specific-tips.md

Reading a physics textbook.

Unfortunately, you cannot read your physics textbook like you would read Lord of the Rings. Reading a science textbook is a different process. Here is how.

1. Read the chapter preview at the beginning and scan the whole chapter by reading just the title of each section. The goal is to get in your head what the big picture is.
2. Once you have the big picture. Make a list of questions that you have about that subject (think personal life if you can, to get to deeper processing). This will give you a motivation to read the text but you will also be searching for something which will make you much more attentive to all the details.
3. Paraphrase: rewrite briefly in your own words. Regularly stop yourself and paraphrase (in your mind or better on paper) what the paragraph you just read is about. As you add more paragraph, keep adding to your own story. This may seem long but most students say that it ends up being less long. Why? In their own words... " I don't have to reread or having a bunch of false starts". Its the turtle and the hare, slow and steady wins the race.
4. Supplement the last 3 points with various activities such as
   • highlighting (do this right, not whole sentences. Just key nouns and verbs).
   • taking notes
   • concept map (see Concept map explained)

A side note on learning styles. People tell me they want more videos because they are "visual learners". One of the discovery of cognitive psychology is that learning styles do not really exist. Everyone learns in the same way. The strategies I discuss in these pages are universal. Learning style debunked

Doing example problems from the book.

Do not read example solutions in the book right away. Here is how to do example problems.

1. First, you read the example question ONLY.
2. You take a piece of paper and try to solve it, without looking at the solution.
3. You may need to study the material, read the text before the example. Pay particular attention to problem solving strategies or tactic boxes.
4. You may need to struggle, abandon one way and try another. This is good. This is learning.
5. If you get the answer, compare just the solutions to the one in the book. If its the same, great, now look at what the author did. If its not the same, look back at your process first and try to find where you could have gone wrong.
6. If after 2 attempts (say 1/2 hour at least), it does not work look at the solution provided by the author. You will need to try a similar problem again later to make sure you can do it without help.

Doing reading quiz, tutorial and quiz for real

The book is there for you to learn the material but it is not a cane. When you are actually solving problems, it is best to actually close the book and try the problems on your own. Use the formula sheet but close the book. It is ok (and good) to struggle on a question for a while, try different methods. Do not be too quick on the draw to get your book or (worse) google. Struggle, try various things. Maybe contact me or your peers. Eventually, look back at examples in book.

Intense Study Cycle.

Now you have read the book and you did the reading quiz. You have done other practice questions at the end of the book. Its now time to study for the weekly quiz or the exam or the tutorial. You should study frequently as you cannot do effective studying all in one day.

**Studying does not have to be long, it just has to be intense and on task (no TV, no music!). **

Steps	Time	Activity
Set a goal	1-2 min	Decide what you want to accomplish in your study session
Study with focus	30-50 min	Interact with material: elaborate, compare, organize, summarize
Reward yourself	10-15 min	Take a break, call/text a friend, play a short game, eat a snack
Review	5 min	Go over what you just studied

Don't forget the review, it only takes 5 min!