Compare and contrast strong and weak study skills.

Study skills
have to be acquired.  Why look at poor skills when they come naturally. It is more profitable to
analyze how to be a better student.

For most people, study skills are not an
innate.  Without them, the student cannot achieve his maximum potential.  When a person goes to
college, sometimes his first priority is freedom and fun. These aspects of college are an
important to the college experience; however, they are not why the person is there spending his
parents' money. Learning is the number one priority in college.

How does that
occur--through going to class, paying attention, managing time, and good study skills.

Good study skills must be learned and practiced.  Use the acronym CIM which equals
Consistency, Immediacy, and Maximum.

Here is how this helps:

• Consistency requires these things from the
  student. 

Be on time for everything: class, meetings,
assignments, dates...

Have a special place for studying with everything
needed at hand. Same place and same time and same stuff. 

No
distractions.  No music. No pills. No alcohol.  No television. No cell phones. No
ipads.

Leave the cell phone in the dorm during classes.  Do not allow
anything to distract attention. In addition, it is irritating to the teacher.

Do something with each class every day: Organize, read, re-do notes.

Keep a daily journal of what was accomplished each day. 

• Immediacy promotes efficiency in retention of
  facts. In other words, do it now. Procrastination cannot be a part of good study
  skills.

As soon as possible, go over what was done in class each
day.

Review the notes on the same day.  Listen to the tape of the class on
that day. 

Complete assignments as soon as they are given. 

Do not use the old, trite, ridiculous adage: "I work better under pressure."
Sorry, it does not compute.

Get things done ahead so that if necessary they
can be enhanced or tweeked. 

• Maximum
  effort contributes to everything in life. 

The
only attitude is a positive attitude. Life is good; yes, there is pressure.  It will pass. 
Everything is happening for a reason.  Take a breathe and one step at a time.

Be healthy. Get enough sleep.  Eat well and not fast foods.  Take vitamins. Do whatever
it takes to maximize what God has given.

Feed the brain.  Eat breakfast.  If
the person wants maximum usage of the grey cells, take care of it--No pills, no alcohol, no
steroids--  nothing except those natural things that enhance brain power.

Work on the hardest tasks first.  The brain needs to be fresh for challenging
work. 

Do not try to work when sleepy.  Nothing will be retained when the
body is saying: "I need rest."

Do not read in bed. You will wake up
with slobber all over the textbook. Right now, it is your instruction manual.  Get the most out
of it.  Read in a comfortable, well-lit place with complete silence.

Get up
early.  Get with it.  If a person gets enough sleep, he can get up and do his work whenever he
needs to...

Remember what Albert Einstein stated: "Never
regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to
learn to know the liberating influence and the possibilities of
your spirit and to profit the community to which your work will later
belong."

The time in college is not just for short term goals.  This is
the long haul for the future of the individual.  Each class, each test, each study time--these
are the small steps that will take the person to where he wants to go.