Disorganized to Organized in 1 Easy Step

I hate preparing for an exam when my notes are not legible and disorganized. Half the battle of studying is organizing my notes before an exam. Even when my notes are organized I still feel like reading them over does not help me effectively study. When studying from my notes, I need a study technique that quizzes me and helps me to know word for word definitions or concepts. As I said before, half the battle of preparing for an exam is organizing your notes. This can be extremely annoying and time consuming. When I want to start studying, I want to dive right in to it and not take hours to get organized. This is a waste of time and something that should bee handled weeks ago. This is why the note taking technique of PLUG-IN NOTES is very effective and helpful.

HOW TO DO IT

Plug-in notes help you organize yourself before an exam as well as study throughout the semester, rather than study and organize the night before. After class, you reread your notes and pull out major, important parts of information. With this info you make different graphic organizers (by topic). With these graphic organizers, you then create test questions and answers that help you study for your next exam.

I used this technique for my PSC 121 class. After class I highlighted the major chunks of info that I found to be most important. I made two graphic organizers for the two main topics we covered that day. I then made a question/answer chart that covered everything in my graphic organizers.

L A M E

I am the type of Learner that needs to be quizzed multiple times before I understand a concept. This technique works for me because I am writing out my notes more than once and by creating exam questions I am quizzing myself. This Action, of reading and re-writing my notes more than once and then quizzing myself, is effective and helps me to get the information cemented into my head. The Materials I used for this strategy are plug-in notes and various graphic organizers. These have helped me to be more organized and less stressed before an exam. My Evaluation of this strategy is very positive. By doing this note-taking strategy, I am studying weeks before an exam and lessening my work load the week of my exam. By re-reading and writing out my notes in different ways (graphic organizers) I just reintroduce myself to the info, making every topic more familiar.