Best studying methods(General)

[Darien So 2K]

I sleep, I eat, I...sleep again, and then I go to lecture. Obviously it isn't the most efficient way to study, but it works sometimes. Any cool studying strategies that you guys would suggest incorporating into my busy life schedule? Thanks

[Deven Patel]

The textbook problems help me understand the material more usually, following the outlines on Chemistry Community helps. You don't need to do all of them just enough that it helps you feel confident on the material.

[Steven Tjandra 1B]

Hello,

Yeah I definitely second what Deven said, doing practice problems is definitely the best way to study. However, I would also add that looking through your notes and understanding the reasoning behind why we perform certain things is nearly as important. For me at least, I kinda determine whether I understand the concepts by talking to an imaginary peer and seeing whether I can fully explain a concept. If I find myself stuck, then it's clear that I need to do more studying. While in the end, you "just" need to know the formulas and processes to get your answers, a lot of the time, understanding the concepts behind it can better help you intuit what's happening and even help you engineer the formulas again if you end up forgetting a piece on the test. For example, it can be hard to remember how K will change if heat is raised in an exothermic vs endothermic reaction. But, if you understand what K is and what enthalpy is, you can intuit that raising temperature would provide more activation energy to favor reactants and products respectively (since they have . This would mean that K would go down and up respectively. And I know you're joking but having fun is also really good! Believe it or not, but taking time off from work definitely helps me focus better when I get back to it.

Rambling,
Steven Tjandra

[Ashley Barrera 1J]

Problems from the text book for sure, its best to work on them weekly rather than try to scramble and pick which ones to go over close to exam dates. I did this at first and I ended up studying for certain lectures and not at all for other concepts. Professor Lavelle also has step up sessions since the textbook answers arent always as helpful. Hope this helps!