How do you study?

[kryder321]

We have text books with with thousands of pages to read with suplemental questions and tutorials online. We have study manuals with many of those text books with many more questions and review exercises. We also have the ATI books that are condensed fourms of all the text books we already have. where do you begin? How to you study? with all of the resourses available what works best for you?

[2ndyearstudent, CNA]

where do you begin? How to you study? with all of the resourses available what works best for you?

Here's how I do it.

1. I begin with the instructor's list of objectives. What do they want me to know? I look those over, then read the text covering the material. I don't try to absorb every point on the first try. (About an hour and a half to two hours per two hour lecture.)

2. THEN I GO TO CLASS. That is in caps because it is very important to have a look at the material before I go to class. This helps me get more out of (and participate more in) lecture. I usually audio record the lecture.

3. I go back through the material taking focused notes on information I need to know with the Section Objectives and the instructor's powerpoints as a guide. I listen to selected areas of the lecture audio recording if needed (rarely). I focus on Nursing Actions for each item, especially what is done "first" because that's how they test us. If needed I'll break out some of those additional resources. (2-3 hours)

4. Now I use the Med Surg Study guide, ATI guide, NCLEX Books, Review Questions from the text and those other resources to test myself on how well I know the materal. I often do this in study groups as we discuss and argue about the rationales. (4 hours).

If you add the above hours up, you get about 8 hours per lecture; two lectures a week gives you 16 hours per week of studying. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

That's what I do.

[tkm2005]

I begin by reading the chapters before I go to class, I also highlight while I'm reading.

While I'm in class I highlight anything extra in a different color the instructor says if I missed it during my first reading. I also take notes in my book of extra things my instructor says so all of my information is in one place.

Then I come home and type outlines of the highlighted material in my book.

I complete the workbook for each chapter we are going to be tested on, then make flashcards from the workbook questions.

I go through my typed outlines and highlight the answers to the objectives we are given at the beginning of each lecture.

Then I study my flashcards & typed outlines focusing especially on the objectives I have highlighted!

Hope this helps!! Good luck to you! The thing that helped me the most was writing key things my instructors said in my textbook so I was flipping through a million different notebooks & trying to keep up with loose papers!

[Kimberley.RN]

Thanks for the tips! They all sound very helpful.:)

[Christine2009]

Thank you for the suggestions...Nursing school can be so overwhelming when you are given so much to read in more than one subject. Now, that I have read the advice given here, I am going to start putting it into action. I never thought to make flashcards out of the questions in the study guide...awesome idea!!! And highlighting in a different color from what the instructor goes over is another good idea.

Thank you so much for the tips!