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Magnate's Study Log
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I've been approaching this the wrong way.
I need to stop looking for motivation. Motivation is state dependent. If I have to feel pumped to tackle my exam papers or trick myself into being excited about studying it's just going to lead to procrastination.
It's time to get disciplined.
I find the hardest thing to do is just get started. I could spend hours thinking about studying, getting ready to study, writing about studying (cough cough
) but the only way to become disciplined is to build habits - The way to build habits is to start small but be consistent. Here's a quote by Calvin Coolidge that really sums it up.Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
The plan is to just start small enough so that it's manageable and I can do it consistently every day. Unfortunately with mocks coming up and little study done it's looking more and more like a 2 week crash course in cramming but I'll see how I do.
My course is so ridiculously close to the 600 that I've decided to just go all out and aim for 625. Instead of looking to just get by in maths and scrape a B3, I need to master it. This will mean reviewing any concepts covered in class on a daily, weekly and monthly basis and constantly practising exam questions.
I'd like to delve more into my mindset, habits, routine and study techniques but it's going to have to wait until after the mocks. To be honest, the reality of them has just hit me and it's time to get serious. My main aim for them is to not fail maths and also to improve upon my pre-mocks and try to hit 550+ ..if only to give me more confidence for the actual leaving cert.
It seems daunting the fact that it's only 138 days away but from today onwards I'm going to go to bed every single night more prepared than I was the day previous. It's the little things done consistently that snowball into great achievements.... I've left it a little late for that though so it's time to up the workload.
I think it's important to regularly plan and reflect on what I'm doing so that I can improve, so I'll start from now and set concrete deadlines. At the moment I have coursework, projects and whatnot to catch up on so that's how I intend to spend most of this weekend. However by 5pm Sunday I aim to have all that taken care of and a strict mock cramming plan in place for each subject. Then for the next few weeks I'll update daily on what I've completed.
There's a technique that I've been testing out this week and I've found that it suits me really well. It's called the pomodoro technique and without going into too much detail, you basically study for 25 mins then take a 5 min break, after 4 25 min sessions you take a 30 minute break. There's a wealth of information available online so you can look into it if you want. I use an app to keep track of the time and it's really helpful with eliminating procrastination and getting more work done. The constant "tick-tock" helps to keep me focused on the task at hand while creating a false sense of pressure which simulates an exam environment. I immediately notice if my mind begins to wander and get back to it quickly, racing the clock. I think the main reason it works is because it breaks your workload into manageable chunks and rewards you with free time for completing them. It's so much better than trying to work for a 3-4 hour block. When I try to do that, I procrastinate indefinitely and end up spending much longer on it than it should take me. It's a lot easier to say to yourself "work for 25 mins and then you can take a short break" it really helps to keep me motivated so I'd really recommend it.
Anyway, let the cramming commence!0 -
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saw you wanted tips for studying business and maths:
Maths - take a topic and absolutely blitz in, start with the ones that appear in more than one topic e.g logs,algebra, specifically. Themathstutor is solid for going through exam papers and really all you can do is try and answer every type of question they can ask. Probobly already knew this but anyway
Business: This has gotten much tougher recently, where a question used to be: describe how "x" uses motivation it is now "evaluate how maslows hierarchy of needs effects emplyees motivation". Where was once nice and broad is new very very specific, so to get the high grade, which im also hoping you actually need to know every defination and every small little section because they make stupid 20 mark question on small parts. id also reccomend doing long q for unit 2/3/4/5, this leaves you with a choice of 3 out of 4 which is nice. However you still need at least one from unit 1/6/7 so i reccomend take unit 1, inside out ( short q's are tough for this unit and very factual, they are making the questions easier) skip unit 6 only know it for defination questions and take unit 7( short and sweet). this allows you to still have a lovely choice e.g ( 2 q section 1 and 2 from section2 or....... 1 from section 1 and 3 from section 2)0 -
saw you wanted tips for studying business and maths:
Maths - take a topic and absolutely blitz in, start with the ones that appear in more than one topic e.g logs,algebra, specifically. Themathstutor is solid for going through exam papers and really all you can do is try and answer every type of question they can ask. Probobly already knew this but anyway
Business: This has gotten much tougher recently, where a question used to be: describe how "x" uses motivation it is now "evaluate how maslows hierarchy of needs effects emplyees motivation". Where was once nice and broad is new very very specific, so to get the high grade, which im also hoping you actually need to know every defination and every small little section because they make stupid 20 mark question on small parts. id also reccomend doing long q for unit 2/3/4/5, this leaves you with a choice of 3 out of 4 which is nice. However you still need at least one from unit 1/6/7 so i reccomend take unit 1, inside out ( short q's are tough for this unit and very factual, they are making the questions easier) skip unit 6 only know it for defination questions and take unit 7( short and sweet). this allows you to still have a lovely choice e.g ( 2 q section 1 and 2 from section2 or....... 1 from section 1 and 3 from section 2)
For business I agree completely. Know units 2, 3, 4 inside out, it'll be worth 60%+ on the day due to the ABQ this year being those units. My teacher said the most important thing students need to do is read the damn question. A lot of people read and see "EXPLAIN THE BENEFITS OF TQM for managers." and just ignore the managers part and go into the benefits for business at a whole when thats not what they're asking. Business seems like a hard A tbh, I'm at best going for a B.0 -
saw you wanted tips for studying business and maths:
Maths - take a topic and absolutely blitz in, start with the ones that appear in more than one topic e.g logs,algebra, specifically. Themathstutor is solid for going through exam papers and really all you can do is try and answer every type of question they can ask. Probobly already knew this but anyway
Business: This has gotten much tougher recently, where a question used to be: describe how "x" uses motivation it is now "evaluate how maslows hierarchy of needs effects emplyees motivation". Where was once nice and broad is new very very specific, so to get the high grade, which im also hoping you actually need to know every defination and every small little section because they make stupid 20 mark question on small parts. id also reccomend doing long q for unit 2/3/4/5, this leaves you with a choice of 3 out of 4 which is nice. However you still need at least one from unit 1/6/7 so i reccomend take unit 1, inside out ( short q's are tough for this unit and very factual, they are making the questions easier) skip unit 6 only know it for defination questions and take unit 7( short and sweet). this allows you to still have a lovely choice e.g ( 2 q section 1 and 2 from section2 or....... 1 from section 1 and 3 from section 2)For business I agree completely. Know units 2, 3, 4 inside out, it'll be worth 60%+ on the day due to the ABQ this year being those units. My teacher said the most important thing students need to do is read the damn question. A lot of people read and see "EXPLAIN THE BENEFITS OF TQM for managers." and just ignore the managers part and go into the benefits for business at a whole when thats not what they're asking. Business seems like a hard A tbh, I'm at best going for a B.
Cheers guys, this year I've really turned around business and I'd say it's my best subject now
It takes a while to get used to structuring your waffle, but after that it's all common sense really.0 -
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Yep I've heard that so that's why I went with the less stress more success one instead, its really useful, probably the sole reason business is now my best subject!
less stress still doesnt go into enough detail however, remember its a revision book, it takes all the information and cuts it down, so if its an a1 your going for you will need more info than needed to secure it,0 -
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less stress still doesnt go into enough detail however, remember its a revision book, it takes all the information and cuts it down, so if its an a1 your going for you will need more info than needed to secure it,
Yeah that's true but it helps to summarise and organise the points in my head so that I can then waffle on about them all separately in a structured manner. If you know the basics it's very easy to expand upon them. I find that the problem is most of it is such common sense that it's hard to remember the answer in the first place because it's too obvious. Anyway judging by class tests and pres results I'm well on track so I'll keep doing what I'm doing I guess 0 -
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Try to get plenty of exercise / sleep / decent food over the weekend, and put the LC out of your mind ... it doesn't exist for this weekend. Then make a real effort next week to do a set amount of time each night ... no excuses, no Fb or boards, just study for that time .. and when you've met your goal, relax, forget about it and get to bed early.
Telling you to take the weekend off might seem a strange way of tackling it if you've got a sense that you're not doing enough study etc., but a total break from even thinking about the LC and a fresh start might just kickstart you again.
It IS that time of year, and you're definitely not the only one feeling it.0 -
randylonghorn wrote: »Try to get plenty of exercise / sleep / decent food over the weekend, and put the LC out of your mind ... it doesn't exist for this weekend. Then make a real effort next week to do a set amount of time each night ... no excuses, no Fb or boards, just study for that time .. and when you've met your goal, relax, forget about it and get to bed early.
Telling you to take the weekend off might seem a strange way of tackling it if you've got a sense that you're not doing enough study etc., but a total break from even thinking about the LC and a fresh start might just kickstart you again.
It IS that time of year, and you're definitely not the only one feeling it.
Thanks randy, really appreciate the advice.
When you read past study logs and see the same thing happening to others, or when your teachers warn you in September that you'll be feeling this way in May you don't really believe them. It all seems so black and white - The leaving cert is in a few weeks so put the head down and study, it's simple. Just do it.
And then when that time finally does come you're just physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted. If I had one piece of advice for next year's 6th years it would be to prepare yourself mentally for this and start meditating everyday or something because it's a rollercoaster of emotions that you never really appreciate until you're right in the midst of it.
Surprisingly enough the leaving cert has been pretty far from my mind in the past few days. It's almost like a natural coping mechanism to forget all about it has kicked in and all I've been doing this week is watching tv and whatnot. I think you're right, I'll extend this break for another few days and then start afresh next week.
Thanks, 0 -
I'd advise a real effort to get some fresh air and exercise though, lad ... doesn't matter if it's walking, cycling, playing football, hillwalking, horseriding, whatever you enjoy doing, rather than just sitting in front of the tv.
When our mothers used to tell us to "go out for a walk in the fresh air, it will clear the cobwebs from your brain!" it might not have been literally accurate, but they knew what they were about all the same!
And it should help you sleep more restfully as well.0 -
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