Best Ways to Study Biology Efficiently

Studying biology can always be satisfying when you take the right approaches towards your studies. You don’t only plan a study schedule when exams are getting closer. Having a conscious and well-structured study plan throughout the semester is the way to go. Here are some best ways to study biology.

• Learn daily

Knowledge reinforcement is very important in your study of biology. After class, you should have time to go over your notes and material as many times as possible. You can do this perfectly only if you have a daily learning schedule and a time timetable to back it. Also, test yourself after a week or two of learning. This helps you to determine whether you are making any progress with your studies. How well you can recollect what you’ve learned will tell you if you are learning the right way. If you see any shortfall, then you may have to adopt a new strategy in your learning. 

Also before school exams go over your material to refresh your mind on whatever you’ve learned. Give yourself enough time to do this to fill any knowledge gap you experience.

• Take notes

During a biology lesson, make sure you take notes of important points stated by the professor. If you were provided any material ahead of the lesson, use it to guide your note-taking. After lectures, make a reading note from the points you took. This should be within the same day or at most 48 hours, to help reinforce the information absorbed.

If you missed a point during the lesson, you can consult a friend to fill you in or use available resources at your disposal. Also, it is important to ask your professor to go over an important point you missed during the lectures. Don’t wait till it’s too late.

Sometimes you may not understand a concept immediately no matter how many times your professor repeats it. In such events, you need enough time to study and absorb it the right way. Make good use of the biology library and other available resources in such cases.

• Study to understand

Don’t just read your notes and a material like a storybook, make sure you understand every piece of information read. Take a conscious effort to actively engage the material and not the passive way. If only memorize the notes without understanding the concepts, you will forget it shortly.

Besides, when studying your focus should be on the main points instead of the sentence construction. After picking these points, you can create your own sentence around them. 

• Question yourself

As you learn question yourself in the process and find answers. This makes the learning process interesting as you always try finding answers to critical questions. For example, you can ask yourself why this particular phenomenon and not the other way round. You then try to analyze the two concepts to find out why one was chosen over the other.

• Study each concept individually

Don’t try mixing up things when studying because you confuse the brain while doing that. Study each concept of your biology topics separately, understand them well, before you try to connect them.

• Use examples

Something using short answers saves you a big deal, however, not all questions demand short answers. You may have to explain yourself better to convince your lecturer that you have a deeper understanding of the subject matter. For example, if asked why carbon monoxide kills, and your answer is because it ceases respiration. You are right but the answer is not enough to warrant full marks at the college or university level. You need to explain why it stops respiration and why the process leads to death.