1.
To learn how to study smarter.
2.
To learn from your mistakes before you make them.
3. To be able to predict your results from the beginning.
Last,
but certainly not least, the final "Trick." By now,
either you'>re very excited about what you'>ve read
up to this point, and you know this will work for
you, or you're saying to yourself, "Man, I could never
do what he did." In either case you're right. Henry
Ford once said, "Whether a man thinks he can or he
can't, he'>s always right." I can help you change
your grades, but I can't control your thinking nor
your attitude. That's your job.
Since this strategy is so quick and
simple, I will just give you the rationale behind
it and a short summary of the action steps. This
is another one of those strategies that is easy to
do, but hard to follow through. This strategy will
take total commitment on your part. Again, I can't
teach you that, but if you have a strong enough why
(Trick #1), I won'>t need to. Let's take a look at
Trick #10: Group Therapy.
Three
or More Is a Crowd
The "Group Therapy" method simply requires
you to form a study group with your fellow classmates,
and study for the exam the day before you meet with
them (as if they were going to give you the test themselves).
The rationale behind this strategy is something you'>ve
already heard since grade school, "two heads are better
than one." Well if that'>s true, what about four, six,
or eight? Now if you're anything like me, you probably
hate study groups. Study groups are usually a justification
for putting off studying, reading, and working the way
you know you should. If you get in the wrong ones,
you can end up wasting time and even worse, bombing
the test.
That's why you must form the study group yourself.
If you can, try to hand-pick the students you want to
participate. The key is for you to stay in control.
Be the facilitator. Don't let the conversations get
off track and onto soap operas, ball games, and parties.
It will be challenging, because you might be the only
one who<'s serious about the purpose of the group.
But that's okay. Just be serious.
The second part of this trick, which requires the most
commitment on your part, is studying the day before
your group meets (as if they were going to test you
themselves). This part is what makes this trick so
powerful. I must also note that it would probably be
best if you didn't tell your group you studied before
meeting with them (I'll come back to this later).
Believe me, when your group meets, I would be willing
to bet my house that no one would be ready to take that
test if it was given on the day of your meeting. All
that means is that no one is fully prepared for the
exam, except for you. And why should they? that'>s
why most students join study groups. . . to push the
studying off on someone else.
So why should you be prepared if others aren't? Five
reasons:
1.) To be able to keep the group on track;
2.) To give you a leg up on the competition;
3.) To reinforce the material you learned the
night before;
4.) To evaluate how prepared you are for tomorrow's
test;
5.) To find out where your blind spots are before
they hurt you.
I hope the picture is becoming a little more clear.
This method is somewhat similar to Trick #9, except
you're stopping trouble before it starts. I've used
this method quite a bit, and I can't say I always got
an "A" on every test using this strategy, but I can
tell you that I always received at least one letter
grade better than my group.
This leads into something I mentioned just a minute
ago, which was my advice of not telling your group that
you studied before the meeting. Why not? I could be
totally wrong about this, so you can take this with
a grain of salt. The last thing you need on this test
is increased competition. If you told them about your
strategy, some students might feel insecure about themselves
and may not be willing to help you out as much as they
could, because they think you're going to outscore them
on the test. Like I said, I could be totally wrong
on this one. My philosophy on this one was, if you
didn't ask, I didn't tell (this was long before Clinton
made this phrase popular).
It's up to you. As with all of these strategies, you
can modify, add to, or delete anything about them that
you don't like. I'm just giving them to you the way
I used them. I always tell my students, "It's always
better to critique than create." So, make this trick
better if you can.
Trick 10 ACTION STEPS
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