Let's Pretend that We Don't Know How to Study

Let's pretend that tomorrow's Math long exam is a cause for sincere celebration. You're so happy, you actually feel compelled to open your book/notebook/stapled-pieces-of-yellow-pad-that-suffice-as-a-notebook and study the night away!


I'm writing because I can't feel any pressure. (No, I'm not confident in my knowledge of integration principles.) I'm slowly conditioning my brain to think, "Well, if I don't study now, there goes my PGH application." It's been a rainy week and all my body has been wanting is to engage in slothful acts, which we both know is never good for a college student.

I am compiling a list of tips (or demands) that might help me (and you, if you have Math in your curriculum) study. It's a foreign term but I'm pretty sure I spelled that right.

1. Make sure everything you need is right in front of you, or at least within an arm's length. We are a sedentary generation. We both admit that, and we live by the belief, "If you can't reach it, it doesn't exist."

2.  Food. FOOD. I'm serious! Forget about your diet just this time. It's okay. No one will hate you. When you eat, your body slowly comes back to life. Your joints become supple and your eyelids suddenly want to retract themselves. It's miraculous, I know, but never impossible.

3. Study in a well-ventilated area. Apparently, your brain can't function without enough oxygen, can it?

4. Turn off the router or juice out all the battery life of your laptop. You don't need those distractions unless Two Door Cinema Club just replied to your latest rabid fan girl tweet.

5. Extract all the important equations. Doing this will give us the foundation (or at least the first damned line on your blue book) on which we will solve the problem. Equations are there to alleviate the burden of more thinking, so take advantage of that.

6. Practice topic by topic and familiarize yourself with the structures of the word problems. Let's hope that our brains will get it enough to make it our second nature to know what to do the moment we spot those problems.

7. Mark problems that are either a bit complicated or impossible to solve because of your increasing fatigue. Consult your classmates or, in particular, a very good classmate who goes by the name of Hannah (girl, you're famous! Ha ha ha) for clarifications.

8. Don't wear pekpek shorts on the day of the exam. To be a math nerd, you have to look like a math nerd. Ha ha ha. I kid, I kid.

9. Rene Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum." If you don't think enough and ace that Math test, you are nothing. That is motivation.

I don't think this whole writing process is effective though.