Studying is a misleading word

When you say you're studying, you're actually doing three different things. They are not interchangeable.

Most students understand this in the abstract. And then never think about it once while they are preparing for an exam.

Where your time actually goes

You can do more than one of these at once. But every time you do, each one gets less efficient.

Practicing is what moves your exam score

The more practicing you do, the higher your exam score. It is as simple as that.

My freshman year I ran a little experiment. I went and asked the students who had scored 100% on Physics 1 exams, and the top performers in Calc 2, what they actually did.

The answer was strikingly universal. They'd already learned the material and already finished the work, and then they spent their time practicing. They had practiced enough problems enough times that they recognised the exact problems on the exam. By the time it came, none of it was new to them.

Exams run on four week cycles

So spend the first two or three weeks learning and getting all your work done. That leaves the week before the exam for nothing but practice.

You don't want to be learning a topic the night before an exam. That happens to everyone. This is the honest truth, not the truth you want to hear.

And it's hard. You have to learn everything and finish all your work first. Some people picked this up naturally. They're quicker through the work, or they do extra learning during lecture, which frees up time to practice. It looks like they are just better at the class than you. They aren't.

So get very good at learning

Learning faster speeds up the work. That leaves more room to practice, which raises your exam scores. It's why the most efficient learners end up being the best students. Not talent.

Retention climbs as you get more active with the material. Reading and lectures sit at the bottom. Demonstration and discussion in the middle. Practice by doing near the top. The highest form of learning is being able to teach it to someone else.

And remember the forgetting curve. On a four week exam cycle, anything you learned in week one and never practiced is mostly gone by exam day. And you are unpracticed at it on top of that.

Change the word

Once you see the difference, drop "studying" from your vocabulary entirely. Use learning, working, and practicing instead. "I am going to the library to learn from Butler videos." "I am in the SIC working on my physics homework."

Then look at your week and ask which of the three you are actually short on.