Freshman Study Guide

Freshman Study Guide

Malden Catholic provides an environment that encourages student's to excell in the all areas of their education.  The first year in high school is critical as freshmen are exposed to a new academic culture, new friends, new teachers and a different way of learning.  Here is a study guide for freshmen that will help them on their way during their first year at Malden Catholic.

Contents:
- General Remarks
- Taking Class Notes
- Place For Studying
- Tips On Studying
- Getting The Most From Reading
- Strengthening The Memory
- The SQ3R Method of Study
- Preparing For Examinations
- Taking An Objective Test
- Taking An Essay Test

General Remarks

• The key to success is motivation. You should want to learn in order to serve God, to be a credit to your parents and yourself, and to increase your earning power in life. Your grades will be a deciding factor in college decisions.
• Without the desire to learn, you will gather information here and there, but you will be lacking the in the drive necessary to bring to full working capacity all your talents and abilities.
• Good students are not born "good students; good students are made by constant and deliberate practice of good study habits.
• Do the best that is in you regardless how many or how few gifts God has given you. Very often those of average ability are more successful than more gifted students because of greater effort.
• Study is hard work. If your aren't working hard, the chances are that you aren't really studying. Education without sore muscles isn't worth much.
• Try to get the most out of your studies, not just enough to get by. At the same time, don't allow concern for marks to become your only purpose of studying - work for understanding and learning, not just for marks.
• Cooperate with your teachers; never hesitate to ask them for advice; and be alert to study hint sand study aids which they might suggest.
• One real help to classroom achievement is overcoming quickly any natural shyness you might have: be willing to contribute to class discussion and ask questions when you do not understand something. Don't be afraid that your teacher or your classmates will think less of you.
• At least ten hours of sleep, good meals, exercise, and sound health are very important. Fatigue greatly lessens your learning ability. Have your eyes checked if you experience difficulty concentrating on your studies.
• Worries interfere with studies. Get your problems and troubles off your mind by taking them to your parents, your counselor, or a teacher in whom you have confidence.
• Don't expect that all subjects will hold a natural interest for you. Interest results from effort of the will - and it can be developed in any subject. Your interest will increase in direct proportion to the amount of effort and study you give to that subject.
• Make school an all-out effort, a vocation in itself. Curtail sharply all non-school activities on school nights. Part time work should be limited to that for which there is real financial need. Participate in extracurricular activities at school for they develop loyalty and school spirit and that sense of belonging; however, they should not be allowed to interfere with your studies.

Taking Class Notes

• Taking class notes will help you keep your mind from drifting and will force you to pay close attention. To take notes, you must be in both the physical and mental attitude of attention.
• Trying to take a good set of notes is a form of activity which will help you to absorb more of the information being presented.
• Don't try to write down everything - write only enough of the thoughts or ideas to remind you of what was said.
• Good note-takers listen about 90% of the time and write for the remaining 10%. Poor note-takers scribble furiously to make sure that they get everything with the result that they have no time for listening.
• The main thing is to weigh the importance of what you hear and to compress material into brief, accurate statements.
• Listen for clues to important items: repetition of main ideas, key words and phrases, voice inflections, pauses, changes in speaking manner from casual to emphatic, etc.
• If possible, listen to a point until you write it down. If you do not understand something, leave a space in your notes and ask the teacher to help you fill it in later.
• Try to take the notes in your own words. Put the thoughts in your own words, but in the teacher's order.
• Organize your notes as you take them. Don't jot down ideas here and there on the page.
  Write down full statements rather than topics. Statements, although short, carry much more meaning than just topics.
• In some more difficult and complicated subjects (e.g. Biology), you might do well to rewrite your notes each night. By transferring them to a notebook at night while the material is still fresh in your mind, you can make your notes complete and organized, as well as legible. Such a practice can also be a great help in understanding the material.
• For weeks to come, you will probably take either too many or too few notes, but in time you will learn just how many to take.

Place for Studying

• Study in the same room every night - your own room if possible. Your mind will begin to associate that place with study, and concentration will be easier.
• Only as a last resort should the kitchen or living room be your headquarters for homework.
• Close off, as much as possible all noise from radio, television, and conversation. Studies show that one becomes more tired doing homework with such a background. There is nothing whatsoever to the theory that you study better to the accompaniment of a radio. Routine writing work - OK, studying - NO.
• Clear your desk of all materials except those needed for a specific subject. Keep sports magazines, comic books and other distracting types of reading material out of sight and out of reach.
• Have adequate light on your work. If possible face your desk away from the window.
  Keep your room well ventilated, not too hot or too cold.
• Don't keep refreshments in the room where you study.
• Avoid studying in an easy chair or a bed. You study best when you are not too comfortable or relaxed. The best place to study is sitting at a simple, rugged straight-back chair with no cushions.
• Keep a file of all papers returned by your teachers. When a corrected paper is returned, don't simply look at your mark and throw the paper away. Go over the paper carefully to find our why you made mistakes so that they won't happen again. Keep all corrected tests, compositions, reports, etc., for later reference.
• Have a small bookshelf next to your desk for the basic reference books you will be consulting frequently: dictionary, almanac, thesaurus, one-volume encyclopedia, grammar and usage manual.

Tips on Studying

1. Some of the poorer study habits brought by students entering high school are the following:

• Copying homework
• Trying to get all one's homework done during study periods in the school day.
• Bringing home only those texts in which specific assignments are given.
• Doing only written work except on the nights before a test
• Doing homework between and around television programs .
• Starting homework with the idea of watching television "as soon as homework is finished"
• Going out after supper until 8:00 or 8:30 and then coming in to begin homework.
  
• Unless necessary, do not study immediately after school. Afternoon are for sports, errands, odd jobs around the house, hobbies, for extracurricular activities at school. Your mind needs a change of pace after five hours in the classroom.
• Plan on about three hours each night to be set aside for study. If a given evening's assignments require less time, use the balance for required or extra outside reading. An ideal plan would be to get in a short period before supper for your easiest written homework. Then only two hours or so would remain after supper.
• Have a definite time for study and begin promptly at the designated time. You will become accustomed to buckling down to study at that time, and you will find yourself less inclined to distractions.
• Begin your evening work at the appointed time, generally about one half hour after supper. Don't seek for excuses to delay just " a few more minutes." There is no sense in wasting time arguing with yourself.
• Tell your friends about your study hours; try to arrange everything to avoid distractions.
• Put aside all other thought except your lessons. Begin with real determination or you will soon find yourself dillydallying or daydreaming.
• Know what your assignments are. Keep a notebook with the assignments carefully written down. Don't depend on memory . This may necessitate a call to a classmate, and such a call seldom ends after the desired information is obtained.
• Look over your assignments before starting, and budget your time according to the demands. Decide how much time you will need to do justice to each subject.
• Go over each assignment before doing it in detail; be sure that you know just what you are supposed to do.
• Follow some order in studying your subjects, e.g. most difficult first and easier later; or alternate written and reading assignments, etc. Experiment with different arrangements in the order of your subjects until your eventually hit upon the plan which gives you the best results. Don't merely study them in the order of your school periods or in the order you happen to take out your books that night.
• Do one subject at a time - don't leapfrog back and forth. On the other hand, don't spend more than one hour on a subject that gives you difficulty. Go on and get everything else out of the way and then go back to that subject.
• Don't plan on studying two similar subjects, e.g. Latin and French, one after the other.
• A good student never feels that homework is finished when written homework is finished.
  

Furthermore, he will always study or review a subject even though the teacher did not give a specific reading or writing assignment that night. The difference between the mediocre and the superior student is in the matter of studying. Most student complete their daily written work - but the better student spends time on additional study or review.

• Don't allow long range assignments - book reports, term papers, etc. To be put off until the very last night. Don't postpone. Begin work on them long before they are due, and work on them when you can spare some time.
• Never allow a subject to get ahead of you. This is especially true in language and math for what you learn one day will be needed in the work that follows.
• Always try to complete most of your weekend homework early and avoid a pile up on Sunday night when you are tired and in a poor mood for studying.
• Plan on taking a few minutes break after 40-50 minutes of studying. A brief change of pace is good for your muscles and for your mind. Be careful, however. The best tip-off to a student who is not making good use of his time is that he always seems to be ready for a "break."
• The law of diminishing returns applies to studying. In cases where a great deal of work must be done on a given night, an hour spent in the morning will be more productive than an hour or two spent "burning the midnight oil."
• On the other hand, don't as a general rule plan on doing homework "tomorrow morning before school." It may be done hurriedly and carelessly and the rush involved may tempt you to copy the work of another boy to finish on time.
• Make use of all books, magazines or encyclopedia that will help you. When looking up materials in such reference sources, use the index at the back of the book or the table of contents at the beginning. Never thumb through a book to find what your are looking for. You may simply repeat the process over and over to find it, and then again, the desired information may be contained in several places in the book

Getting the Most from Reading

• A Poor reader generally has several of the following characteristics:
  
• he makes too many stops across a line of a page.
• he pauses too long at each stop.
• his eyes take in too few words at each skip and jump.
• his eyes jump frequently backwards in order to go back over something already read.
  
• he vocalizes as he reads, that is, he moves his lips, tongue, or throat muscles.
• he hasthe same rate reading regardless of the material he is reading.
  
• Most high school students read at about 200-250 words per minute, but that is far from satisfactory. This rate can easily be increased by the practice of four helpful techniques:
• In reading a page, let your eyes skim rhythmically and evenly across the line in two or three jumps. This involves increasing the number of words taken in at each skip of the eye so that you begin to read by phrases or a series of words (thought units) instead of reading each word separately.
• Avoid regressions. Don't allow your eyes to return to difficult phrases or sentences. To increase speed, you must train yourself to move continually and never go back..
• Vary your reading rate according to your purpose in reading and the difficulty of the material to be read (textbook, novel, newspaper, etc.). But in each case, read at the fastest rate that the kind of material allows.
• Since the best way to read is to read often, you should include some reading almost every night. Start with reading material you enjoy and as your interests broaden so will the areas of your reading. Newspapers and periodicals should be part of your daily reading fare.
• Since a paragraph is usually concerned with one central idea, read with the purpose of searching out that idea.
• As you read, try to summarize, classify and systematize the facts that you have just learned.
• Check footnotes if further information is desired from the same reference as those quoted in the reading.
• Make definite effort to understand what your are reading while you are reading. Check yourself by recalling what you learned without looking back in the book.
• Review your work at least weekly so that you can pull ideas and facts together and be ready to recall just when you need it.

Strengthening the Memory

• Have confidence in your ability to do what you are memorizing.
• Focus your complete attention upon the things you have to memorize.
• The better you understand what you're trying to memorize the more sense it will make, the more likely it is to stick with you. Meaningful material is forgotten more slowly than meaningless information. For this reason , it is important to understand material you wish to remember.
• Classify, arrange ,and organize the material before attempting to commit it to memory. This may require a written (or mental) outline to put the material into a logical unit.
• Try where possible to connect the material with something with which you have already had some experience.
• When the amount of material to be memorized is not too lengthy, use the "whole method", i.e. work to commit the whole poem or an entire list to memory. Work with whole unit , not parts.
• A helpful technique is to recite aloud to yourself whatever has to be memorized.
• Memorizing must be done in short active periods. Four fifteen-minute periods during the day (or homework) are better than a continuous hour-long period.
• Put vocabulary words, formulas, dates, and definitions on index cards. Study them, recite them, quiz yourself. Have someone at home quiz you.
• Make up mnemonics for memorization of a list of names, parts, etc. For example, make up words from their first letters by rearranging their order; or make a jingle involving what you wish to memorize; or rhyme them with common words; or associate them with cities or states or persons you know. 

The SQ3R Method of Study

The SQ3R plan of study consists of five steps: Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review. Careful experiments have shown that those who become proficient in this method learn more in less time and retain what they have learned longer than those who use less scientific techniques.

• SURVEY. Before studying a lesson in detail, it is helpful to get an over-all picture of what you are going to study. By surveying the material to be covered you will get a general idea of what has to be done. Once you have the general picture of what you are going to study, you will find it much easier to understand and remember the details. Getting a bird's eye view will help you to avoid trying to memorize a lot of seemingly unrelated details. Here are some suggestions on how to survey an assignment.
  
• Scan (look over without reading carefully) the complete assignment.
• Watch the different kinds of type in the headings. See if the author has outlined his main ideas by using a darker type for headings and other important ideas.
• Read all main headings and the first few sentences under each one.
• Look carefully at the illustrative material (pictures, graphs, and tables), for they are meant to present some of the material in a more organized and understandable way.
• Try to get a general understanding of what the assignment is about and how the information is arranged.
• Look at the end of the selection to see if there are summary paragraphs, review questions, lists of key words, or other guides to help you find the main points in the selection.
  
• QUESTION. Reading an assignment and later being unable to remember what you have just read is a very common problem that can be solved by learning how to ask the right questions before you even start to read. When you ask questions about the material you are going to read, the following things happen:
• Asking questions helps you concentrate by giving your something to look for while you read.
• Questions gives you definite things to look for that help you to better understand the general idea of the lesson.
• Asking questions gives you a purpose for reading the material.
• When your find answers to your questions, you will remember better than if you merely read the same information.

Some examples of good questions to ask yourself while studying an assignment might be:

• What is the main idea that the author is trying to tell us?
• How does the author try to prove his idea?
• What exact facts have been given that can be used to answer the question?
• Will the information that you are studying be useful in taking a test, in answering questions that might be raised in class, or in preparing a report?

The more you learn to ask questions about the lesson you are about to study, the easier it will become to think of other questions. Also, whatever you are reading will become more interesting and you will be able to remember what you have learned for a longer time.

3. READ. Although to most people studying usually means reading, studying isn't quite as simple as reading. Reading alone is often not the most important part of studying. In studying follow these steps:

• Read the assignment carefully paragraph by paragraph.
• Compare what the author says with what your already know, what has been said in class, and what he has said earlier in the selection.
• Relate what he says in each section to the total view of the chapter which you obtain in the survey.
• Try to find answers to the questions you have asked yourself.
• Don't skip by new words. Look at the root, prefix, and suffix of the word and then try to get a fuller meaning from the context of the sentence. Look in the dictionary for important-looking words.
• Spend time studying all tables, graphs, and pictures, for the author had a purpose in including these illustrations. The more time you spend in getting the meaning from them, the clearer the rest of the material in the chapter is likely to be.

4. RECITE. Once you have surveyed the lesson, developed questions to ask, and read the material, you should practice reciting what you have learned. Recitation is little more than testing what you have just studied.

• Think about what you have studied and recite aloud the main ideas and facts you have learned.
• If you are preparing for a test or quiz, make up questions you think the teacher might ask on this material and decide how you would answer them.
• If you are preparing for a class discussion, anticipate points that should be explained, and note things you wish to have cleared up.
  
• REVIEW. After you have finished the first four steps, reviewing the material is easy. Some suggestions you might follow are:
  
• Look over the entire passage but do not re-read.
• Look at the headings and subheadings to make sure you have a complete picture of the assignment.
• Pick out the important points and either make an outline, or make marginal notes, or underline, or highlight with a yellow Magic-Marker to impress the material on your mind so that you will be able to recall it later.

Preparing for Examinations

• There are several things that should always point toward tests and examinations: a well-organized notebook; constant review; a period of study immediately prior to the test.
• Cramming is short-sighted and superficial, and results in merely an outer semblance of knowledge. Cramming is beneficial only when it is on material that has been studied previously. If it is but the last resort to make up for what has not been done during the week or month, the hours of cramming will yield but disappointing results.
• It is much more sensible to prepare in stages so that you never are caught short and have to depend on last-minute cramming.
• Ask your teacher the type of test that is coming: objective (true-false, fill in the blanks, multiple choice, matching, etc.) ; or essay (questions that require discussion, explanation, and comparison, etc.)
  
• Objective tests measure you ability to recognize and recall. You are tested for memory, relationship of material, and detailed material.
• Essay tests are usually general in character, suggesting broad topics and leaving the student a chance to show his ability to organize and express clearly what he knows.
  
• To prepare for an objective test. Pay particular attention to small facts and details. Make up your own true-false or fill-in-the-blanks questions as you slowly go through the chapter. Facts, rather than general ideas, are what you are looking for.
• To prepare for an essay type test, study for a thorough familiarity with the important ideas. Attempt to grasp the relationships between these ideas , and between each idea and facts connected with it. Again, try to make a list of questions that your teacher might ask.
• For either type of test, look over the tests given previously by the same teacher to determine the type of questions asked, as well as the answers that are expected.
• Fear destroys students in a test. The student who is afraid of a test starts in a state of confusion and disorder, and because of nervousness he often experiences a paralyzing of his mental faculties (e.g. the mind going blank). Don't come into a test convinced you're going to fail it.

Taking an Objective Test

• Read the direction very carefully.
• Look for the clues in the phrasing of each question which may help you in answering it.
• In true-false questions, be on the lookout for such generalization as: never, always, only, every, etc.
  In the case of confusing items, reword them to see if you can arrive at their meanings.
• Skip difficult items and return to them later. Often information supplied later in the test will help you to answer them.
• In true-false tests, decide immediately whether a question is true or false, and do not change. It has been proven that three of every four answers changed afterwards will be changed from correct to incorrect.
• In case of multiple choice questions, immediately discard the two or three obviously wrong answers , and narrow your choice to two possible answers.
• In matching tests, make the obvious matches immediately , and then use the process of elimination.
• In all objective tests, guess at answers unless there is a penalty for guessing. Play a hunch or act on vague associations if nothing more definite occurs to you. Stick to your first choice for an answer unless you are sure later that you were wrong.
• Pay no attention to other students who complete the test before you do or who seem to be farther along than your are. Proceed at your own pace.

Taking an Essay Test

• Read all the questions first, and if some are optional, decide carefully which ones to answer.
• Notice how many points each question counts, and decide carefully a proportionate amount of time on each question.
• Divide up your time and keep one eye on the clock. Don't spend a great deal of time on a few questions and then run short of time on later questions.
• If the teacher allows the questions to be answered in any order, start with the easiest questions.
• Read each question two or three times to make sure you understand it. Many students fail essay tests simply because under pressure they misunderstand it or misread the questions and thus do not answer the question asked.
• Concentrate on one question at a time.
• Do a little thinking and planning first for each question. Organize your answer. If time permits, jot down on scrap paper a few ideas before beginning to write on the test paper.
• If you do not know the answer to a question, try to reason it out.
• When a mental block arises, move on to another question and return later when an idea comes to you.
• A good idea is to leave several blank lines between each question in the event that additional information comes to mind later.
• Don't manufacture or pad your answer. Such bluffing creates a very bad impression and is usually penalized by the teacher.
• Plan to allow yourself five minutes or so at the end of the test to review all answers and make any additions or corrections.