You’re just about to enjoy your Easter break, exams are ages away, and you’ve got plenty of time for studying, right?

WRONG!

Exam season is approaching faster than the next series of Love Island, meaning you really need to get a move on with revising before exams begin.

Dependent on your course, exams may not even be your only worry. You may have coursework due too, which really emphasises the need for you to get studying sooner rather than later.

Each week, we’ll be sharing a great method to help with studying, advice for your exams and essay writing tips that will help you achieve the best grades.

This week, we’re talking about the SQRRR or SQ3R method.

What is it?

SQRRR or SQ3R is an acronym for the five steps of a reading comprehension process. Try these steps for a more efficient, guided and effective study sesh.

Survey: Instead of reading the entire book, start by skimming the first chapter and taking notes on any headings, subheadings, images, or other standout features like charts.

A rule of thumb for skim reading is that you should move your eyes down the page as much as you move them from side to side. Imagine you’re running down the stairs… but with your eyes and an eTextbook!

Below we have demonstrated this using the Kortext platform. Did you know, Kortext’s enhanced eTextbooks, you can alter the page to suit your preferences?

You can also adjust the page colour, width, font style, size and more with a few clicks of a button, to make your study session bespoke to you!

Question: Formulate questions around the chapter’s content, such as, what is this chapter about? What do I already know about this subject?

With Kortext, some of our interactive eTextbooks have done this part for you, but below is an example for you!

Read: Begin reading the full chapter and look for answers to the questions you formulated.

By reading the chapter in full, you’re going to crawl the text looking for the answers to the questions you’ve written. It helps to make notes on this or answer the questions as you go.

You can do this by using Kortext’s notes functionality as we have below! Utilising the notes functionality really helps you to become immersed in your reading. Making use of Kortext’s notes tool also acts as an efficient way to keep all of your notes safe and in one place for added studying ease.

Recite: After reading a section, summarise in your own words what you just read. Try recalling and identifying major points and answering any questions from the second step. A great way of doing this would be to try and either write down some key points onto cue cards or say them out loud. If you’re feeling really adventurous, record yourself!

Review: Once you have finished the chapter, it’s important to review the material to fully understand it. Quiz yourself on the questions you created and re-read any portions you need to.

If you’re using one of Kortext’s interactive enhanced eTextbooks, make best use of the questions that can be found at the end of each chapter. You should then revisit the text for anything you struggle to answer and repeat this process until you’ve nailed it!

 

This method is great because it allows you to study on a chapter-by-chapter level, giving you the opportunity to spend as much time on each chapter as you need.

What are you waiting for?

Log into Kortext today to get going!