Exam Study Tips for your Brain

What muscle do you need to exercise the most to ace that exam ? Your brain. Think about how to maximize the potential of your brain this week.

Think about water. Your brain is about 75% water. If you want it to work with you instead of against you remember to drink water. Exercise and water will put that brain to work with the necessary chemicals to stimulate focus and memory.

Tea and coffee reduce the amount of water in your body because they increase your trips to the bathroom. Cold or warm, a nice tall glass of water is the best ingredient to study success.

Your brain needs help to stay focused and to learn new things. Experts agree that giving yourself time for breaks is important to stay on task.

Study 15 minutes - reading, summarizing notes
Break 5 min
Study 15 minutes - reading, answering questions from the study guide
Break 5 minutes

Give your brain time to absorb ideas and try new ways to boost your memory like SQ4R
This is a classic time tested method used by thousands of students successfully. Give it a try !

Survey - go over the chapter and look through the titles, subtitles and pictures.
Question - take each subtitle and turn it into a question.
Read - actively look for the answer to the question you made of the subtitle
Respond - once you've read a section close the book and describe it with your own words use your own words.
Record - take notes or highlight the text
Review - review your course notes, course books, regularly.

Find this SQ4R tip sheet online at The Guelph Learning Commons.

Quote It & Note It !

Today's workshop on creating references in your paper was led by Sara Gosnell, the writing consultant for the Ridgetown Campus Library Learning Centre.

You can follow her tips and tricks online with these links:

WRITING HAND-OUTS
http://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/assistance/writing_services/undergraduates/writing_resources_&_handouts.cfm


OWL at PURDUE - writing assistance
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

Tag it ! Use it !

Did you know that any time you find a good library resource you can tag it ? If you have a book that you want to look at again or a DVD you want to recommend to someone else the easiest way to keep track of things is with a tag in the library collection on PRIMO.

We have created some tags for Ridgetown courses. Search Tags with the term "RC" at the Guelph Library Primo Search page. http://primo.tug-libraries.on.ca

How do you tag ?
Search Primo from the Guelph Library Homepage www.lib.uoguelph.ca

• Sign in to Primo for full access. Tags are created by Guelph users not the public.
  
• Search for the item you want to tag, then click on it to get to the detailed view.
• Click the link Assign/remove tags in the Tagging section of the page.
• Add your tag. If you want to add more than one tag, separate each tag with a comma.
• You can remove your tags at anytime by clicking Assign/remove tags, but you can't remove other users' tags.

Happy hunting - make a few tags to share with others while you are at it !

Search Strategies

Keep it simple - that is the best strategy for searching online. Try not to get bogged down with hit lists that have 1,867,436,344 web sites to check on your assignment topic.
If you value your time and want a quick result that is focused on your course assignments start with our Course Guides online.

These hand-outs have good books and online resources recommended by your instructor and the library. We have listed some reference sources - online encyclopedias - and some professional associations. Use the guides to find articles, legal resources, government documents without searching yourself, just click on the resource title to go to the recommended site.

Don't forget that online articles are sometimes restricted to Guelph students and you may have to sign in with your Guelph ID to get access. There are instructions for accessing articles online when you are off- campus. See the Guelph Library home page for more details.

Don't get that H1N1 thing

On top of everything else you may be wondering how to stay healthy. Here are some tips I recently got from Dr. Vinay Goyal (MBBS, DRM,DNB - and if you think I know any of those terms you should think again) thanks to the Children's Aid Society of London:

The only way the virus can get you is through your nose and mouth. You are going to contact someone with H1N1 so what can you do to avoid getting sick ?

1. Wash your hands ! Have you heard that enough yet ? Are you doing it ??

2. Get your hands off your face - unless you are eating, washing or clapping yourself awake!

3. Gargle twice a day with warm salt water - use Listerine if you prefer. This is a simple inexpensive and effective way to stop H1N1 from growing for 2-3 days in your throat before you get symptoms.

4. Clean your nose with warm salt water and a q-tip and one good blow each day.

5. Eat healthy - Vitamin C is important so don't forget fruits and veggies.

6. Drink tea and coffee to wash away any viruses into your stomach where they can't survive.

Exam Time

Mid-terms are here already and you may need to refresh your study habits for these kinds of tests. Don't know where to start ? Try the short handy guides from Learning Services at Guelph.

Multiple Choice Exams

Exam Preparation

Whatever you do remember that it always helps to take short breaks, get some exercise, and make time to eat and sleep well. If you want to use your brain at its best don't forget to take care of yourself. Those 'Lobes of Steel' mentioned in a New York Times article by Gretchen Reynolds take time and effort to develop.

Study Tips and Time Management

If you attended the Toonie Lunch in Agronomy these are the online links you need to review the topics we talked about.

A Guide to Time Management Online Tutorial - you will find tips for making your schedule work better, avoiding procrastination and other ideas here.

A Guide to University Learning - there are ideas here on learning from lectures and learning from texts to improve your note-taking and memorization of material.

Fastfacts - read more about preparing for exams, studying, and concentration. There are style sheets for citing sources and simple concepts from improving your assignemnts. These are short guides to help you be a better student that I highly recommend.

Course Guides Online at Ridgetown Campus Library - good sites and sources for your assignments recommended by instructors are available here.

Send us an email the the library or drop in if you want future sessions on a particular problem. We want to know what you think ! library at ridgetownc.uoguelph.ca