While conventional multiple choice study wisdom says you should create a study schedule and follow it rigorously, there are a few problems with this approach:
- Study schedules weight the difficulty of everything the same
- Study schedules assume your brain works with equal effectiveness at all times
- Study schedules don’t properly weight your existing knowledge of a topic
- Study schedules give false feelings of productivity
- Study schedules lower your morale when you can’t stick to them (which most people can’t)
- Study schedules don’t allow for the real world
- Study schedules lead to wasted time
Your best bet for managing your multiple choice prep time is to self-monitor. Don’t just read stuff for the sake of reading, and don’t just make schedules because that’s what everyone else does.
If you absolutely can’t live without scheduling your life, then let’s try to make your schedule more effective:
- Make the schedule tight, and aggressive.
- Don’t schedule time for “general studying”. Schedule time for building your structured, master document.
- If you can’t stay focused, switch to another topic, and start the master document for it.
- Not everyone can focus on the same material for hours at a time.
- Be aware. When you glaze over, get tired, or your attention wanders, it’s VERY difficult to force yourself to focus. Take a break, or switch topics.
