How to motivate yourself to study for exams

[Napoleon]

I have tryied all kind of things. Like rewarding myself or looking at what benifits a diploma would have. But none of them seem to last.

How do you motivate yourself to study? What keeps you sitting down on that chair to study some more?

[J.L. des Alpins]

How do you motivate yourself to study? What keeps [one] sitting down on that chair to study some more?Oneself.

From an existentialist point of view, there is absolutely nothing else that can do it for you.

Humans are beings who are totally free to make any choice they want (among the choices available to them). As such, it must be fair to assume here that studying is a choice available to you, i.e. you are not suffering from frequent seizures or taking any mind-numbing medications.

One may choose to sit and study, sit drink and pretend to study, pray god to give them the strenght to study, or just say the hell with study and head to the nearest pub.

Furthermore, what makes it even harder is that whenever you make a choice, you have to make it again the next minute. The gambler, in the morning, may choose not to play today, and stand at the table in the afternoon betting his shirt. Same for you: You can swear on your mother's head to study all evening only to find yourself fighting all night the urge to go party and having to re-commit yourself to study every minute.

A bit of advice? Don't seek motivation in the outside; INTP's are very poor at setting goals outside of their mind. Rather, just understand your radical freedom of choice, then make a choice and be happy about it, whichever is your choice: study or party. When you feel that you are no longer happy with your choice--everything considered--then choose something else.

JL

http://www.intpcentral.com/uploads/NapoleonsAvatar.gif
BTW, your avatar is madly tantalizing! It takes all my willpower not to lick it on my monitor.

[Lucas]

Last semester my Chilean literature professor, a 43 year old woman with 3 doctorates and 3 masters degrees in the humanities, told me that while she absolutely loves learning, she still finds it difficult to study. I agree. I motivate myself to read, and often push myself to finish large boring books by reminding myself of how much I get out of them in the end.

I don't see that freedom of choice. We talk about ourselves as free agents, making choices that determine what we do and who we become. But this view completely denies the overwhelming deterministic force that drives our lives; those 'choices' are mostly influenced by all our past experiences and genetic propensities. If I were raised in a poor, intellectually lacking home in Chile, I wouldn't have the choice to make to study or to read. That money would have to go to food, for example.

[Hypnos]

Continuing Mr. Alpins' line, nothing teaches like pain. I never really studied until my first graduate school final blew me away.

[J.L. des Alpins]

Continuing Mr. Alpins' line, nothing teaches like pain. I never really studied until my first graduate school final blew me away.Is it something related to particles physics that caught you unprepared?

JL

[Hypnos]

Is it something related to particles physics that caught you unprepared?
No, it was the electrodynamics class my first semester. It was an eye-opener into what standard is demanded by professional physics, and how ill-prepared I was.

[J.L. des Alpins]

No, it was the electrodynamics class my first semester. It was an eye-opener into what standard is demanded by professional physics, and how ill-prepared I was.Kicking out physics students' naïve arrogance early on is most certainly a big favor they are doing to them, future pros, especially for those like you who are from a prestigious school.

I was (remotely) involved in a multi-billion dollars nuclear waste disposal project (where the solution was to embed the radioactive material into metastable glass, then burrying this glass deep underground).

The poor physicists: they would ask for a dollar, they were given 20 cents; they asked for a week, they were given a day; they asked for 10 people, they got 1 ½. None of the big brass would ever understand what they were taking about and never believed that the scientists needed all of what they were asking for.

While the people were trying to sort out the politics, the science, the finances, and the egos, the contaminated material, which was temporary stored into million-gallon underground tanks, started leaking into ground water, which was feeding into the city's water supply.

Physicists indeed must develop thick skins.

JL

[Hypnos]

Politics is certainly one good reason to be inured to pain and derision. Another, more basic reason is that nature is a cruel mistress and was able to humble even Einstein.

[ed_dunn84]

I haven't bee successful this quarter with trying to get myself to study. That's why I'll probably fail 2 of my 3 classes.

[indie]

Coffee. And looking forward to the end of the exam periods, that is all. :smooch:

[Vagabond]

Focusing like there is no world out of the margins of the book. Narrow-minded focusing, robotic if you like. That's the only way you can stop your mind from being creative and focus on something boring and uninteresting. And it leaves you drained.

[Birdsnest]

Studying was like economics, you have to give up some resource to get another resource that is more valuable. (A degree).

Decide for yourself if its worth it to you to put some time and energy into the study aspect (something unpleasant) for a year or two for this "degree" which will be the one thing that gets you jobs you want. Without that, you flounder around like so many people that are lost.

When you're done you will be glad you did.

Learn to speed read. Study every day in the library and also cram the day before the test by going to library. Speed read by skimming your eyes down the page with your eye once, picking up main ideas, then skim down the same page again a bit slower, but MUCH faster than you would normally read, and just pull that eye down those words and get what you can. You don't really need to slowly absorb things, you see your brain actually picks up much more than you know at first. You can get thru 3 chapters in a few hours like that. Then go back and put the more difficult things on 3x5 cards and tape those to your dashboard or near your bed so you will look at them a lot and on your way to class.

Study after class for two hours every day. Its really hard to study at home, so force yourself to put a pbj sandwich or tuna on wheat in your bookbag, and some lifesavers and water, and find a quiet study cubby towards back of library. When you are alone in peace and quiet, its far easier to get in the mood when you aren't home with distractions.

[Hustler]

There are a few things you can do to make your school life a little easier. One thing is to select classes and professors based on which will be the easiest and require the least study time. I had a few classes in college in which I simply did not study at all, and those were still very rewarding. I will also pass along a trick I learned. When doing assignments throughout the year, limit your reading to every other page. If a professor assigns a chapter or book, just read all the odd pages or all the even pages. I would generally read the front side of a page and disregard the back side. Yes, you miss out on half of the information, but you can recover that by showing up to class and listening to the lectures/discussions.

I realize this isn't a direct answer to your question, but what this accomplishes is that it doesn't require you to get in the mood to study as often, so your lack of enthusiasm in that department doesn't hurt as much.

[Miss Anthropic]

Does anyone take the classes to learn the material or just to "get through" to have the diploma? I just finished a chemistry class--between that and math, I really want to learn and understand the material to apply it to something else. People I studied with didn't seem to care whether or not they learned the material well, they just wanted to remember enough of it to get a passing grade. Fear of failure makes me study like crazy in those classes that don't come easy to me. After some rather dismal midterm grades, one was a 55 (ouch) I ended up with a B for the final grade--I studied for at least 3 hours a day for the week before the test.

[Napoleon]

Does anyone take the classes to learn the material or just to "get through" to have the diploma? I just finished a chemistry class--between that and math, I really want to learn and understand the material to apply it to something else. People I studied with didn't seem to care whether or not they learned the material well, they just wanted to remember enough of it to get a passing grade. Fear of failure makes me study like crazy in those classes that don't come easy to me. After some rather dismal midterm grades, one was a 55 (ouch) I ended up with a B for the final grade--I studied for at least 3 hours a day for the week before the test.

The most important for me is the diploma. If i happen to pick up some usefull information on the way, so be it. If you don't have time on your side and you have to cram the week before the exam you only can learn to pass the exam.

I never flip before an exam, all those people in my classes get all worked up if they will fail the exam. I jus except it and move on. So i almost never feel any pressure to succeed.

There are some good posts already on topic btw. I study most of the time in the library, but sometimes i just get fed up whit the course i have to study. I see all this (sometimes) useless information before me that goes into the details of every subject you can imagine. And then i just go crazy :). I don't know, i even have these outburst that i get a rush of emotions over me and that i clench my fist and hit something ...

I would add some more but i need to go now ... I have Histology exam to make :)

[jread]

You just have to think about it as a means to an end. Last night I was studying for an exam in a class that I couldn't care less about. I would've MUCH rather been on the computer doing something I wanted to do, but I had to keep resisting. I know that in the end, I'll be glad that I studied so I can pass and get credit for this course I'm paying money to take (think about all the money you waste when you fail a course). There will always be time for me to screw off on the computer (like right now). The course, though, will be over at the end of the summer. That's not really too far off....

[Star Cannon]

Start a study group with people in that class... It worked for Biology... just thinking about the material afterward works wonders... It's just one of those: 'just do it' things. I don't study much myself and I don't intend to...

[vacant space]

a) Fear of failure (hard work gone to waste)
b) Guilt
c) Need to repeat the course

Memorise past exam ans for qualitative Qs. Do past exam quantitative Qs. Redo tute Qs. Don't waste time doing notes.