 lights camera what is up guys karma medic here and welcome back to another dose today on the channel i'm joined by the lovely atusa hello i am currently a research assistant at kings i finished my master's here which is how i ended up being panda we met through our mutual friend kenji who you might know he's a really cool guy does medicine at kings but he's just really bad at ping pong we've met through our mutual friend kenji and we've known each other for a little while now so we've decided to make a video about a level and ib tips you know the exams are coming up soon and we thought what better to do than to tell you guys what we found the most useful when we were studying and what helped us do the best i did the ib in high school atusa did a levels and we're going to try and give you guys tips that you haven't heard before something that's a little bit different so you'll find it the most useful i've had a look at atusa's tips and they're way more creative and more fun than mine so i'm gonna let her start with the first tip i guess one of the first things that i have written down is to work in set time periods that suits you but now this is something i definitely use during my own levels because i'm one of those people who can't sit for really long periods and study i know you do that which i don't understand um but the way i used to study is i would set my timer for 40 minutes and for 40 minutes straight no distractions no phone no nothing i would concentrate and then as soon as the timer goes off i would have 10 minutes of listening to music drawing um typically maybe checking my phone but trying not to and then again once that 10 minute is over that's my 40 minutes and i would kind of just do that a couple of times for maybe like four three four hours something like that i think that's a great tip and i think the most important part of what you said actually is study for a period of time that suits you yes so everyone is different you know a really common study technique pomodoro have you heard of it yeah it's like 15 minutes of studying five minutes break or something like that so really short periods of studying and then a short break i personally like to study in four hour blocks and so i study for four hours and then i take a one or two hour break and then four hours then one or two hour break find what works for you find what helps you stay concentrated and study for those periods of time so for my next tip i've got something a little bit created all right this is something that i'm trying to compete with a two sit here so i'm not only giving practical practical to study tips um so yeah the next thing i want to talk about is to not forget about your mental health so when you're studying for long periods of time you know if you have exams coming up or even if you're cramming really hard for something it's going to take a massive toll on your brain and on your mental health on your happiness and you want to make sure that you do things in your life that sort of balance that out so for me something that i always always do is exercise exercise for me is literally me sweating out my stress and it works so so so well whether that's going for a run going to the gym playing basketball whatever it is and another way that i keep up my mental health is through things like rewards so for example if i say at 9 p.m no matter what i'm just gonna play video games with my friends and chill you know that's that's a good break from studying you don't want to study 12 hours a day or study i was going to say four hours non-stop but you know give yourself breaks give yourself rewards and do something else that takes your mind off of the study you have to have that back so otherwise you'll you'll go crazy yeah no i completely agree i think personally for me two things are really important when i get into like exam mode i it's a mistake i always make is i kind of isolate myself and i'm a very extroverted person and if i'm not around people for a long time i just get really sad and then i just start i don't know like not doing as well in my vision and then something that's fun because studying is fun if you enjoy what you're learning it can be fun it starts becoming work so for me it's very important to for my mental health i know that i have to see friends and i know that i have to do something um creative so like i said doodling is like a really easy one but like even making videos yeah so that kind of for for me personally and i know you've got yours is important so it's good for you guys to identify something that really helps you so my second point is to create some sort of reward system and basically what i mean by that is to give yourself something to look forward to either something small so for example saying after 40 minutes you're going to get yourself i don't know something like a snack or make yourself a cup of tea or maybe watch a short episode of something or you can give yourself something long term to look forward to so you can say that at six p.m. tonight i'm going to go see my friends it's three o'clock now so i have to work from three till six and then i can go and enjoy that time with my friends yeah and i think when you have something to look forward to because i know this definitely works for me like even now when i have something to look forward to it doesn't make me feel like i'm just studying and just yeah for nothing and also it doesn't make it makes you feel like there's a set time period and then after that yeah so i think that's a really good system i couldn't agree more using rewards to help motivate myself to study is something that i do all the time up till now put all your studying time into a block and put your happy fun reward time into another block and it could be something as simple as going to get tea from the kitchen going to speak to a friend down the hall if you're in university or calling your friend for 10 minutes just to blow off some steam or whatever or it can be something like going out to an amusement park or whatever whether big or small set the time for your reward and work towards it so my next tip is so important that it should have probably been my first tip is to make sure that you focus on your weaknesses all right don't leave your weaknesses till the end i know i'm a victim of this a lot of people are a victim of this you look at what's most difficult or what you think will take the longest for you to study or the longest for you to learn and you're like yeah i'll do that later no problem i'll put it at the end of the week on my timetable or whatever really trying to avoid doing that if you can if it's your weakness that's where you're going to lose marks so you want to focus on that first and make sure you get caught up and up to speed in that topic or in that subject or whatever because you know there's no point in getting like straight sevens or straight eight stars in your best classes and then like a three or four right i don't know what the equivalent is maybe like a c in the class that you're not good at which is your biggest weakness there's a saying there's a saying that that says something along lines and eat your toads first and i'm not really sure and i'm not really sure where the expression comes from but it essentially means like the thing that you're looking forward to doing the least is the thing you should do the first and and get it out of the way having said that though i do want to challenge that a little bit because personally for me if i have plenty of time you absolutely should work on the things you don't feel comfortable with and you should build on all of those but what i found is that if i've left something if the last minute thing has already happened that bridge has already been burned i tend to find that the more i've tried to push through my weakness the worse it'll make me feel so i just think i'm going to try and build on the things that i know well and know them really well to pull them off so but i think on a general consensus if you do that to begin with you wouldn't have to do this near the end it's just to give a context of where that's coming from i think in university that i had two modules um sorry i had one module in which i only had time to study half of it and the thought of looking at the half that i didn't know was so daunting that i thought no you know what i'm just going to work as much as i can on the ones that i do know and i still got like a high two one yeah and it's only because of that tiny part no i think in that situation it makes perfect sense that when i say do we'll focus on your weaknesses first the assumption is that you're going to cover all the material yes if you're not going to cover all the material or you don't have enough time to cover all the material def you have to make a lot of choices a lot of strategic choices and focusing on your strengths like it depends on so many things like if it's an essay based topic where you're going to choose three out of five essays obviously focus on the three essays you know best as opposed to figuring out the one you know least um so yeah it does depend on a bunch of things but me personally i always study all of the topics all of the content so that's why i go with that strategy study like that not like a teacher study like that yeah the next point that i've got is to create a study space and i the reason i did actually use this during my my own A level exams and it's because i think a teacher of mine said that students who do revision in the room that they take the exam do better have you heard that too i was going to say something similar but go ahead so this is something that that was told to me and um i thought that okay so what i'm going to do is i'm going to create a little study space i mean it's not quite the same but based on that theory um i created a part of my room that was dedicated to studying and every time i would be in that part of my room like at my desk or so that i knew that okay it's time to study here and if i wanted to take a break i wouldn't say that i would go downstairs or go somewhere else so that that is my study space and my rest and rest of life space is separated and that just helped me get in the mindset for revision that is such a good idea i always say separate your study space from your sleeping and your play place oh yeah definitely like if you study on your bed which is where you also watch netflix and also where you sleep it's hard to mentally separate all those things yeah like my desk is for working my bed is for sleeping sort of related to that i had friends who would only chew gum when they studied and when they took exams yes okay yeah i've heard that too that's really cool because you condition yourself you condition yourself it's about having those cues that like bring you back to that studying mode and so like you said if you study in an environment that's similar to what where you're going to write your exam then you get in that mood you get in that zone where you know your brain knows you have to study you have to focus etc etc falling on from that point my next tip is kind of related so i guess we'll segue into it you were talking about creating a study environment right so one of my tips is to create an environment with little distraction i think this day and age where we're checking our phones so often we're constantly having information thrown at us it's so hard to study if you have your phone there sitting on your desk and it lights up or makes noise every now and again like when i study if my phone is on my desk it's upside down obviously notifications off do not disturb on you know it's as quiet as can be and facing down and usually it's thrown far away from where my desk is on my bed or i put it in the kitchen or in another room because like the the temptation even without thinking about it to just pick up your phone and check what's going on is so high and i find that when my phone is even when it's on my bed which is like i'd have to stand up and walk to get it which if you think about it is like nothing but even that barrier prevents me from going to do it so yeah i would say your phone has to be gone if you're serious about doing a long study session your phone needs to be out of the picture yeah and i think there are apps and i don't know about them but maybe have a little bit of search there are apps that's you can install on your computer that's don't allow you to open certain things like facebook and youtube and stuff like set time and so that's something you could if you really don't trust yourself which i don't blame you maybe you can you're really prone to opening facebook what i do is because i use my phone as a timer because i work in blocks i put it on aeroplane mode so i'm like genuinely i i feel like i just yeah because i know that i'm not going to use it and this is a genuine thing i did to try and get me out of the habit of checking every time that my phone was on aeroplane mode and i was about to go and turn it off i would bit up and then i would like write a little like number one so it's kind of like a reminder that you tried to check your phone once and then it makes you think that oh oh yeah oh so you actively think about it instead of on autopilot just being like so again something else if you want to try yeah keep track of how often you do these things it helps you be more conscious yeah more aware and conscious of what's going on exactly so um the next step belongs on the my list and i've just written down to switch up your learning style from for example visual to auditory to kinesthetic and i think this very much depends on you because and this is the disclaimer i'm giving because for example if you know that visual learning works for you and the others don't then maybe don't uh bother trying don't force yourself for me i auditory works for me very well so if i'm just walking around and i'm listening to information it's all it almost feels like someone's having a conversation with me and i enjoy that because i enjoy listening to like content that supposed to be like but at the same time i'm also a very visual person and i need to see where something is on a page in order to remember it well so for me switching between the two really help um different parts of information kind of come together um but as i said it's good for you guys to have a little play around and see what works for you yeah exactly figure out what works for you like i know i'm very much a visual learner the auditory thing doesn't work too well for me so i always convert everything i have to paper notes and then like geographical positioning of words on a paper is what i remember best so that's how i organize my notes within a page it's all about figuring out how it is that you learn best and once you figure out stick to it you know don't change i think there's a certain amount of i guess study exploring that one should do but i guess once you're comfortable with something don't feel the need to do somebody else's method this one you've probably heard before but honestly i think it's so important that i just have to throw it in this video is to have a good study plan yes i can't do exam revision periods i can't do the work that i have scheduled even for that week without setting a good solid plan at the beginning have your calendar you have your days your dates whatever and you fill in what you're going to do each day but you don't need to be overly achieving overly optimistic yes be realistic with how much work you're deciding to do per day because that way you actually get it done if you have time left over that's great you can continue to work or you can be happy that you actually did the work that's there whereas if you schedule too many things in one day you might not finish it you'll get stressed it has to move to the next day blah blah yeah i i honestly i couldn't agree more um and i think we should we'll finish up on that point because that's a really strong point um because this is something again i learned the hard way i a mistake i would make is i would make a checklist of everything i need to learn like a whole term and then pick and choose what i want on the day that is a bad idea because going back to um naz's point about focusing on your weakness when you do that you automatically end up leaving your weaknesses until the end because you don't want to do it and this is something i've learned through further education and even my job right now that if i set tasks and say no matter what i'm going to get this done then it gets done whereas if i say oh well i have 10 things to choose from maybe i'll do this maybe i do that honestly it's it's building up that discipline and having a schedule is so important absolutely like i go to sleep knowing that when i wake up this is the topic i'm going to study like this is the task that i'm going to complete and that it gives you so much clarity you don't feel anxious you know you know exactly what you're doing yeah you have estimated how long it's going to take and yeah just planning things ahead is so so so key no it's so key and this is also um you know this general notion that it takes brainpower to make decisions about what you want to study so the less decision making time that you invest on the day of your study the better does that make sense imagine waking up and spending an hour on one topic to revise because you're not sure yeah that's just a good way so much time absolutely yeah just do it the night before do it the weeks before whatever create a study program for sure yeah cool wanna wrap up yes that is it those are all the tips that we have for you guys today i hope you've enjoyed them i hope some of them are new and that you can implement them into your own study routine your own study technique and that you find them useful we basically want to wish you the best of luck for your upcoming exams we know it's a difficult period but just put in the work study card and it'll all pay off i promise so just want to wish you good luck as i said it's a tough time you'll get through it we've been through it and we really hope that you can use some of this information to help pull you through absolutely all right guys thank you so much for watching go check out a two says youtube channel like i said here's plenty of interesting videos over there and if you guys want to follow us on instagram as well you can do so over here and over here okay yeah and yeah signing out see you guys in the next video bye