) – the other doesn’t At the end ofthe year, one has a decent memory for lotscovered on the course and goes on to doreally well in the exams; the other strugglesand is disappointed with their grade

Change your daily habits – even by just a bit– and you can change your life.

Provided you stay consistent!

PILLAR 4: EYES ON THE ROAD

Want to know my secret to full focus?

Do one thing at a time

It’s tempting to think you can get more done

by “multi-tasking,” but actually, each timeyour concentration breaks or you switch tosomething else, you’ll lose valuable minutesre-finding your focus on whatever you weretrying to do

So, rather than multi-tasking and beingdistracted, practise monotasking: doing onething at once, and be disciplined about givingyour full attention to the task at hand byeliminating distractions.

There are two kinds of distractions: externaland internal Let’s consider how to manageeach type in turn

Controlling external distractions

External distractions are anything in theworld around you that can break yourthoughts, even if just for a moment – let’sstart by controlling these

First, set yourself up for success by choosing

a study environment with fewer distractions –

ideally a place in which you only study so

that your brain learns to treat being in thatplace or sitting in that specific chair as apowerful cue that it’s time to do somestudying

Then, get on top of technology

Start by taking control of your phone Putairplane mode ON (or better yet, switch itoff), then get the phone OFF your desk andOUT of sight

Having it out while you’re studying will playall kinds of havoc with your concentration.Even if you’re making an effort to ignore the

ting or buzz every time someone messages

you on Snapchat, WhatsApp, or whatever,you’ll need an iron will to stop your mindfrom wandering off to whatever’s happening

on social media today

If you’re working on a laptop, put it onairplane mode, so you’re less tempted by thegreat playground of the internet Or, if youneed the internet to work, then change thepassword on all your biggest sources of

distraction – Netflix, social media accounts,and so on – and put the passwords on a piece

of paper as far away from you as possible –ideally in a completely different room If youlive with others, choose a public room, likethe kitchen, so the perceived shame ofwalking past others to retrieve yourpasswords acts as a further deterrent

Controlling internal distractions

So, what about internal distractions?

It’s normal for other thoughts to drift intoyour head when you sit down to work:worrying about other subjects, ideas or plans,things you need to do Some call it

“mindwandering.” It’s very natural, and weall do it!

There are a couple of things that might help.The first is to train your mind to have betterfocus through meditation Meditation is nowmainstream practise, and if you’re new to theconcept, there are different flavours, but themost prevalent is simply practising focusingyour attention on your breath – not breathing

in any special way, just letting your attentionrest on your breathing Your mind willnaturally wander; that’s fine, but each time itdoes, bring your focus back to the breath, and

in doing so, you’ll build your concentrationalmost as if it were a muscle

You can read more about the benefits ofmeditation for students and find links toresources and apps to help you get started atexamstudyexpert.com/benefits-of-meditation-for-students

A second approach is to try maintaining a

After you’ve finished your work, you cancome back to the items on your distractionslist.

Remember – keep your eyes on the road, and

be disciplined on focusing on one thing atonce: monotasking You’ll get more done inless time as a result

PILLAR 5 LEARN FASTER BY

RETRIEVING

Pillars 1–4 are all about productivity: helpingyou work on the right things, overcominglimiting beliefs, making enough time for yourstudies (but not too much!), and stayingfocused

The advice in these first four pillars wouldapply pretty broadly across all academic workand even to many jobs in the knowledgeeconomy

We now switch our focus for the remainingtwo pillars to the more specific challenge of

studying in the right way – using strategies

that help knowledge stick in long-term

As a cognitive psychologist who specialises

in the science of memory, this is where I start

to get really excited!

Pillar 5 is all about retrieval practice(sometimes known as active recall) – ifyou’re new to this idea, then I’d consider it to

be the most important thing in this wholebook

To learn faster and remember for longer, doretrieval practice In other words, practiseretrieving (recalling) information frommemory Each time you try to remember afact, your memory for that fact growsstronger

Retrieval practice is one of the most robusteffects in all psychology, let alone thepsychology of memory, with hordes ofstudies showing how powerful the strategy is

if you want knowledge to stick in your

examstudyexpert.com/Retrieval-Practice formore on the science and evidence behindretrieval practice

Retrieval practice has a direct effect onlearning: meaning that when we bringinformation back to mind from memory, weactually change the memory, making itstronger – much more so than if we’d simplyre-read that information.

So, when choosing effective studytechniques, pick ones that involve testingyourself in some way Any technique thatinvolves trying to remember what you know

is likely to be a great way to learn, and thereare some effective ways to study Examplesinclude:

Flashcards, either paper or digitalequivalents using quiz apps

summary notes or mindmaps from memory,

in which case, congratulations – you’re doingretrieval practice!

Studying with retrieval practice

We’ll be getting into far more detail on how

to use specific study techniques usingretrieval practice in the remainder of this

book, but there are a few general points toremember:

Some exposure to the knowledge inthe first place will be necessarybefore doing retrieval practice, soyou might start your exampreparation with non-retrievaltechniques (like re-reading ormaking notes); the trick is to move

on to retrieval practice mode assoon as possible (and probablybefore it feels truly “comfortable” to

do so!)

Don’t wait “until you’ve learned it”

to start doing retrieval! That’smissing the point – the retrievalpractice IS the learning; it’s notabout checking what you know –it’s the process by which you buildthe memory

When doing your retrieval practice,there will always be two elements:testing (trying to remember), and

feedback (did you get the answerright? If not, what should it havebeen?) Don’t forget the feedbackpart – it’s vital you check what theanswer should have been Thismight be as simple as flipping aflashcard to find out what thecorrect answer was on the back, or itmight mean spending time carefullymarking a set of practice questionsagainst a mark scheme if available,

or otherwise with reference to notes

or books

Don’t worry about getting all theanswers “right” when doing yourretrieval practice – making mistakes

or forgetting things is part of theprocess Embrace it – you’ll learnfrom any mistakes you do make