Secrets of Your Study Progress: It’s Not All About Memorizing
It’s nice to see you again on our Blog on Paper4college.com! Are you ready to continue discovering more useful know-hows to cope with your study and work so that you could still enjoy your life time? That’s great if you are, because down below there is something definitely interesting and inspiring for you! Hope, the things you’re going to learn from this article will prove to be a good portion of some college homework help for you and a set of handy guidelines on your study success and progress as well. So, let’s start our discussion!
Several weeks ago we talked about the Secrets of Your Study Success. Then we agreed on the fact that good or even excellent grades don’t actually mean really good and deep knowledge. The knowledge as it is can’t be measured in numbers or letters. Having taken this idea as a basis for our considerations last time, we also determined 4 most significant attributes that characterize the nature of knowledge and add to the general definition of its concept. Let’s remember them all once again:
- explainability;
- inexhaustibility;
- interconnectedness;
- applicability (in numerous different real-life situations).
Now we can see that the grading system we have these days isn’t very likely to cover all of the dimensions which in fact should be taken into account by modern educators and teachers all around the world, to say nothing of the general condition of education system. In the previous discussion we also mentioned that in the circumstances given many truly gifted students tend to strive for just getting grades but not knowledge and experience. However, these are the two elements that make the whole sense of your learning and will come to rescue you whenever you are in trouble.
On the other hand, your grades won’t be able to do it. Neither numbers nor letters will be able to stand you in a good stead when it comes to solving problems you didn’t study at your school or college. What is the compromise then? How to make your grades in this or that subject correspond with the number of things you really know and can, and vice versa?
That’s what we’re going to find out right now!
Study Success & Study Progress: Why Differentiate Them
There is absolutely no doubt that they both are crucial to every student who has at least some idea on what he or she is doing at school, college or university (underline what applicable). Speaking generally, success and progress always walk side by side and even determine one another. Still, they can’t be considered synonyms, especially in terms of academic study, and here are a few reasons why.
#1. Success Is About Grades. Progress Is About Knowledge
I remember some of my college instructors would say that grades for students are like salary for workers. The more money some manager makes, the more successful he or she is considered to be. It must have implied that the higher student’s grades are, the more successful this student proves at his or her university. I want to be honest with you, so I must confess that it wasn’t a strong argument either for me or for some of my group mates, as we already had part-time jobs and knew that coffee can’t be bought for A-s. However, what was more important, we knew that we were paid for our knowledge, experience and skills, which in their turn determined our success. Besides, my job provided be personally with good practice and certain college homework help. Don’t you think these are also the essentials which students should be taught and which they should be graded for?Historically, one of the aims of education is to transmit the great amount of knowledge from generation to generation. We aren’t taking science into consideration now, because science should create new knowledge and prove or refute the old one. But that’s an issue for another discussion. So, the knowledge you have acquired and your understanding of what you can and should do with it proves whether you have made a step forward or not. Consequently, your progress in learning and understanding more and more new things can help you achieve considerable success in your study, moving forward with confidence and inspiration. And success can’t be healthy when it grows without rich soil. Besides, the knowledge you have will help you deal with difficulties, find ways out of complicated situations and hence receive even more valuable experience. Isn’t it what you so much to bring your dreams to life?
#2. Success Is Changeable. Progress Is Fundamental
There is hardly any straight-A student in the whole world who has never gotten any B or probably even C. I’m also more than sure that there must be some cases when your teacher or instructor tells you: “I know you could do it better”, “You never needed any college homework help with this subject, so what’s the matter this time?” or “It’s only your inattentiveness that has influenced the grade”, and so on. Indeed, you might simply have a bad sleep before the day of the test, and make a mistake just because you feel too tired to think, but not because you haven’t revised something. However, you should remember that even if your performance on the presentation or exam isn’t very successful, it doesn’t mean that your knowledge in the topic studied is poor. So, don’t give up! Next time just make sure you have enough sleep.Progress, as it is, implies constant movement, development and improvement. Even though it can be slow, still one day you’ll see the result clearly. By the way, your success is going to be this result or at least some part of it. In essence, you aren’t likely to make the next step towards more complex things in your learning until you are sure that you can understand their basics. At the same time, if you realize that you’ve grasped some ideas or principles so well, that you can retell them or use them to solve some “modelled” problem even after you’re woken up late at night (my teachers would use this criterion), then you can stay confident the knowledge of such quality will stay with you forever. It’ll add to the solid fundament you have in some special sector of your brain, responsible for storing information.
#3. Success Is a Stairway. Progress Is a Crossroads
Let’s try to make this metaphor out, starting with the idea of study success. It’s certainly good when you receive good grades. Especially when they are well deserved and the arsenal of your knowledge also benefits from high assessment. Every A helps you step on the next, higher stair. Rightly, this is like a stairway. And when you have it, there are only two directions in which you have a possibility to move: only upstairs and downstairs, just as the name suggests. Agree that you may feel rather uncomfortable if you decide to hang somewhere in the middle for a long period of time. Besides, if you choose to have a stake in success, you shouldn’t forget about the responsibilities connected with it. For example, you can become the monitor of your group and the reliable “source” of school or college homework help. However, what about all other things that are around you climbing up the stairs?There are certainly more books you’d like to read at your “leisure” time except for the articles or textbooks you use to prepare for your classes and exams. There are certainly more other places you’d like to visit except for the building of your school, college or university (underline what applicable). The diversity of life with all knowledge and experience that can be gained from it isn’t limited by the walls of your school. If you make progress, it means that you learn about this diversity and prepare yourself to explore it not only theoretically but also practically. It’s when you find yourself standing on the crossroads of various opportunities and choose the one for which you are ready enough. It’s when you are taught to broaden your horizons and search for different approaches and solutions. Progress implies creativity and thinking outside the box full of standards and rules.
How to Make Progress and Be Sure About It
Now it’s time to move to some more practical things and discover effective strategies for improving your knowledge and skills. Before we start, I should mention that we’ll go beyond memorizing techniques. Although than can serve as some good college homework help tips, they appear to be quite weak when it comes to real professionalism. By the way, it will be undoubtedly taken into account by your future employer or the person who is in charge of awarding scholarships for foreign students.
My study and work experience both taught me that memorizing, or let’s be frank and say cramming, the required materials tends to depreciate the significance of the acquired knowledge, under the condition that it isn’t applied in practice. So, let’s have a look at the following ideas on how you can check whether know what you must learn or revise. These simple and even quite obvious things will help you make sure of your progress and see what else needs improvement.
#1. Just Read as Much as You Can (and Make Notes)
Different fields of science are closely interconnected with one another. So, if you’re working on a chemistry project, you can be sure the information will one day help you in a biology or physics class. When you are searching the Internet, looking for the materials for another college essay, refer to more than one and even two sources. This will help you avoid one-sided approach to your issue and hence make your work more interesting and valuable.
Don’t forget to take notes while you’re reading the article or watching the documentary film. They can turn out very helpful not only for one particular type of work you’re doing at the moment. Later there may be a necessity to refer to the same sources or the ideas they state. So, you won’t need to spend time on the search again.
#2. Attend Extra Lectures, Seminars, Discussions, Etc.
In case the subject is really interesting or it relates to what you’re currently learning, spend your evening on such an event. You definitely won’t regret if you manage to find some free time. You’ll get a great opportunity to listen to real people who conducted real research, ask questions and take part in the discussion. Also, you can analyze different opinions on, approaches to and predictions for topical issues as well as compare them with what you’ve been taught or what you learnt yourself somehow. If you go along well with your professor, share your impressions with them and ask what they can say about the issue raised.
#3. Communicate and Consult with Your College Mates
It’s true that two heads are always better than one. However, when there are more than two heads available, things can get significantly better. You see, together with your group mates you can create a powerful team and provide yourselves with effective college homework help and advice. Instead of trying to separately apply your personal knowledge to solve a problem, you can join your experience and efforts, therefore saving your time and completing tasks much more effectively. For example, you can cooperate to work on a big research project if it isn’t required that each student works individually. You can also revise for exams together, explaining each other the most difficult aspects of the materials studied.
#4. Always Look for Positive Benefits
You’re right, that concerns your motivation and optimism. You should always keep in mind why you need your knowledge. Try not to limit your goals with excellent grades for your final exams (although they’re also extremely important). Despite the rather true paradox stating that the more you know the better you understand that you don’t know anything, you should treat this fact positively. Anything new you learn gives you a possibility to continue learning and trying new things. Let them be books and movies or museums and other countries. Again, the more things you try to learn and do, the more often you need to use the knowledge and experience you already have in practice.
This all may look like a huge vicious circle, but this is how it actually works. Your success is guaranteed by your progress, while your progress is based on your own wish to learn. So, good luck to you!