Six classes that will determine the rest of your high school life, your college life and, above all, your career, require you to study for hours every night. The IB students study and prepare to take the external assessments at the end of one- to two-year courses. Studying for hours is tough, but it has to be done.
Studying is something that I personally hate about school. Staring at a study guide or a textbook for hours is just not as entertaining as watching Vampire Diaries.
How many times have you been studying and your phone vibrates, displaying a Facebook notification? It happens to me all the time. I fight the urge to check Facebook, but it is a losing battle. As soon as I log on to social media sites, studying doesn’t matter anymore.
My suggestions for staying on task are simple. The only hard thing about them is following them.
- Suggestion No. 1 — Put your phone away in a place where you will not be tempted to check Facebook or Twitter. A good place that works for me is my backpack; I can hear if my phone rings, but I am not tempted to pick it up and check for notifications or text messages.
- Suggestion No. 2 — When playing music, don’t choose tunes that you will be tempted to sing along. I love listening to music while I work, but my problem is I sing along terribly with and I lose track of what I am doing. Make a playlist for yourself where you won’t be tempted to get up to sing and dance along. Consider such songs as “Smooth Criminal” by 2cellos or “Claire De Lune” by Claude Debussy.
- Suggestion No. 3 – Don’t have the TV on while trying to do homework. There are few talented people in the world that can watch TV and complete their homework consistently. It is more likely that you will be more interested in what Britney Spears is doing than on what happened in The Scarlet Letter, but who wouldn’t be?
- Suggestion No. 4 – Force yourself to sit down and review the material. You are the only person who can learn the information. It would be wonderful if the teachers could take the test for us, but that is just not reality. This is the hardest guideline to follow because your brain makes you think about other things except studying. So stay focused and get it done, no matter how long it may take you.
Q2hlY2sgb3V0IHN0YWZmIHdyaXRlciBOaW5hIEdyYW1ham8ncyBwbGF5bGlzdCBmb3Igc3R1ZHlpbmcgYmVsb3cuIAoKCgo8aWZyYW1lIHNyYz0iaHR0cHM6Ly9lbWJlZC5zcG90aWZ5LmNvbS8/dXJpPXNwb3RpZnk6dXNlcjoxMjE5OTY2NDM0OnBsYXlsaXN0OjRZZXJ2TXduTEg3NkpKdll5Z1JxdkMiIHdpZHRoPSIzMDAiIGhlaWdodD0iMzgwIiBmcmFtZWJvcmRlcj0iMCIgYWxsb3d0cmFuc3BhcmVuY3k9InRydWUiPjwvaWZyYW1lPg==
I wish everyday to have a photographic memory, but I do not possess that ability. I also want the strong willpower like some of my fellow diploma candidates who study for hours uninterrupted; that would be nice. Studying is never fun, but I have seen that with no distractions, I can focus on the study guides and nothing else outside my textbook.
