Study Methods: What Works and What Doesn't

Summary

The video ranks 10 popular study methods, discussing their effectiveness based on personal experience. The creator emphasizes that different techniques work for different people and encourages viewers to share their opinions. Top methods like past papers, active recall, and the Feynman technique are highly recommended, while others, such as rote learning and the method of loci, are considered less effective. Techniques like using YouTube videos, flashcards, and the Pomodoro technique are also evaluated. The video aims to help students find the best strategies to improve their studying and exam performance.

Takeaways

• 📚 The video ranks 10 common study methods based on their efficiency and personal preference.
• 🧠 The Feynman technique is effective for breaking down complex concepts and teaching them, but it ranks as an A-tier method due to even more effective methods existing.
• 📄 Using past papers is considered the most effective method for studying, earning an S-tier ranking due to its ability to familiarize students with exam structure, marking schemes, and time management.
• 🎥 YouTube is an excellent resource for study motivation, understanding key concepts, and study tips, but it ranks as A-tier because of its potential for distraction and passive consumption.
• 🔁 Rote learning is a D-tier method due to its inefficiency and lack of engagement unless used with active thought and questioning.
• 🖍️ Mind maps rank as a C-tier method, primarily beneficial for visual learners but less effective for non-visual learners like the creator.
• 👥 Social learning, studying with friends or in groups, ranks C-tier. It can be helpful but risks distractions if not managed properly.
• 🧩 Active recall is an S-tier method, regarded as the most efficient way to transfer knowledge from short-term to long-term memory.
• ⏲️ The Pomodoro technique ranks B-tier. It helps break studying into manageable chunks, but can disrupt focus when used too rigidly.
• 🏡 The method of loci ranks as D-tier due to its reliance on visual learning, which doesn't work well for everyone.

Q & A

What is the purpose of this video?

The purpose of this video is to rank the 10 most common study methods in terms of their efficiency and effectiveness, based on the creator's personal experience.

What is the Feynman Technique and how does it work?

The Feynman Technique is a method of memorization where you learn a complex concept and break it down into simple terms, then teach it to someone who knows nothing about the subject. The idea is that if you can explain it in simple terms, it shows that you understand it well.

Why does the creator consider past papers to be highly effective for studying?

Past papers are highly effective because they help familiarize you with the exam structure, question types, and marking criteria, and they help you improve time management by simulating exam conditions.

Why is YouTube not rated as an S-tier study method?

YouTube is rated as an A-tier study method because it can be easy to get distracted and because it's a passive form of content consumption, which may lead to not implementing the learned techniques.

What are the disadvantages of rote learning according to the video?

The main disadvantage of rote learning is that it's inefficient and tedious. Repeating information without processing it deeply does not lead to effective memorization, and it can be boring, which reduces engagement.

What type of learners benefit the most from using mind maps?

Visual learners benefit the most from using mind maps because they present information in a graphical way, helping them to better visualize and understand the relationships between concepts.

What are the pros and cons of social learning?

The pros of social learning include engaging discussion, explaining concepts (which aids understanding), and making studying more fun. The cons are the risk of distraction and getting off-topic, which can make study sessions less productive.

Why is active recall considered one of the most effective study methods?

Active recall is effective because it forces you to actively process the information, which helps move it from short-term to long-term memory. It is supported by research showing that it is more efficient than passive reading or note-taking.

What is the Pomodoro Technique and what are its advantages?

The Pomodoro Technique involves studying for 25 minutes and taking a 5-minute break afterward. It helps overcome procrastination, makes study sessions less intimidating, and encourages regular breaks for better focus.

Why is the Method of Loci not effective for the video creator?

The Method of Loci is not effective for the creator because they are not a visual learner. Although it's a powerful memorization technique used by memory champions, it does not work well for them personally.

Outlines

00:00

🧠 Ranking Study Methods: Feynman Technique and More

The video discusses ranking 10 common study methods based on efficiency. The presenter introduces the Feynman technique, which involves breaking down complex concepts into simple terms and teaching them to others. This method is highly effective for deeper understanding and is rated as an 'A-tier' method due to its usefulness, though not quite as impactful as other methods discussed later. The presenter emphasizes the importance of engaging with study materials actively, rather than passively consuming content.

05:00

🎯 Project Elon: Transform Your Grades in 30 Days

The second paragraph introduces 'Project Elon,' a course designed to help students improve their study habits and grades within 30 days. The presenter explains the structure of the course, which includes 38 video lessons, quizzes, a workbook, a planner, and access to a community for accountability. The course is focused on helping students actively implement study techniques rather than passively consuming them, and offers personal guidance. The presenter highlights the importance of consistent, actionable steps for effective learning.

10:05

🎓 Effective Learning: Active Recall and Pomodoro Technique

This paragraph explores several study techniques, including active recall, which is a highly effective method for moving information from short-term to long-term memory. Studies suggest active recall is one of the best techniques for factual and problem-solving tests. The Pomodoro technique, a time management method, is also discussed. Although effective in encouraging study sessions, the presenter notes its limitations, particularly the interruption of focus. The presenter ranks both methods but highlights that while Pomodoro is useful, it may not suit all study styles.

Keywords

💡Feynman Technique

The Feynman Technique is a method of memorization where you break down complex concepts into simple terms and explain them as if to a beginner. In the video, the speaker highlights how this technique helps deepen understanding by forcing the learner to simplify and teach difficult subjects, emphasizing its usefulness during university when explaining concepts to friends.

💡Past Papers

Past papers refer to previous exam papers used for study and revision. The speaker strongly advocates for this method, placing it in the 'S-tier' because it familiarizes students with exam structure, types of questions, and improves time management. The speaker finds it surprising how underused this method is despite its effectiveness.

💡YouTube Videos

YouTube videos are described as a resource for study motivation, concept explanation, and study tips. While the speaker values YouTube for these purposes and ranks it in the 'A-tier,' they note that its passive nature and potential for distraction prevent it from being an 'S-tier' study tool.

💡Rote Learning

Rote learning is a memorization technique based on repetition. The speaker criticizes this method for being inefficient, tedious, and passive. They place it in the 'D-tier,' emphasizing that learning should involve processing information, which rote learning often lacks unless supplemented with active thinking.

💡Mind Maps

Mind maps are a visual method of organizing and structuring information. The speaker ranks them in the 'C-tier,' noting that while mind maps work well for visual learners, they personally found them less effective. However, the speaker acknowledges that others find great value in this method.

💡Social Learning

Social learning involves studying with others, either in groups or with friends. The speaker values this method for its engagement and the potential to incorporate techniques like the Feynman Technique but places it in the 'C-tier' due to the risk of distraction and off-topic conversations during group sessions.

💡Active Recall

Active recall is a study method where learners actively try to recall information after reading it. The speaker ranks this in the 'S-tier,' citing research that shows active recall is one of the most efficient ways to study, helping to transfer information from short-term to long-term memory.

💡Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method where study periods are broken into 25-minute intervals with 5-minute breaks. The speaker used to use this method but ranks it in the 'B-tier' because the mandatory breaks can disrupt flow during intense focus sessions.

💡Method of Loci

The Method of Loci is a memorization technique that uses visualization of familiar spaces to recall information. While the speaker acknowledges its effectiveness, especially among memory champions, they place it in the 'D-tier' due to their preference for non-visual learning methods.

💡Flashcards

Flashcards are a study tool where questions or information are written on one side, and answers or explanations on the other. The speaker places flashcards in the 'A-tier' because they found them particularly useful during revision, especially when combined with active recall.

Highlights

Ranking 10 common study methods based on efficiency and personal experience.

The Feynman technique: Explaining complex concepts in simple terms to improve understanding.

Personal experience using the Feynman technique effectively during university by teaching friends.

Past papers: Ranked as the most effective study method for exam preparation.

Benefits of using past papers include familiarization with exam structure, language, and time management.

YouTube as a study resource: Helpful for motivation, concept clarification, and study tips, but prone to distractions.

Rote learning: Ranked low (D-tier) due to its inefficiency and passive nature unless accompanied by active questioning.

Mind maps: Helpful for visual learners, but personally not effective for the speaker.

Social learning: Can be effective for engaging with peers, but easily derailed by distractions.

Active recall: The most efficient memorization technique, backed by research from Dunlosky et al. (2013).

Pomodoro technique: Useful for time management, but interrupts flow for the speaker; ranked B-tier.

Method of loci: Effective for visual learners, but personally not useful for the speaker; ranked D-tier.

Flashcards: Ranked A-tier due to their utility in combination with active recall.

Importance of studying smart, not just hard, by using efficient methods like active recall and past papers.

Final call to action for viewers to implement study techniques and sign up for the speaker's course to transform their grades.

Transcripts

i talk a lot about study techniques and methods  on this channel but i've never ranked them in  

terms of which methods are the most efficient and  worth using and which maybe aren't so effective  

so i'm gonna go for the 10 most common study  methods and i chose the 10 most common study  

methods because there's a good chance that you  guys use some of them and i'll give you my own  

personal opinion on whether or not they work  for me now obviously this is a video based on  

my own personal preferences and we all study  and memorize information in different ways  

so let me know in the comments which study methods  you put in the s tier and which you'd put in the  

detail the feinman technique the final technique  is a method of memorization where you learn  

a more complex concept and then you break it down  into simple terminology and then you teach it to  

someone who knows nothing about the subject the  idea being that if you can explain a very complex  

concept so that essentially a five-year-old can  understand it then it probably means that you  

understand it on a good enough level to answer  any exam questions that might come up on it  

and also the idea of teaching someone something  will allow you to learn the information on a  

far deeper level too so how effective is it for me  personally it was extremely effective a lot of the  

time at university i would be asked quite often  to explain some concepts that some of my friends  

maybe didn't understand and so unintentionally  i used the farming technique quite a lot  

and because it was so effective i've got to put it  as an ats study method there are some incredibly  

effective study methods on this list more so  than the feynman technique which i explained  

later on in the video so i can't quite put this  as an sts study method but nonetheless if you've  

never tried this method of studying it's super  effective so i definitely give it a go and it's  

actually kind of fun too explaining to someone and  communicating with someone while studying is far  

more engaging and fun than reading a thick black  and white textbook past papers so earlier i said  

that there are some study methods that are more  effective than the feynman technique and this is  

one of them using past papers go straight to sta  and if there was a tier higher than s i'd probably  

put it in that but although this method is so  effective it was surprising at least to me how  

many students didn't actually use exam papers to  study for their exams and in my opinion that was  

a massive mistake there are so many reasons why  you should be using exam pass papers to revise if  

you have access to them firstly it allows you to  get used to the structure of the exam paper in the  

language that they use and the types of questions  that might be asked you'll also understand better  

the allocation of marks and marking scheme that  will be used because a subject's exam papers tend  

to have the same exam structure and finally  going through a past paper in exam conditions  

helps you work on your time management so when  it does come to the real exam you know roughly  

how long you have for each section and if you mark  your answers yourself using the marking criteria  

you can analyze to see any gaps in your knowledge  that you can then focus on to revision on so exam  

pass papers the easiest study method to put on  the sta shelf youtube videos youtube is an amazing  

resource for studying and i think it's quite an  underutilized resource i don't think enough people  

know just how powerful youtube can be for exam  revision so youtube can be used for a vision in  

a number of ways firstly study motivation videos  they're great if you're feeling unmotivated or  

tired and you just need that extra push secondly  if you're having problems understanding any  

key concepts in your course or maybe you don't  understand something your lecturer talked about  

or maybe you want to dive deeper into a particular  topic youtube is a great resource in doing that  

because there are videos on here about pretty much  anything and everything and finally the third way  

youtube is really helpful for study tips and it's  probably why you're watching this video right now  

you can learn how to study more efficiently  how to achieve higher grades how to keep your  

self disciplined and motivated it really is  a ridiculously useful resource so i'm going  

to put it as an a-tier resource and there's  two main reasons why it doesn't quite reach  

the s-tier firstly the youtube algorithm does  everything it can to keep you on the platform  

so while you're watching educational videos  it's really easy to click onto something not  

so educational and before you know it you're  procrastinating again and the second reason is  

because youtube is a passive form of content  consumption how many times have you watched  

a youtube video on how not to procrastinate but  then you clicked off the video and continued to  

procrastinate or how many times have you watched  a video on effective study methods but then never  

actually implemented those methods because it's a  passive form of content consumption so that's why  

it's an a t a study method rather than an s tier  and it's actually one of the main reasons why  

i created my transformer grades in 30 days course  that will be launched on the 29th of march because  

i've realized tens of thousands of you were  watching my videos but they're not actually  

implementing what i teach it's easy to  gain the knowledge on how to study better  

and more efficiently on youtube but it's something  completely different to put that knowledge  

into actionable steps that you implement on a  daily basis so i specifically created the project  

seal on course with that in mind you can click on  the link in the description to find out more and  

the course contains 38 video lessons interactive  multiple choice quizzes an eight-page workbook  

with engaging exercises to work through alongside  the video lessons a 28-page productivity planner  

an exclusive project elon community to keep you  accountable and personal guidance and support  

throughout the challenge from me and there's so  much more included because that's how we learn  

by doing and implementing not just watching  passively on youtube so if you're ready to  

take the transform your grades in 30 day challenge  and take your studying and your grades to the next  

level i'm gonna say right now this challenge  is going to be hard it's not going to be easy  

to transform your grades but i'll be there  helping you and providing you personal support  

every step of the way so if you're ready then drop  your email in the link in the description because  

i'm giving a huge 50 discount to the first 300  students that enroll in the course rote learning  

so all the study methods so far have been either  ata or sta and rote learning unfortunately has  

to go in the d to shelf because rote learning is  a memorization technique based on repetition the  

idea being that the more you repeat the material  the better you'll be able to understand it and  

remember it the problem i have with this study  method is that it's just not efficient i talk  

quite often on why it's important to study hard  but also to study smart in fact i made a whole  

video on it you can click on the pop-up banner  above to watch it and wrote learning just isn't a  

smart way of learning because when you're reading  over the same information again and again and  

again it can be incredibly tedious and so you get  bored therefore you don't process the information  

and that's the problem right there you learn and  memorize things by processing the information  

and then recalling it at a later date now  rote learning has its place if you're using  

this method then make sure that you're actively  thinking about what you're learning ask yourself  

questions about the material why does this happen  why does that happen as long as you're asking  

yourself questions constantly and thinking about  what you're reading then it could be bumped up  

to the c or even the b tier but rote learning by  itself just repeating the material over and over  

definitely on the d shelf mind maps i'm sure most  of you know what mind maps are but just in case  

you don't they're graphical ways to represent  ideas and concepts that help you think visually  

and they also help structure information to better  analyze and understand it now i'll be honest with  

you i didn't use mind maps that much at university  i'll tell you why i'm not much of a visual learner  

and mind mapping presents information in a visual  way so it's a great study method for people that  

learn and memorize things visually but for me  personally i never used them that much as a result  

i'm going to put it as a ct at study method but  remember this is just what personally works for me  

i know people that swear by mind maps and for  them it would go straight to the sts shelf but  

for me personally ct social learning and by social  learning i mean studying with friends either with  

just one friend or in a small study group now this  is a difficult one i was going to put it as a b  

tier study method because discussing and engaging  with other students on more complex concepts or  

even just explaining to another student some of  the material you are inadvertently implementing  

the feynman technique too which is a great study  method in of itself and if you have any questions  

you can ask the other students in the group which  can save you hours of time rather than spending  

hours stuck on a problem when you're studying  by yourself but more importantly and maybe above  

everything else it's just a more fun and engaging  way to study and if we enjoy our studying we far  

more likely to actually do it and the knowledge  we learn is more likely to stick because let's  

be honest studying by ourselves all the time can  get a bit tedious but this is why i put it as a ct  

study method rather than a b to it it's really  easy to get distracted often a study session  

with a friend or group of friends can start off  productive but it's really easy to fall down that  

trap of starting to discuss the weekend or plans  for the night or things unrelated to studying  

that's the one of the biggest downfalls to this  study method however if your study partners are  

as focused and are as motivated as you are then  you will make an effort to keep the study session  

on track and on topic social learning can be an  incredibly effective study method active recall  

active recall goes straight to sta it's a method  of memorizing information by first reading it  

then closing your eyes and trying to recall it  without looking it up if you can successfully do  

so then you have just used active recall but if  not look it up and learn it and then try again  

and like i mentioned earlier in the video just  reading a textbook passively or watching a video  

passively or attending a lecture or sitting there  passively listening it's not an efficient way of  

learning it's not studying smart and active recall  forces you to process the information therefore  

it helps move the material you're learning from  your short-term memory to your long-term memory  

and i use this study method a lot at university  and it saved me a lot of time and according to a  

study carried out by researchers dunlos guitar in  2013 active recall is the quickest most efficient  

and effective way to study written material at  least for factual and problem-solving tests and  

it has also been found to be more effective than  mind mapping and note-taking for memorization too  

so even when you're just reading a boring textbook  or reading any book for that matter i think  

it's incredibly important to be using active  recall throughout to make sure that you're not  

just reading it passively but you're reading it  actively and actually soaking in the information  

so with all that being said easily an sts3 method  the pomodoro technique the pomodoro technique is  

a time management method developed by francesco  cirillo in the late 1980s it's basically where  

you set the pomodoro timer for 25 minutes and  you study for that 25 minutes then when that 25  

minutes is up you take a five minute break so it  encourages you to study in 25-minute chunks with  

five-minute breaks in between and i like this  study method because it's good if you don't  

really want to study but 25 minutes of studying  doesn't sound that intimidating so it's good to  

actually get you to sit down and study in the  first place and the fact that it even encourages  

breaks too because the human brain can only stay  fully focused for 25 to 45 minutes at a time  

depending on which study you read so if you're  studying for eight to nine to ten hours that day  

then it's important to take regular breaks so  we can keep studying for longer however there  

are some disadvantages when i study i enter into  a state of flow where i'm completely 100 focused  

on what i'm studying and then when the timer goes  off after 25 minutes but the timer forces me to  

take a break so i lose my focus so i used to use  the pomodoro technique quite a lot but these days  

i don't so much for exactly that reason so for me  personally i'm gonna put it as a bts study method  

because i do still think it has its place but i  just don't use it that much anymore method of loki  

the method of low-key study technique is a way  of memorizing material which uses visualization  

of familiar environments in order to better recall  the information so for example you might imagine  

yourself placing items around a room such as  on the sofa next to the bed or on top of the tv  

and then in order to recall each item you visually  walk around the room and then either pick up  

or pass each item that you placed it and that's  what triggers your recall for the material you're  

learning now like i said before i'm not much  of a visual learner so i have tried to use this  

method but for me personally it's just not that  effective i mean it is an incredibly powerful  

memorization technique some of the world champions  of the world memory championship use this method  

and if they're using it then it must work but  i'm gonna have to put this on the dts shelf  

because that's just my personal preference and  let me know in the comments if you use this study  

method and if it's useful for you flashcards  i think every student on the planet has used  

flashcards in some way or another to study for  their exams and i'm no exception i use flashcards  

a lot they can be used in various ways but how  i use them is i would write down a question on  

the front of the card and i'd write the answer on  the back of the card and the flashcards can also  

contain important pieces of information such as  historical dates formulas or any subject matter  

so i'm going to put flash cards as an a tier study  method because for me flash cards were incredibly  

useful during the revision process and i also used  them alongside the active recall method as well so  

i was kind of combining two studying methods into  one and if you don't agree with anything in this  

list let me know in the comments where you would  rank each study method i'm wondering if you guys  

would have a table that looks completely  different to mine and if you are watching  

my videos but struggling to implement what i teach  you or maybe you just need that extra push or some  

personal guidance and support from me then check  the description where there's a link about the  

transform your grades in 30 days course it will  be launched on the 29th of march so there's not  

long now and the first 300 students will be  getting a huge 50 off the standard price so  

don't miss out click the link below and if you do  i look forward to working with you very shortly