Starting in July 2012, ETS will allow you to choose which GRE scores you report to schools rather than just reporting every GRE score for the last five years as they had been doing. ETS, the maker of the GRE, is NOT your friend, so why the sudden burst of magnanimity? I think I’ve figured it out.

Let’s say, you pay your $160 and go take your GRE. At the end of the exam, but BEFORE you actually know how you scored, ETS gives you the option of either reporting all your GRE scores from every GRE you’ve taken for the last five years, OR you can just report the GRE score you got on the test you just completed. That isn’t so helpful, since you really don’t know how you’ve done on today’s GRE yet. (I can’t tell from their online blurb if you have the option of accepting your GRE score–but NOT actually sending it to any of your four colleges included in your $160 test fee.)

On the other hand, if you want to take a look at all your GRE scores and then pick and choose which one(s) to send to different grad schools, you’ll have to wait until you’ve left the testing center. Then they will charge you extra cold-hard cash for the privilege.  Sounds like a money-making deal for ETS!

Regardless, it’s probably going to be worth it to pay for the privilege of only reporting your best GRE scores. Unfortunately, you can’t report just the verbal GRE score from one administration and just the math from another time you took the test. You have to report the complete GRE score for any given date you took the test.

See all the details from ETS here.

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

From LifeHacker.com.

This article provides and excellent little summary of how to use movies to learn a foreign language with less pain and more progress.

Have a good tip for language learning? Let us know in the comments.

The “thinking cap” does not exist. The “thinking coat,” on the other hand…

Increase your concentration by–drum roll, please–wearing a white lab coat. No lie. A study done by Adam and Galinsky, 2012, found that wearing a white doctor’s coat actually increased focus as measured by comparative visual search tasks.

That’s wy-hy-hy-hyld! They boosted brain power–not by engaging in Red Bull-fueled, late-night study raves; not by snarfing sweaty handfulls of gingko biloba pills and making animal sacrifices to Cerebro, god of mental prowess and dyspeptic marsupials (don’t ask); not by taking the red pill and jacking in to the training program–they did it simply by putting on a white “doctor’s” coat.

And, yes, I did have a reason for putting “doctor’s” in quotation marks in that last paragraph. Cuz’ the effect disappeared when the coat was described to subjects as a painter’s coat rather than a doctor’s coat! Things that make you go, “hmmm.”

The researchers also tried just having the subjects look at the lab coat and “identify with it.” I assume that means they asked them to imagine they were wearing it rather than having subjects ask about the coat’s child-hood and live, for a short time, in a hospital closet. Whatever the “identifying with it” entailed, it was a no go. Apparently you have to be wearing the coat to get the effect.

Clothes (at least, doctor’s coats) seem to make a difference on the ability to focus. The researchers didn’t try out other types of clothing (gorilla suits, anyone?), but just for laughs, you might trade in your flip-flops and cut-offs for more “serious” attire when concentration is a concern.

I wonder what a Batman suit does to your mental powers?

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

Updated post from June, 2009. You’d think that college professors would actually have to prove their merit as teachers before sticking them in front of 200 fresh-faced freshman. Think again, mon frer. At most universities

professors aren’t hired on the basis of their teaching chops. As long as they are researching and publishing, the whole teaching gig is an often unwelcome extra task with which they’re saddled.

Your average high school teacher is a much more capable and well-trained educator. Grade school teachers get waaaaay more training in good pedagogical methods than do college professors. Grade school teachers also teach the same subjects over and over, not only to multiple classes in a single day, but year after year. Practice makes perfect (at least in theory). High school teachers are also directly concerned with how well you learn the materials. They’re often evaluated, at least in part, on student performance. College profs? Not so much.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had some college professors who were truly awe-inducing educators. I’ve had high school teachers who couldn’t have taught a toddler how to drool with a lollipop taped to their forehead. (The teacher’s forehead. Not the toddlers. Although that would work to, come to think of it.) In both cases however, they were the exception.

Enter AcademicEarth.org and OpenCulture.com- video lectures from some of the best college profs around the country. If your current prof, errr …  sucks when it comes to educating you about stellar mass black holes, why not check out Dr. Bailyn’s lecture on the subject to his Yale students. Or if your prof’s lecture on modern-day Russia focused on video clips of Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV (“I vill cruush you.”), try Dr. Bradley’s Princeton lecture.

Currently, there are lectures in everything from Astronomy, to Engineering, to Religion. Go peruse their offerings. Your grades may thank you for it.

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

Recently, a student asked me for my hot list of academic life-changers; key study skills you can use to dominate your grades. Here goes…

1) Get help. It’s the 21st Century, fellow netizens! Flying cars, robotic house maids, and personal jet packs are now commonplace… okay, well, maybe not. But it’s still the 21st Century!, which means you don’t have to rely on your brilliant professor’s rapid-fire mumble-lectures and micro-type PowerPoints. Use the interwebs and find help online. Get tutoring. Talk to the TA, a grad student, or another prof. Hell’s Bells, peeps, phone a friend! Going it alone is soooo last century. This is an instant study skills upgrade! BONUS: Active learning, taking charge of your own education, also amps up your focus!
2) Stop procrastination. Procrastination is enemy number-one for my erstwhile readers, and it’s a totally fixable problem. Take a look here for loads of proven, rock-solid techniques for making procrastination just one more item on the long list of problems other people have. Stopping procrastination is also one of those study skills that will serve you well in other areas of your life!
3) Fix your focus fails. One thing skeet-shooting champs, tigers, fighter pilots, birds of prey, and neurosurgeons have in common; they can refrain from checking their electronic iCrack while trying to concentrate. Developing the focus of half-starved jungle cat on Aderol is within your grasp; just take a look at these posts.
4) Use your down time. Time management is not just for business execs and planner fiends. Time management is for students! How much time do you spend singing along with Adele at stop lights, ambling across campus, or playing Angry Birds while waiting for your next class to start? That’s not time management, people; that’s wasted time (except for maybe Adele). Instead, make time management one of your main student tools. Treat school like an 8 to 5 job and carry your study fodder with you (Flash cards? Notes? Anki?) so that any time is study time. Do that, and you might actually have time for a real (guilt-free) social life. More info here.
5)  Teach to learn. The single best way I know to master new materials is to teach it to someone else, mainly because it fosters active learning. What’s active learning? It’s when you get off your passive “feed me” academic keister and start taking charge of your own learning. Active learning is, well, active! Teaching the information you are learning to someone else forces you to engage in active learning. Here’s how.  Take the notes you make in class or while reading for a class, and use them as an outline while you teach the topic to a motivated learner (even if that learner is just in your imagination). Learn more.

Get help with your academic troubles and sore spots. Stop procrastination cold and get moving. Fix your focus fails and up your concentration. Use your down time and translate time management into better grades. Teach you study materials to someone else to learn it better yourself. Those are definitely the big five study skills that will make your academic life thrive. Take a look at my ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, for more details on all of the above study skills and mucho mas.

Have a useful tip or tool that really made your academic life easier? Share the wealth in the comments. Please click one of the social sharing links below to spread the joy.

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

First: Make sure you take thorough notes. You can’t master the material if you don’t remember what it was. For a more in-depth how-to on taking noteworthy notes–notes that will cause your professor to weep uncontrollably and set up a shrine to you in the staff lounge–look here. As you’re capturing those notes, be sure to get down the high-payoff items, and I mean payoff in terms of exam grades. You want only to study the info that will actually boost your GPA. Not sure if an item is going to be on the test? Write it down and then find out later if it’s important by asking a TA, asking a friend who’s already taken the class, looking at a test bank, or consulting your magic 8 ball. When in doubt, learn it.

Second: Review your notes within ten minutes after having taken them, perhaps while ambling across campus to your next class or over a large mug of something caffeine-y. How should you review? Use your notes as a prompt and teach the topic to an (imaginary) group of very eager–but not overly bright–young peoples (or to a friend). Teach your imaginary class out loud, as if you were actually addressing a group of students. Look at your notes only when necessary. Imagine your students are really trying to understand your analogies, explanations, and examples, but they just don’t get it the first time through. Come up with alternative explanations and more examples. Come up with a test to give them to make sure they have mastered the information. Got it? Teach it. Out loud. With extra explanations. And a test!

Third: Keep teaching your imaginary class over days and weeks until–without using your notes–it gushes forth from your face in silvery fountains of erudition. Do this on a gradually increasing schedule. Your first review is right after you take the notes. The second review is an hour (more or less) after that. Now keep tripling the time between reviews; three hours later, nine hours later, a day later, three days later, nine days later, a month later, etc. This will wedge that info into your long term memory.  Learn more about scheduling those reviews for optimal recall. See more on this in my free study skills video.

As you go through this process take special note of areas you don’t fully understand and GET HELP! The first time you try to teach a particular topic, you will find gaps–yawning abysses, even– in your understanding. Fill those gaps by…

• Talking to your professor or your TA.
• Talking to a knowledgeable friend.
• Going to tutoring sessions.
• Looking online or in other texts.

Simple as the plot to Twilight, no? Get your notes, review by teaching it on a tripling schedule, and plug the gaps in your understanding as soon as possible.

Click on a social link below and share the love!

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

Take a look at this excellent post from i09.com on some fantabulous reasons to make sure you’re getting enough sleep. HINT: Your grades will thank you! 10 Reasons to go Back to Bed.

Eliminate Distractions. Hide yourself away from friends and fun. This includes non-essential electronics.

Be Strategic. Identify the high payoff items in what you’re doing. Do them first.

Take Breaks. Set a timer and work in 30 to 45 minute bursts with short breaks in between to recharge your brain. Don’t like breaks? Take them anyway. They help! (Caveat: NOT for people with ADHD.)

Ask questions. Ask yourself tough, open-ended questions about what you are learning. Answer the questions.

Talk to yourself. Sitting in silence is a recipe for daydreaming. Talk to yourself as you think. Keeps your brain train on the tracks.

Take a more in-depth look at how to maintain focus…

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

Focus is the big hairy bugbear that stalks many students. Twenty minutes into their two hour study session they find themselves talking or texting or trimming their toenails or doing absolutely anything rather than studying. So how can you deftly dodge the distraction of friends, phones, Facebook, food, etc.? Follow this simple formula and become the awe-inspiring focus fiend you always knew you could be.

1. Get on your blinders. Way back in times gone by, when your great granpappy was still in knee pants, coach horses wore blinders. Blinders are small shades or screens, mounted beside each eye, that focus the horse’s attention forward and keep them from being spooked by every little thing they trot by. A skittish animal can’t be spooked by what it doesn’t see.

Your brain is a skittish animal, so get it blinders. Make a list right now of the things that tend to distract you when you’re studying. Really. Do it now! Bust out your big fat pencil and your big chief pad and get to listing.

What did your distractions include? Friends? Your computer? Your phone? Hunger pangs? Now come up with some ways can you blind yourself to those distractions during focus time. You might go to a study carrel way back in the aging spotty bowels of your university library and turn your phone off. Take an apple and a small bottle of water so hunger and thirst won’t lure you out of your study hole. Go to the bathroom on your way in, so you can be at peace with your bladder.

This step is a roundhouse kick to the tender mid-section of future distractions. Put on those blinders before each study session, and most of your current focus woes will wilt like a supermodel at a spelling bee.

2. Set your focus goals. Actually write down those goals and watch your willpower swell to rideeekulous proportions. Here’s how. Track yourself for three days and get an average for how long you usually focus before distraction descends to reek havoc on all your study plans.  Set a goal to increase that by 10% per session.  Then set a final goal; the goal that represents your entrance into the ranks of the focus demi-gods. For example, after three days tracking, I find that I usually lose focus after about 20 minutes on average. My next goal is to get 22 minutes without losing focus. Once I meet that goal, I will go for 24  minutes. This process stops once I’ve reached four hours straight of laser-like mental cutting-torch intensity. YES!

3. Spur yourself on with rewards. Establish a reward for completion of each goal; small rewards for small goals, and one massive honkin’ ecstasy-inducing hunka-hunka-burnin-love reward for completion of The Final Goal. “Once I’ve successfully maintained my focus for 24 minutes, I get a ten-minute reddit fix. When I achieve four hours, I will order the never-ending plate o’ nachos at Mi Familia Taqueria and eat until my jaws cramp.”

Don’t neglect the rewards step. The rewards are what turn this whole process from horrible mind-numbing drudgery into a romp through a mystical land full of edible rainbows and beer-sneezing unicorns.

4. Please log in or sign up to read the rest of this content. Find out more.

So put on your blinders, set your focus goals, spur yourself on with rewards, and track your progress, and you will soon find yourself a jedi master of forceful focus. Be gone foul distraction demons! You have no power here!

Follow this link for more on building your ability to focus.

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.