We spend a lot of time talking about how to study. However, learning how not to study is just as important.
Here are three common mistakes we find when working with students to improve their study skills.
1. Re-reading as a method to review information
A common method for reviewing information is re-reading. It seems to make sense – you continue reading information until you have it stored in memory.
In our book, we focus on how to pass exams (effectiveness) and how to do it in less time (efficiency). Re-reading violates both principles; it doesn’t do much for helping you pass, and it wastes a lot of time.
First, re-reading isn’t effective because it only focuses on recognizing and storing information. It’s easy to fool yourself and think that just because you recognize a concept now, it will be easy to recall later.
The real skill you need on the exam is retrieving information, producing it from memory without the help of notes. Testing yourself to retrieve information is the best way to determine whether you understand the material, and you should structure your review sessions around this idea.
The second reason you shouldn’t re-read material is that it’s not efficient. You don’t need to review all material equally; just focus on the sections where you lack understanding. The best way to find these weak points is to test your retrieval, as mentioned above.
If your primary review tool is to re-read the chapter, you’ll spend an equal amount of time on each section regardless of how well you already understand it.
Fix = Self-testing + selective re-reading
Use practice problems, flashcards, or any tool that tests you to retrieve information. Make note of sections where you struggle, and selectively revisit the sections to reinforce these weak points.
You’ll not only get a better sense of how well you know the material, but you’ll save a lot of time by only revisiting chapters where you really need more review.
2. Saving your review time for after you’ve finished reading the manual
When I started studying for exams, my strategy was to first read through the manual, and then spend the last couple of weeks reviewing before the exam. Most of my friends used a similar approach.
Almost 2 months passed between when I read the first sections and when I started reviewing. Based on the concept of the forgetting curve (illustrated in our sample chapters), I essentially had to re-learn the material all over again.
With so much material to cover, the best way to retain it is through spaced review sessions. The spacing effect is one of the most scientifically-backed strategies to improve learning, but it’s underutilized by most actuarial students.
Fix = Schedule spaced reviews even while reading through the manual
For a general rule of thumb, you should review each section at least once within the week after reading it. These spaced reviews help you fight the forgetting curve, and you’ll waste less time re-learning information in the weeks before your exam.
These spaced reviews also help you make connections between different chapters, making it easier to see how they fit together and relate to the syllabus topics.
When you schedule these spaced reviews, remember the ideas from the first section: don’t re-read the old material, use a tool that tests your retrieval of the information.
3. Passive reading of the manual
Most actuarial study advice (including this article so far) focuses on review methods (using practice problems, when to review, etc.). However, students need to spend much of their time reading the manual to initially learn the concepts, and this phase is often overlooked.
One common mistake during this initial learning phase is to passively read through the manual. Many students will simply read each section from front-to-back, without much engagement.
A common technique to engage the material is to highlight or underline key sentences. However, there is increasing support that highlighting has limited utility for improving your learning. When you focus on highlighting key concepts, you can get too caught up in identifying important ideas rather than making connections and inferences between key concepts.
We still think highlighting can be a useful step, as long as it’s not your end goal. For each important idea that you identify, you should stop to ask questions about why the idea is important to the overall chapter, and how it connects back to the syllabus learning objectives.
Fix = Use an active reading strategy to survey the chapter, ask questions, and then read to find answers
You can use the headings and bolded words to understand the structure of the chapter and what you need to learn. For each heading, develop a question (“What is the Black-Scholes formula? Why is it important?”). Then, you can read the chapter to find answers to your questions.
This process will keep you more engaged throughout the reading process. Rather than simply reading the chapter front-to-back, you have a roadmap of the main ideas. You have specific questions that need answering, giving you a purpose while you read.
If you want more details, we cover this active reading process more in-depth in Chapter 3 of Actuarial Exam Tactics: Learn More, Study Less.
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Do you find yourself making these mistakes with your studying? I personally struggled with all three concepts during my exam process. However, changing these habits allowed me to accelerate my progress while significantly cutting down on study time – we hope that these tips help you do the same.
If you have questions about these ideas or about studying in general, use the Contact form on our site to reach out. We’d love to hear more about your study process and to help you become a more efficient studier.
Study Smart, Pass Fast, Live Life
Mike & Roy