When you study for JEE, NEET or Boards, do you adopt a learning strategy? Majority of us don’t. We just follow the general practice, like rereading things multiple times (without thinking), underlining stuff, etc. Experts say that these are the most ineffective and time consuming methods of study!
4 Effective Learning Methods for IIT-JEE NEET and School Board Exams
There is so much research has happened about study techniques that it confuses even students and teachers. A group of experts (Psychology professors), after reviewing more than 700 scientific articles on 10 commonly used learning techniques, have outlined 4 study methods that can give best results to students.
1. Practice Tests / Self-Testing
Students have regular tests throughout the year from unit tests to half-yearly and final term exams, pre-boards and boards examinations, coaching tests, etc. These are conducted by school and coaching providers to test students knowledge. Practice tests are students own way of testing their preparation. A student can choose different types of practice tests like online mock tests or can try some interactive games/quizzes.
Practice testing triggers a mental search of long-term memory that activates related information, forming multiple memory pathways that make the information easier to access.
Some online practice tests also generate report of the student’s performance and can identify weaker areas so that he/she can improve those things next time.
2. Elaborative Interrogation
Students who are inquisitive in nature are already using this technique,
Prompting students to answer “Why?” question, called elaborative interrogation, also facilitates learning.
This technique mostly benefits those students who have some prior knowledge about the topic/subject.
3. Self-Explanation
If you don’t question yourself, learning is not complete. What new information you have learned from this? Is it relatable to some knowledge you already have? How precisely you can use this thing in solving problems? All these are important questions to review.
This technique improves memory, comprehension and problem solving—an impressive range of outcomes.
4. Interleaved Practice
What is Interleaved practice in learning? It’s a bit different from block practice (where students finish one topic or type of problems, before moving on to the next).
Suppose a teacher is explaining problems related to a topic, after some days, when a new topic/new kind of problem is introduced, it is mixed in with examples of earlier topics. This method is more time consuming than the blocking practice but is effective when type of problems are similar.
Interleaving allows students to practice selecting the correct method and encourages them to compare different kinds of problems.
You can try to adopt above study techniques and see if it helps in better learning.
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