BY GRACIE LYONS
The dorms Park-Stradley and Smith-Steeb at Ohio State University seem to be nearly identical from the outside, but on the inside, the Psych department has mixed up the color scheme inside the dorms. In Park-Stradley, the walls and carpeting cover the halls in fiery red and bright orange stripes. In Smith-Steeb, the walls and carpet are colored with a lime green and bright blue. Whereas, in Smith-Steeb, the walls and carpet are colored with a lime green and bright blue. The goal of these varying appearances is to study if the color of a room influences the performance results of the students.
Although the results of the experiment are still underway, here are a few tips and tricks to make studying easier and more productive in high school:
1. Study right before bed or first thing in the morning
While sleeping, the brain converts information from the previous day into memories. Several studies have found that studying the night before or first thing the morning of will help you to retain the information that you just reviewed. Senior Nick McCarthy has found this time to be the most effective for him. “I study by doing textbook problems the night before a test,” says McCarthy. However, this method is only useful if the student gets enough sleep.
2. Create a story
To remember acronyms, find a rhyme or make up a story to help you remember the meaning of the term. As for senior Jaxie Brokamp, she finds this method to be the most useful. “What works best for me is combining something familiar with something new. I would create goofy songs and the oddness of it is what actually helped me remember it,” says Brokamp. Try relating the rhymes to your own life or to a tune of a song.
3. Study in a quiet place
Background noise can interfere with studying. College freshman Ellie Kapcar shares that she is most productive while studying when she is in complete silence. “I’m someone who needs total silence to be productive, so if I’m in a place where it’s noisy or distracting, I put on white noise to block out the surroundings,” says Kapcar. White noise websites can be accessed easily with internet connection.
4. Write it out
As technology is starting to overrule printed textbooks, some students still prefer writing to typing. Senior Cassidy Bollman suggests writing things down on paper in order to remember them. “When you write things, you are thinking about them and you will probably remember it for the test,” shares Bollman.
5. Turn off the distractions
The vibrations of cell phones and alerts on laptop screens slowly draw us away from our tasks, and the best way to reduce the odds of this happening is by turning-off the distractions. Try putting your cell phone and laptop on do-not-disturb, or maybe place them in another room to ensure that you will not be distracted. Kapcar adds, “The best study tip that I can pass on to others is definitely to put your phone down and resist checking social media on your computer. I’ve been reading that for our brains to actually absorb and learn material we have to be committed to focusing on one task at a time rather than popping back and forth between apps or tabs.”
No matter the color schemes of the walls and surrounding furniture, there is always a way to be productive in studying.
