From the category archives:

Study Tricks

College Exam Study Tips

August 16, 2009

Study helpIn my continuing series on basic college study tips I’ve decided to talk today about how to knock ANY exam out of the park with a few simple steps.  Many college freshmen do not know how to study for college exams.  College exams are not like high school exams in that they usually require more foresight and planning to successfully get a good mark.  With that said, there are many small things college freshman can do to drastically change their outcome in college exams for the better.

1: Scheduling:

Scheduling exam study time in college is crucially important to a good mark on your test and to achieve general academic success.  You will need a daily planner and a semester white board.  The white board will allow you to see your semester snapshot and prepare for coming exams; your daily planner will allow you to stay accountable for your daily study routines.  Also each works as a backup for the other.  Once you get into the habit of working this way it will save you dozens of hours worth of lost study time and worry.  Ideally, you should start studying 4 days before your exam date; there are three main stages, coding, reviewing and confidence building.

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How To Prepare Yourself for the September College semester

August 13, 2009
Obama's ready... ARE YOU?

Obama's ready... ARE YOU?

Hello Fellow Students!

The new semester is quickly approaching and I have gotten an email from a student who has asked me for some advice on preparation for the new semester.  I wrote him a pretty in depth email and thought I’d just repost it here.  Enjoy!

There are in my opinion four fundamental things you must prepare yourself for to be not just a successful student but a successful university participant.

Prepare a strong study skills plan

Get a plan on how to achieve college success and analyze it.  The best laid plans are sometimes doomed to failure from the start if you don’t analyze your plan for weak points and shore them up.  As a perfect example if you plan on studying 4 hours a day, is that realistic when you only studied 4 hours a week last year?  How are you going to stay accountable to your new plan? (hint hire a tutor, which this student already did)  What are the consequences when you don’t meet your study plan?

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Study tips for college Freshman

August 2, 2009

The Virtual Teaching Assistant MethodIn my continuing series on basic college study tips, I’ve decided to concentrate today on college freshman and the classic mistakes they make in their first semester of college.  I have gotten quite a few stories from students who got straight A’s in high school and in their first semester end up with C’s and B’s (they are actually my best customers in my tutoring program).  Now I feel for you freshman as it is a hard time to adjust to a new chapter of your life.  Therefore, please take these points into consideration when you start your first semester and review them if you feel you’re starting to fall behind.

1: Yes Socializing is fun but don’t do it everyday:

Take one day off a week to simply study.  For college freshman I would suggest Wednesday as it doesn’t add to the depression of Monday but also isn’t Thursday or Friday.  On your schedule whiteboard just lock that down as your study day.

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General college study tips: Student Schedules

July 29, 2009

The Virtual Teaching Assistant MethodToday I am starting a weekly series on general college study tips.  I find that many students lack basic college study strategies when I start working with them as a tutor.  I’ve come to the conclusion that providing a ‘basic’ set of college study tips will allow many of you to learn the fundamentals so you can begin to engage with the more advanced college study tips throughout the rest of my site.

So to begin this series, we should tackle the very first thing any student should do when the semester starts.  Namely, choosing courses and preparing an effective schedule.  In my book Study 30 Minutes A Day And Get A 4.0 GPA I speak at length about this subject and have an entire chapter devoted to this subject.  However, for this post I’ll simply give you the basic tips to get you started.

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Anybody Building A Study Blog? Here’s How you do it.

July 10, 2009

Hello Fellow Students

So this isn’t my regular subject but I’ve currently been working really hard on the blog and trying to move it up in the search engines to get more traffic. Partly because I’m interested and partly because it will serve my online tutoring business. So here are some interesting links I’ve come across that will make your blog skyrocket in the search engines. (Also this will be a developing list so you can check back soon for more links that I’ve posted)

Self Improvement from SelfGrowth.com- – SelfGrowth.com is the most complete guide to information about Self Improvement on the Internet.

<a href=”http://www.freebiecreditreport.com”>Free Credit Report</a>

Free Credit Report

Free East Web Directory

Affordable Shopping Cart Software and Network Management Systems by Maxxfusion – Website design – hosting – maintenance

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Does Gaba Work?

July 4, 2009

chanelle-sladics-at-winter-x-holding-the-new-jones-gaba-drinkHello Fellow Students!

I just got a case of Gaba Tea drink from the Jones Soda company.  They wanted me to test out their drink supplement for students and I’ve performed my own experiment with amazing results.

Gaba Research

Gaba is a “naturally produced amino acid and is one of the key neurotransmitters in the regulation of proper brain functionality; it helps to increase the production of alpha brain waves, known to enhance focus + clarity.  At the same time it decreases beta brain waves, which are linked to nervousness and scattered thoughts.” (Jones Gaba).

Now I’m usually quite skeptical about new supplements for increased brain power as usually 90% of them are simply packed with sugar (cough red bull) and get you so hopped up on sugar that you feel amazing regardless of what else is in there.  From my research on gaba however, I’ve found quite a bit of research that both refutes and confirms gaba as a study tool.  In my search to see documented proof of the advantages of Gaba the people at Jones Gaba sent me some research data that for me is still in my opinion only exploratory but I’ll let you guys be the judge.

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Study 30 Minutes a Day and Get a 4.0 GPA: Q and A

June 25, 2009

So I got a question from a student in my tutoring program and thought I’d share it with everybody else.  This guy was asking whether my book “Study 30 Minutes a Day and Get a 4.0 GPA” was just a tagline or whether it was possible.  He in essence wanted to call bullshit on the whole deal as he still hadn’t gotten to half an hour a day.  (He actually said that he was still studying an hour a day, but he had only started the program a month ago so in my opinion that is a pretty awesome as the estimated average study time to hold a 4.0 GPA’s is 3 hours a day… BUT ANYWAY).

There are really three big reasons why my program works allostasis, thought mechanization and online tutor outsourcing.  Each of which I’ll be happy to explain for everybody here.

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General Tips for Academic Success: Where’s the “ANY” Key?

June 15, 2009
D,oh, sometimes I'm so concerned with advanced methods, I forget the basics

D,oh, sometimes I'm so concerned with advanced methods, I forget the basics

I’ve unfortunately committed one of the cardinal sins of critical thinking….

I can’t believe I haven’t addressed this earlier but unfortunately I sometimes don’t see the forest for the trees.

I got an email from a student today, she asked me for some ‘general tips for academic success’. I was just about to throw her an email saying “well, uhh… why don’t you just check out the ENTIRE BLOG, WEBSITE and BOOK!

But I then took a look around the blog and realized I haven’t actually given any of you the basic tips for academic success! I suppose I’ve always just thought that anyone who wanted that info should just check out the VTA Method and consult an online tutor. But I want this blog to be a resource for any student, not just ones that have bought my program (although it’s awesome).

So with that in mind I’m going to start a recurring series of the general tips for academic success. Here is what I’m planning on talking about:

General college study tips

Exam study tips

How to study for finals

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Study Pulses: Why studying more is making you a dumbass

June 9, 2009

Study PulseHello all, today I’m going to explain why studying too much is actually turning you into a dumbass and an all round boring person.  I use to study quite a bit (about three hours a day) and this produced a solid B- average and a stressed out university student.  What’s more, I was amazed when some of my fellow students didn’t study much at all and were getting much higher marks then me.  I initially just thought they were smarter than me.  When I later realized that success in University had nothing to do with intelligence, I then started studying how they were doing so well and I was doing so badly.

I later turned what I learned into an online tutoring program.  One of the biggest things I learned was how to study efficiently.  So much so that I wrote a book on the subject “How To Study 30 Minutes a Day and Get A 4.0 GPA”.  Anyway, I just spoke to a guy that works for me and he had a great way of explaining one of the central study techniques within my book and online tutoring program.  “The Study Pulse”

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Neuro Linguistic Programming: How to get free Chai Tea at Starbucks

June 3, 2009

Hello fellow students.

starbucksI’m sitting in Starbucks right now in my favorite comfy leather chair sipping a hot, tasty and most importantly FREE organic chai tea.  Many of you that have read the my book have read the section on Neuro-Linguistic-Programming and how to get your prof to hand you over higher marks through using NLP techniques.  Well I’ve been experimenting as of late with NLP on regular people and have recently been performing a little study on my Starbucks barista’s.

Oh and if my barista is reading this… umm sorry?

I go to my coffee shop usually a few days a week as it’s a great study space.  I can write and do work without the distractions of media and roommates constantly interrupting my flow.  Due in part to boredom and the desire to get free stuff, I’ve been experimenting with getting a free morning tea when I come in through the door using a low level form of hypnotization.  I’ve refined the process down to a success rate of approximately 90% based on a count of 11 interactions after the initial programming took place which took about two weeks.  If you love free tea like me, I highly suggest you give this a try. This may require some time and practice as this is in master Jedi territory.  But once you get it, you should be getting free tea almost all the time!

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