How to Understand and Study Efficiently

So since the we are back to school in India, I've decided to tell you some secrets on how to study smart and effectively. First we have to make a difference between learning, studying and reading. Learning is basically the process of acquiring new understand, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values and preferences, it is the knowledge which you acquire by studying something and understand it. Whereas, studying is just analyzing the information from reading. And reading is just information which you get by basically reading something. So to put in simple words, we can say that the information learned is processed data, information studied is raw data and reading is entering data in our brain.

A good student uses all these steps of understanding something. Think of these steps as tools in your toolbox. To understand this better we should take a example, think that you're learning a new formula in mathematics, so you first read the formula to enter to your brain and then studies the formula to know how it works and you learn it when you apply it in your problems and know where to use it, so basically learning is just to understand a thing and to know how to use it.

Now if we come to our topic so we have to keep in mind these three steps. And i will give you tips for all of these steps. First, when you read something new you should break down the sentence into simpler parts for better understanding.

Secondly, you should try to make the most out of the sentence for example; "Battle of Stalingrad was the deadliest battle ever" in this sentence we can clearly understand that the battle of Stalingrad which was fought from 1942 to 1943 was the deadliest battle ever and it was fought between axis powers and the allied powers. This sentence just stated about the battle but when we add more information about its background it is easier to understand.

Lastly, when you've made the most out of the second step you should also know a little about the history about the battle so it always stays inside your brain because your brain cannot process raw data as a individual but can process it faster when a group of events points to the battle.

But these steps were mainly to understand new things but what about the things we have studied before? Since the human brain processes a lot of things we forget many things what we read and study. So to encounter this problem there are some techniques which can be follow to learn the concept before and exam or test.

The Feynman Technique: My idol Richard Philips Feynman was a great physicist who won the nobel prize for his discoveries and contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics. He was not only a Nobel laureate in Physics but also a master of demystifying complex topics. His key learning insight: complexity and jargon often mask a lack of understanding.Feynman’s learning technique comprises four key steps:

1. Select a concept to learn.
   
   
2. Teach it to a child.
   
   
3. Review and refine your understanding.
   
   
4. Organize your notes and revisit them regularly.

Active Recalling: Active recalling is an effective way to learn what you've read in a piece of text, for example, a chapter of your history textbook or literally any subject . The method has five steps:

1. Survey: survey or skim the material to get an idea of what it is about.
   
   
2. Question: create some questions that you have and that you think the text might answer.
   
   
3. Read: Then actively read the text, trying to answer the questions you created.
   
   
4. Retrieve: This is the active recall part. Recall from memory the information you learned. Use your own words to formulate the material. Do it either orally or in writing.
   
   
5. Review: Once you finish that, repeat back to yourself what the point of the material was, and summarize what you learned.
   
   These techniques really improves your understanding for the data that you've read, and it is to be remembered that throughout this blog i've tried to make us understand how understanding and learning are directly proportional. While ending this blog i would like to add that sometimes what you learn in goodwill helps you in your bad times as well.