Study Prof

Ever had a car wreck? Any big, emotional, unusual event such as a car wreck, our high school graduation, or our first kiss, is easily memorable. No notes. No flash cards. It just sticks!

“Car wreck” memories stick because they are emotional and unusual.  They are also multi-sensory.  So how do we take something as boring as vocabulary (or anatomy, or chemistry, or [fill in your own memory bugaboo here] and make it multi-sensory, unusual, and emotional?

It’s actually very easy!  (more…)

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Exercise in many ways optimizes your brain to learn. –Dr. John Ratey

In my personal practice I’ve found it helpful to get up from my studies or work every thirty to forty-five minutes and do some exercise … something to get my blood pumping … something that I can complete in two to five minutes. I use this helpful (free) timer to keep me on track.

I’ve found that my concentration levels remain higher, I’m more productive, and I can work much longer over all. I also don’t end up feeling as tired by the end of the day.

You will, of course, need to identify things that work well for you personally (and, of course, consult a doctor if you have any physical issues). The point is to get your heart rate up a bit.

I personally alternate between these exercises…

• push ups
• sit ups
• brisk walking around the block
• jogging
• jumping jacks
• squats or lunges
• curls (I just use a basic pair of dumbbells I have)
• bench press
• dips (putting my feet on one chair and my hands on two more chairs)
• shadow boxing
• crunches

You can find demos of many/most of these at youtube.

By the way, there is solid research finding a correlation between exercise and better brain functioning.

I recently came across this helpful site for learning different math concepts. Take a look.

Double-click any word for the dictionary reference. Check back every day for more words.

abdicate
acetic
affable
ambidextrous
annihilate
apparition
artifice
august
bantering
bequeath (more…)

Double-click any word for the dictionary reference. Check back every day for more words.

abbreviate
acerbity
aesthetic
ambiance
annex
apparent
artifacts
augury
bank
bent (more…)

First–full-disclosure–I teach a GRE prep course and an SAT prep course for Texas A&M University.

Expensive courses can be worth it if you actually get the increases they claim. They could easily make you ten times as much as they cost, in the form of scholarships, fellowships, or better jobs!

What little independent research there is on the effectiveness of such courses shows little or no increase in score for those who buy the prep books (although buying the books is not the same as reading the books). Those who take prep classes show some improvement, and the greatest increases are among those who get personal tutoring. This research was specifically on the SAT, but the two tests are very similar. On the other hand, GRE students tend to be more self-motivated students than SAT students, so they might get better results from the books.

Pricier doesn’t mean better. Most courses teach pretty much the same stuff, because they all read each others books and integrate any new techniques they find. For the price of a classroom course from Kaplan or Princeton you can get live, one-on-one, GRE tutoring via the internet. That link is for my tutoring, but I’m sure there are lots more tutors out there. (more…)

Jeffrey Ellenbogen, a sleep research fellow at Harvard Medical School in Boston, found that those who studied and then slept on it did much better on a test the next day than those who didn’t sleep. In fact, sleepers got an average score 76% correct while the all-night crowd got only 32% correct! Find the full story here.

McMaster University up in Canada has put together this fantastic little video on problem solving for classes like physics, statistics, and chemistry. Take a look.