Motivation
and Techniques for Studies
1.
Why do you study?
& Is it only to gain knowledge, to pass in examinations, to
get a degree, to get a job, to earn money, to please your parents, to get
married, to gain higher position in society, etc?
& Yes, all these things are very important for life. Nothing
is wrong in them.
& But, if education is meant for only these things, then its
value is very little.
& Is there any other motive higher than these which is related
to your personal dream, family, society, community and country?
& For what else should you study? Write it down.
2.
What is the value
of education?
Besides gaining a lot of knowledge, passing in examinations
and getting a degree or a job, education helps you
C to think for yourself,
C to question, to become aware of many things in life,
C to form your character, to build up your personality.
REMEMBER
þ Education is for life.
þ Education is not meant only for oneself; it is meant for
others also.
þ Even if you have failed in the examination, it doesn’t mean
you have failed in life.
þ Failure doesn’t mean you are a failure but you haven’t
succeeded yet.
3.
Why many students
don’t make progress in studies?
There are primary and secondary reasons. Secondary reasons (mentioned
below) are very well known to most of us. These can be called external factors:
a) laziness and lack of hard work
b) addiction to T.V./ film/ computer /internet /mobile phone/
novels/ games/ outing
c) not paying attention to studies
d) bad company; love affairs among boys and girls
e) lack of facility at home
f) lack of peace in the family; open fights with parents; etc.
Primary reasons are not
known to many of us. They can be called internal
factors:
a) lack of motivation and definite aim in life
b) lack of thirst for knowledge or eagerness to know
c) lack of a questioning mind
d) lack of intellectual atmosphere at home.
e) mugging up without understanding; not making one’s mind
sharp by asking questions such as what, why, how, when, who, for whom, when,
etc. on anything one observes.
f) not following proper methods of study and techniques to
improve one’s memory/intellect.
Remember: interest
(thirst or eagerness for knowledge) is the mother of attention and attention is
the mother of knowledge.
4.
What are the
causes of disturbance in your studies?
Here also secondary or external disturbances are - lack of
proper study atmosphere at home; bad company; too much outing; broken
friendship; quarrels and fights with companions and parents; love affairs;
addiction to alcohol/ drugs /T.V. / films and videos/ computer/ internet/
mobile phone; etc.
C But primary or internal reasons are lack of a definite aim
and motivation.
C A highly motivated person will surely try to remove or
overcome all other secondary/external disturbances mentioned above.
C Answer me: If you are
damn serious about becoming a doctor, and you want to reach this aim by all
means, will you reach that aim if you allow yourself to be disturbed by these
external factors? Higher the aim, greater the conentrattion!
5.
Why do we forget
very soon?
Again, answer is the same: lack of attention; lack of
questioning mind; lack of motivation and a definite aim; lack of eagerness to
know or a thirst for knowledge; reading like a parrot and not reacting to what
is written by expressing one’s agreement/disagreement, doubt, support, etc. to
the subject mentioned in the text.
6.
What are the
paths to make progress in your studies?
a)
a definite aim
b)
a strong desire
to achieve that aim
c)
hard work
d)
repeated efforts
REMEMBER
“A genius is one percent
inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration”.
Do you have a strong enough
reason to want to become a genius?
7.
What are the five
skills for study?
(a) Foreseeing (b)
Inquiring (3) Reacting (4) Speaking out (5) Teleprinting
Foreseeing means
“seeing before”. Before starting your study, look at or glance through the
whole lesson with careful attention to titles, subtitles, maps, pictures,
charts, questions or exercise at the end. Read the lesson once fully even if
you don’t understand. The aim is to get a feeling of the lesson before
understanding it. When you go to any new place, while going you feel that it is
very far, but while returning, you feel that it is not that far after all!
Glancing through once, makes you feel that the subject is not that difficult
after all!
Inquiring is like an
interview or dialogue between the book and the reader. This is done by putting
a lot of questions such as who, when, how, what, why, etc. to the text and
finding answers from within the text. This increases your concentration. When
you read a paragraph pose such questions to it and try to find out answers from
within it.
Reacting means
expressing agreement or disagreement, doubt, criticism, one’s own opinion on
the subject. Do you agree with all that is written by the author? When you study
history and learn that Mohammed Bin Tuglaq shifted his capital from Delhi
Speaking out is like a
flash-back or feed-back of what you have learned or how much you remember.
After reading each paragraph, pause and repeat in your mind. If there are no
people around you, speak out loudly. Or else go to the open field or forest and
repeat it loudly. Think that all the trees in the forest or garden are your
students and teach them a new lesson. When the breeze comes, they will say:
“Yes Sir, we followed!” Or else teach your pet dog or doll a new lesson by
laying it on your lap. You can check how much you remember by closing your book
while your reach or explain, and open it for checking whether you are correct.
If you make mistakes, please repeat the same thing until you get it correctly.
Teleprinting means fixing
what you learn firmly in the memory.
This is done by repetition and reviewing. Writing short notes and
outline and glancing through it several times helps you to remember for a long time. You have to use your eyes and
glance through the short notes now and then so that your mind re-inks a subject
which has become blurred. It is like re-filling the cartridge of a printer
whose printing has become blurred. If you can present all the main points of a
subject in a picture/ diagram/ cartoon and look at it, that image will be
imprinted in your mind.
8.
How do human beings
learn?
Human beings learn through two ways:
(1) First, through the five senses, namely eye, ear, tongue,
nose, and skin. Out of these, the first three play a major role. We can say
that these are the five gates through which we learn, namely the eye-gate, the
ear-gate, the mouth-gate, etc. By seeing through the eyes the shape/ colour/
size of a new idea/ subject, by speaking out through the mouth or by telling
something which you know to others, and
by listening to the voice of others through the ear when they explain any new
subject, your brain registers all the new ideas. They enter into the brain
through the gates of eye, ear & mouth and get imprinted there.
(2) Secondly, through association of ideas.
9.
What is meant by
association of ideas (i.e. known-to-unknown method)?
Here association means to connect or relate a known idea
with an unknown idea. This method is used to remember certain numbers, dates,
new and difficult words, vocabulary, etc., which the examiners ask us. There
are so many numbers known to us automatically from our general knowledge and
even from our own religions.
Write down some of the common numbers known to you
automatically such as
@ Your roll number in your class:
@ All the telephone numbers you know by heart (yours and others’)
@ STD code of your area
@ PIN code or Zip Code of your post office
@ All the dates of birth you know (yours and others’)
@ All the dates of national days such as Independence Day,
Republic Day, Children’s Day, Teachers’ Day, Thanksgiving Day, Workers’ Day, etc.
@ All the sacred numbers used in your own religion. For
example, can Christians associate the following common numbers used in their
religion: 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, 25, 30, 33, 40, etc.? Similarly, there are sacred and commonly used
numbers in Hinduism, Islam and all other religions.
Then try to find out whether any question-answer from any of
your subjects (such as atomic numbers in science, date of birth of great leaders,
number of seats in Parliament, etc.) is associated with these numbers. Fix that
association firmly in your mind. You won’t forget it easily. For each subject
write down associations on separate sheets of paper and go through them before
you enter Exam Hall.
Similarly, try to associate one-word answers with some other
known words sounding just like those words (to be remembered in your answer) in
any other language known to you. In countries like India
è Dr. Ambedkar (Father of Indian Constitution) sounds like
Ambassador Car;
è Bismarck (one who
unified Germany
è if you forget the word ‘acronym’ it sounds like “ek crow neem par hai” (one crow is on
Neem tree);
è if you forget that Graham Bell invented the telephone,
associate it with “Ghar mein ham bell
bajaen” (let’s ring a bell in our house); etc.
Non-English speaking students can use this method to learn
vocabulary in English or any other new language.
10. 
How
to remember a series of words automatically?
How
to remember a series of words automatically?
This can be done by using acronyms
or short forms. An acronym is a word formed from the first (one or two) letters
of a number of (a list of) words. You can coin new (preferably a funny) word in
any known language by picking up selected letters from a series of words which
you have to remember.
Some common acronyms known to us are: CD ROM (Compact Disc, Read
Only Memory), SIM card (Subscribers’ Identity Module), WHO (World Health
Organization), PIN code (Postal Index Number), AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome), etc. In science we were taught to remember the seven colours of
rainbow by coining the acronym VIBGYOR.
The same type of acronym can be coined for answers of many more
questions like:
!
“How many types of minerals
are there?” In Odia (Oriya) many of the minerals can be remembered by using the
acronym – “su/ru/ko/lu/to/chu/ma”.
It sounds like you began to kiss. But in reality it means – suna, rupa, koila,
luha, tomba, chuna, manganese.
!
How many figures of speech
are there in English grammer? The answer can be remembered by coining an
acronym – NAPVAPCI = noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction
and interjection.
!
In Indian history how many
Mughal emperors were there? The answer is BHAJSAB = Babar, Humayun, Akbar, Jehangir,
Sahjahan, Auranzeb, Bahadur Sah
Can you find out questions of this kind from any subject and create
acronyms for answers, in any language you know? Please use your creativity. The
funnier the better!
11. How many types of memory are there?
There are two types of memory, namely rote or routine memory and reasoning memory. The
first one is achieved by repeating again and again until you learn it by heart.
You repeat it like a parrot even if you don’t understand. This type of memory
is used for learning multiplication tables, formulae, poems, vocabulary, etc.
The second one is used for essay-type or lengthy and answers
and achieved by understanding and reflecting on what you are reading. In this
method, instead of learning the whole matter by heart, you try to remember only
the points. In this method you react to the text by posing questions and make
short notes of main points and sub-points. (Note: This is already explained
above under “Skills for Study”.)
12. How to write examinations?
(1) Once a while put yourself in a mock examination. Set a
question paper for yourself, write an exam, correct your answer sheet and give
marks. Check all the mistakes that you made.
(2) Planning and budgeting your time is very important. Before
answering, read the paper carefully and fix a definite time to answer all
questions. Leave some free time at the end for proof-reading.
(3) Answer the questions you know the best right in the
beginning.
(4) Don’t omit any question even if you don’t know the answer
write something even if it is worng.
(5) Begin a new paragraph fore each new point or idea.
(6) Make some subheadings (subtitles) for each new point in
essay-type question-answers and underline them.
(7) Underline important words and phrases even in the middle of
a sentence or paragraph.
(8) Write neatly and legibly. Remember that you will get marks
not for all you write, but only what the examiner can read of what you write.
[Originally, these
notes were compiled by Fr. Freddie Santhumayor for lectures during the All
Orissa English Medium Schools’ KNIT INDIA Program organized by Universal
Solidarity Movement, Indore, in 2006. Now they are modified.]
