How do you study and learn?

[Paul S]

I often see threads on EB where people are looking for study partners, and it has made my wonder what different methods people use to study for exams, and what ways people learn new things.

For engineering topics that I find interesting I can basically read the topic once or twice and have it memorized. If there are equations involved once I understand the theory, and work one or two problems, I am good to go. I have a very good talent of being able to read or see something in a book and if I see a similar topic I know exactly what book, and approximately where in that book to find that topic. I like to study by myself in a quiet place.

I have always hated group studying and the few times I was involved in a group study I ended up teaching everyone else what we were studying, and just ended up wasting my time.

I also am able to learn quickly from training videos, and if I don't comprehend something the first time I can always rewind and watch it again.

How do you study?

 

[MechGuy]

I have to go through the process of problem solving. Reading is ok for me, but I read very slow and get distracted easily. Problem solving forces me to focus.

I can't learn by lecture at all (like I said -- easily distracted!)

 

[Dexman PE]

How do you study?

This:

For engineering topics that I find interesting I can basically read the topic once or twice and have it memorized. If there are equations involved once I understand the theory, and work one or two problems, I am good to go. I have a very good talent of being able to read or see something in a book and if I see a similar topic I know exactly what book, and approximately where in that book to find that topic. I like to study by myself in a quiet place.
I have always hated group studying and the few times I was involved in a group study I ended up teaching everyone else what we were studying, and just ended up wasting my time.

Only difference is that if I know I don't have to memorize something, I'll only memorize where to find it.

I also hated group studying because I prefer to read quietly by myself and the group tends to distract from that. I also know that if I learn something and someone asks me to teach them, I typically cant. When I learn something (especially math and numbers based) I tend to makeup my own shortcuts and reasoning which only really make sense to me. I tried to teach my wife how to complete a Sodoku puzzle one time and it went so poorly she said she was actually more confused afterwards...

 

[Ble_PE]

I'd say that I'm a mixture of what Paul and Mechguy described. If I find what I'm studying interesting, I can typically read it a couple of times and I'm good to go. If it's boring as hell, I have to get into problem solving to keep my interest up. I always did well learning in the classroom, but like you guys, I didn't like studying in groups. There were a few people in college that I would ask questions to when I was having trouble and who would ask questions to me when they were struggling, but that's it.

 

[sac_engineer]

For the most part, most of the studying has to be independent. Group sessions are good for about 10% of your study time or maybe just the last couple of weekends before the test.

 

[snickerd3]

depends on subject matter. i tend to be a solo studier, unless i really have no clue. i.e relearning physics before the FE exam. in school a group of us always met up to study independently, but had the opportunity to pick each others brains when we got stuck. Usually between all the people, someone was able to help. But if you are to the point you are able to teach it to someone else, you have it down pat.

 

[Phalanx]

My study habits depend on the situation.

During college, I did almost all of my homework with a group. Usually, each person worked on homework from a different class. That worked nicely when finishing one assignment and moving on to another one. Someone else had already gone through the confused wtf stage and would be more likely to answer my questions.

For the FE, I basically studied the equations in the exam booklet. Look up an equation in a textbook, find an example problem that used the equation, then do one or two problems using the equation. If I already knew how to apply the equation, I didn't bother to study it.

My study habits were completely different for the PE. I skimmed through books to familiarize myself with the locations of certain topics and equations. After skimming through a topic, I worked through several practice problems to hammer in the theory. After covering all of the material, I went through the process a second time.

For the LEED AP exam, it was pure memorization. I spent the week before the exam reading through the book and taking a few notes as I went. After the exam, I promptly forgot everthing.

 

[ALBin517]

Beginning the PE Exam prep, most topics I didn't know at all. I started by just reading through the questions and answers, then asking at each step, "Where the h3ll did they get that number?"

After awhile, I could set up the problems.

Eventually, I could do most of the problems.

 

[Badger]

Beginning the PE Exam prep, most topics I didn't know at all. I started by just reading through the questions and answers, then asking at each step, "Where the h3ll did they get that number?"
After awhile, I could set up the problems.

Eventually, I could do most of the problems.

That pretty well describes my experience studying for the PE test.

I did find that it helped being able to look at the answers to learn how to do the problem.

But to pass the test I had to force myself to try to do as many problems as I could without checking the answers, it can be a crutch.

One of the last questions on my PE test was one I never expected, but I looked at one of my references and found a step by step example problem real similar to the test question, and I answered the question easily. When I unpacked my books I rechecked that example, but it wasn't there, the method and procees was there, but no example. Divine intervention or I was so nervous I was imagining things.

Taking the test this time, I mostly used the CERM and a couple of other references for most of the questions, that may be why I finally passed.

I would say no amount of studying is too much if you pass the first time. I wish I had have studied more before the my first attempt and passed, it was a much easier test.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

If I'm pretty close to understanding the subject, it helps me a great deal to teach it to somebody else...as long as they are interested in the topic. Saying it out loud, and trying to figure out a way to explain it to someone else refines my understanding of the subject, and may help me to think about it in a new way. However, if the other person isn't interested, then it will be impossible to teach it to them, and I will end up frustrated.

If I have no freaking clue about something, and I'm not terribly interested in it (like power subjects on the PE), I'm pretty much hopeless. If I try to read it, my mind wanders and I find that I haven't absorbed anything I just read. If I try to work problems, I get frustrated, and usually give up. If somebody else tries to teach it to me, I get frustrated at my own lack of understanding and end up blaming them (this happened a lot in high school when my dad was trying to teach me advanced math before I had the fundamental understanding necessary to learn it).

If I'm interested in a topic, I'll usually just study it until I know everything I want to know about it. This pretty much describes my grad school experience, and the digital logic problems in undergrad and studying for the PE.

So...my short answer is, it depends.

 

[Badger]

I agree teaching or showing somebody else helps reinforce my understanding of the subject.

From the occasional deer in the headlights look I get, sometimes it only helps me learn.

 

[bbrams]

For the PE exam, I read my textbooks and worked problems at the end of each chapter. This is the best way for me to learn. I didn't read too much of the detail rather I learned the formulas and how they were used. I skimmed the rest of the material. I have never succeeded when studying in a group. A group can give everyone a false sense of security especially if people have a general handle on some subjects and don't want to study those topics or teach them to others.

Teaching people can help me reinforce what I've learned, but I didn't know anyone taking the PE when I was studying for it.

 

[Bean PE]

Until recently I didn't know people actually studied for the FE. For me it was just an exam I had to take (but not necessarily pass) to graduate. I was just annoyed that the test started late in the morning due to the hyper-professional NCEES people at our location, meaning it ran late, and I almost missed happy hour in the afternoon.

I almost universally had to study alone in college. I could do homework in groups (which really sped things up) but anytime someone asked me to explain something, they ended up more confused. I'm not sure why because my method and shortcuts were clearly the most logical and straightforward ways to work through various problems, especially when I would look back at a problem and have absolutely no idea how I did it (yet it was correct).

For the PE I mostly just read and took notes. I heard from everyone that the only way was to work lots and lots of problems, but eh, not my style I suppose?

 

[tsumi]

I read almost the whole book, although I am not sure that helped me out too much. I did solve as many problems as possible, and tabbed all the tables, formulas, etc that I thought I might need for easy reference. The NCEES practice test was good too-

 

[Mapes]

The only way for me to truly retain a topic is to solve a lot of practice problems. For those who are studying for a forthcoming exam, make sure you do not read through the solutions and examples without doing everything you can to solve it on your own. Reading through solutions prematurely can give you the false confidence that you would have solved it the way the book did. If there is a practice problem that you can't initially solve, struggle to figure it out, even if it takes a half hour. For some reason, I feel that this process of struggling with practice problems is where I retained the most information. The times when I quickly gave up and flipped to the solution, I didn't retain as much.

 

[bbrams]

The only way for me to truly retain a topic is to solve a lot of practice problems. For those who are studying for a forthcoming exam, make sure you do not read through the solutions and examples without doing everything you can to solve it on your own. Reading through solutions prematurely can give you the false confidence that you would have solved it the way the book did. If there is a practice problem that you can't initially solve, struggle to figure it out, even if it takes a half hour. For some reason, I feel that this process of struggling with practice problems is where I retained the most information. The times when I quickly gave up and flipped to the solution, I didn't retain as much.

Sometimes while studying it would take me nearly an hour to solve a problem. In the end sometimes I would find a stupid error in my methodology that when fixed, I could solve the problem correctly. It is these situations where I learned the most and found out what errors I make most often.

Othertimes I found out that the books I was studying from simply had the wrong answer or I was confident enough in my methodology that I had to assume the book answer was incorrect. Other times I found out that the book answer was different because of rounding errors while solving the problem.

Solvinmg and parsing through hundreds of practice problems in textbooks made me a better test taker and solidified my confidence when solving almost any problem.

There really is no substitute to working through problems. After all, that is what you have to do when you take the test.

 

[GTjoy]

For the P.E. exam... Like everyone else, I worked lots of problems. But I tried to be methodical about it, so I studied a lot in the following way:

1. First I read the background and theory and then read through any example problems.

2. Next, I worked out and wrote down those exact same examples. While already printed there, I still wrote it down by hand, and so the understanding of the process can be better ingrained in my brain. I tried to write out all the steps, conversions, and occasional explanations.

3. Then I worked on other related/similar problems that have solutions provided (like in the supplemental Lindeberg materials), but tried to do them without the help (if possible). Like someone said - sometimes you have struggle through it to learn. If I got stuck, I'd check the solution to see if I was on the right track. Again I tried to write out all the steps and conversions, so when going back to review the work it would make sense to me.

4. Then I tried more problems independently, without referencing the solution. Sometimes I worked on the problems I had already done, and tried do them more quickly. Closer to the exam date, I tried using faster methods, like conversion tricks, to simulate exam day.

5. I kept all my worked out example problems organized (and attempted to keep them neat, though not always successfully), so I could go back and reference those instead of the original books that provided the examples.

6. In the books with lots of exam problems, in addition to checking off problems I successfully finished, I sometimes I wrote a note to myself - like "good problem", "difficult", "make sure to review", "not good".

I studied mostly by myself, but also with a study partner some. We were actually taking two different exams (civil and environmental). Still, I found this very helpful and good for the companionship/encouragement/knowing I'm not alone stuff (as well as practicality - if we were in a library or coffee shop, one person can watch the other person's stuff while the other goes to the restroom). And the partnered studying was not so much for reviewing things together, but for the accountability and occasional "running things by" each other.

 

[ALBin517]

I ... tabbed all the tables, formulas, etc that I thought I might need for easy reference.

That's most of the challenge right there. Everybody who takes the exam knows how to "plug and chug" but not everybody can find the right equations, tables, etc.

 

[bbrams]

I ... tabbed all the tables, formulas, etc that I thought I might need for easy reference.

That's most of the challenge right there. Everybody who takes the exam knows how to "plug and chug" but not everybody can find the right equations, tables, etc.

It is a good idea for people to get to know the indexes of their books. I constantly used the indexes while studying. This made searching for weird formulas a breeze while taking the exam. I remember not having a clue how to solve some of the problems, but after looking up some key words, I found an easy formula to use.