Do You Want Effective Study Skills? Try M.U.R.D.E.R.

Chester Bennington is wailing, "The sun goes down, I feel the light betray me" on your radio; the cold beads of sweat that form on your forehead agree with Bennington– for the nth time you have a long exam tomorrow morning and you are nowhere near prepared. You call on every divinity, pray to every God, to be miraculously given effective study skills; however, you will settle for time to stop so you can cram longer.

Hypothetically, if time did stop, how can you make up for lost time and acquire effective study skills? How about through M.U.R.D.E.R.:

Mood:

Think of studying as a date that you would like to impress and go out of your way. Create the right ambience. Pick a place that can help you concentrate, most people need a place where there is silence but there are a handful of people that need noise to concentrate. Play some music to sustain your mood.

Understand:

Get yourself a marker and mark areas of your text that strikes you as important; or make an outline of the material.

Recall:

Stop every once in a while to paraphrase what you have read in your own words; if you can express the idea in your own words, it means you have understood what you were studying and have also memorized it.

Digest:

You can also mark concepts or ideas that you did not understand and look it up further or ask for a second opinion from a classmate or the professor.

Expand:

Try to see the connection between the material you are currently studying and your previous lessons; or try to see the relevance of your text in your life.

Review:

Review the materials you have studied; ideally, you should be reviewing the highlighted texts and the notes you have made instead of reading everything again.

Whether you have a big exam or you just want to maintain a respectable GPA, always keep MURDER at the back of your mind: MURDER, the only crime that pays.