How to Study Effectively: The 3-Stage Learning System That Works

This is just noise. [music] And you need to learn to drown it out. Because the more time you spend trying

to find the perfect way to study, the less time you actually spend studying. Today you're going to learn how you

learn, because it is a superpower. I feel somewhat qualified to explain this because I'm going into year 13 and

studying four A levels. At GCSE I got 10 grade nines, the highest mark in the world in maths, 100% in English

literature, the highest mark in Europe in physics, the highest mark in Greece in biology and chemistry, and I don't

even really have to keep going on about physics. So, these tips I think work. My first question is, why do you

students in study tip videos even include long lists like this? Is it because they genuinely want to help or

because at some level they want to show off what they've achieved? Results like that have an opportunity cost and I

think that that does not fit quite neatly in the certificate that they come with. That being said, an impressive set

of GCSEs can be important and is a very large part of your application to university.

So, a study method is only actually useful if it gets information into your brain.

A, in a form that you can understand well enough to then apply it to past paper questions, and B, in a reasonably

time efficient way. The obsession with optimizing studying means that there is always somebody online claiming that the

method that you are using is wrong. But, the supposedly imperfect method, if it actually gets you studying, is about 100

times better than trying to find a perfect method and procrastinating actually studying.

Flash cards, blurting, the Feynman technique, AI tools, revision websites, and the approximately million study apps

that exist are simply tools and not study systems. A hammer is useful, but you would be slightly concerned if

somebody told you it was their entire architectural strategy. Each tool simply helps your brain

perform a particular job. For example, flash cards help you memorize information. The Feynman technique

exposes your true understanding of a concept and blurting reveals exactly what you can remember without any of

your notes. AI can explain concepts in simpler words than your textbooks and past papers will test you in the exact

same format that the exam will. So, the real question is not what is the perfect study method, but when and how

can I use these tools? I think that effective studying occurs in three stages: understand, remember,

apply. Step one is understand because you cannot revise something unless you

fundamentally understand it. I am self-proclaimed annoying student who asks a lot of questions and sometimes I

might realize halfway through the question that what I'm asking has been answered 30 seconds ago by my teacher,

but asking that question is much less embarrassing than pretending that I understand something for 3 months and

then realizing the night before my exam that I actually don't. The reason is that teachers know the course, so use

them. And for introverts, you can use AI with prompts such as explain and then ask me questions rather than just saying

explain. And always fact-check information that it spits out. But, I promise you that the most embarrassing

question that you ask in your class in front of your whole class is the mistake that you will not make in the exam

purely because of how memorable it will be to you that you asked that question and got it wrong.

Then, you should produce some form of output. This includes, but is not limited to, closing your notes and

writing down exactly what you understood, or writing your notes in your own words, or recording a video of

yourself explaining what you just understood, or a voice message, or acting out what you've just learned, or

creating a mind map, or explaining what you've learned to somebody else. Step two is remember. The forgetting

curve here, which I'm sure you've seen if you watched about maybe five videos about how to study, um illustrates how

information is forgotten unless it is retrieved from your brain frequently, basically. AKA study influencer's

favorite coined terms, active recall and spaced repetition. I might offer a different tip because

I'm sure that we all know by now that this is how our brain works. If we don't constantly retrieve information, then

well, we're going to forget it. The problem is that we have been taught to revise what we do know, but not to

revise what exactly we don't know. Your mistakes in your past papers show you exactly what you don't remember, which

is what is being forgotten every time this graph goes down. Because as you can see, it's not like the graph is going to

zero. You still do remember a fundamental proportion of what you've studied. You're just forgetting a couple

of things, and gradually over time your scores decrease. So, consistently practicing what you remember keeps your

scores stagnant. Improvement actually comes from figuring out why you got certain questions wrong. My solution to

this was keeping a word document, or a notebook if you're a pen-to-paper kind of person, with all of my mistakes.

Essentially, a personal textbook of everything that I got wrong. Whenever I was doing past papers, whenever I was

answering questions in class that I got wrong, etc. You get the point. In this document, you can have it for

two reasons. First of all, in math, you can take a screenshot of the past paper question that you got wrong, paste it in

the word document, on the next page paste the mark scheme answer, and leave yourself space to answer the question.

Next to the question, I would write myself margin notes. So, for example, remember to, I don't know, factorize, or

remember to not do whatever it is here, based on the mistake that I made. These margin notes I explicitly wrote with

very large fonts and ridiculous colors, because the more colorful the margin notes were, the more likely I was to

remember them. I know it sounds ridiculous, but trust me, it works. You will remember the mistakes that you have

made. The reason that you can put the mark scheme on the next page is that the

night before your exam, and this works particularly well for subjects like maths or physics, where there's a lot of

like problem-solving questions, and there's not as much essay writing, is that you can then go through and print

your mistake word document, and then just resolve every single question that you've done wrong. This way, you're not

looking at a mistake document that is the question that you you wrong, and the answer right underneath it, because

that's not really going to help you in the exam, is it? Because in the exam, you're not going to have the answer in

front of you. But, if you can solve the questions again, you've proven to yourself that now you actually know how

to do them. I want to say that facing your mistakes is very uncomfortable. And this was one

of my least favorite things to do when I was studying. I would always procrastinate reviewing my mistakes,

because it is very boring, and it takes a very long time. But, trust me, if you are spending as much time on doing the

past paper as you are reviewing the past paper, then you are doing something right. And that discomfort is the

difference between revising and actually learning and improving your scores. Step three,

apply. You may have heard of the word neuroplasticity,

usually in a YouTube video with extremely dramatic music and [music] a brain that is glowing pink and green.

Essentially, your brain, in simple terms, gets better recognizing information and using it the more often

you retrieve and apply it. This happens through strengthening and forming neural connections. This is what

neuroplasticity is. Past papers are the clearest example and the best way that you can apply your

knowledge after you've studied, because they replicate the exact environment that you're going to be tested in during

your exam. At first, every question feels unfamiliar and painfully slow to answer.

However, with practice, you begin answering questions before you have even finished reading them, particularly in

subjects that have a lot of repeated questions. And this doesn't happen because papers get easier, but because

your brain builds these neural connections recognizing the question patterns that are asked and retrieving

the information that's required. So, instead of searching through all of the knowledge that you've learned to find

the correct answer, you can immediately recognize what it is based on your past experience with doing similar questions.

Understand, remember, apply. Then stop, for goodness' sake. Understand,

apply, remember.