Preliminary Steps
预备步骤
1. Choose classes that interest you. That way studying doesn’t feel like slave labor. If you don’t want to learn, then I can’t help you.
选择你喜欢的课程,这样你的学习就不会像服苦役一样。如果你不想学,那我也帮不了你。
2. Make some friends. See steps 12, 13, 23, 24.
交一些朋友,详见步骤12、13、23、24。
General Principles
总则
3. Study less, but study better.
少学,但学得高效。
4. Avoid "autopilot" brain at all costs.
千万不要让你的大脑天马行空“自动驾驶”。
5. Vague is bad. Vague is a waste of your time.
含糊不明是不好的,含糊不明浪费时间。
6. Write it down.
该写的写下来。
7. Suck it up, buckle down, get it done.
咬牙挺住,全力以赴,完成学业。
Plan of Attack Phase I: Class
学习攻略,第一阶段:课堂
8. Show up. Everything will make a lot more sense that way, and you will save yourself a lot of time in the long run.
请去上课。这样的话很多事情都会容易很多,到头来你会发现自己其实节省了时间。
9. Take notes by hand. I don’t know the science behind it, but doing anything by hand is a way of carving it into your memory. Also, if you get bored you will doodle, which is still a thousand times better than ending up on Stumbleupon or something.
手写记笔记。我不知道其中的科学奥秘,但是手写记录是让知识刻进大脑的一种方式。而且如果你学烦了,就会自己在纸上乱画,这也比你学着学着就开始刷社交网络要强很多。
Phase II: Study Time
第二部分:学习时间
10. Get out of the library. The sheer fact of being in a library doesn’t fill you with knowledge. Eight hours of Facebooking in the library is still eight hours of Facebooking. Also, people who bring food and blankets to the library and just stay there during finals week start to smell weird. Go home and bathe. You can quiz yourself while you wash your hair.
别迷信图书馆。赤裸裸的现实就是如果你不想学,呆在图书馆里你也不会学的。在图书馆刷了八小时脸书还是刷了八小时脸书。而且那些在考试周把食物和毯子带去图书馆过夜的人,结果只会让自己闻起来怪怪的。回家洗个澡,你可以在洗澡的时候自己考自己。
11. Do a little every day, but don’t let it be your whole day. “This afternoon, I will read a chapter of something and do half a problem set. Then, I will watch an episode of South Park and go to the gym” always beats “Starting right now, I am going to read as much as I possibly can…oh wow, now it’s midnight, I’m on page five, and my room reeks of ramen and dysfunction.”
每天完成一个小任务,但是别让这个任务占满你的一天。“今天下午,我只读一个章节,然后完成半页问题。然后我去看一集《南方公园》,再去健身房。”这永远比下面这种情况高效:“从现在开始,我要使劲学习,能学多少学多少……哦我的天已经深夜了,我才看到第五页,我的房间里都是泡面的怪味儿。”
12. Give yourself incentive. There’s nothing worse than a gaping abyss of study time. If you know you’re going out in six hours, you’re more likely to get something done.
给自己一些激励。没有啥比落入苦学的无底深渊更糟糕了,如果你知道6个小时后就能出去玩,你就有可能更快完成功课。
13. Allow friends to confiscate your phone when they catch you playing Angry Birds. Oh and if you think you need a break, you probably don’t.
如果被朋友撞见你在玩游戏,允许他们没收你的手机。对了,如果你觉得需要歇会儿了,其实你并不需要。
Phase III: Assignments
第三阶段:作业
14. Stop highlighting. Underlining is supposed to keep you focused, but it’s actually a one-way ticket to Autopilot Brain. You zone out, look down, and suddenly you have five pages of neon green that you don’t remember reading. Write notes in the margins instead.
别用马克笔划重点了。把重点画下来也许是为了让自己更专注,但这有时候是纵容大脑开启自动驾驶模式。你在那里画啊画啊,然后你发现你画绿了5页书,什么也没看进脑子里。不如在书的空白处记笔记吧。
15. Do all your own work. You get nothing out of copying a problem set. It’s also shady.
所有功课自己完成。抄作业什么用也没有,还挺不光彩的。
16. Read as much as you can. No way around it. Stop trying to cheat with Sparknotes.
尽量去看书,没有捷径。别再用文学指南网站来假装自己看过书了。
17. Be a smart reader, not a robot (lol). Ask yourself: What is the author trying to prove? What is the logical progression of the argument? You can usually answer these questions by reading the introduction and conclusion of every chapter. Then, pick any two examples/anecdotes and commit them to memory (write them down). They will help you reconstruct the author’s argument later on.
做一个聪明的读者,而不是机器人。问问自己:作者究竟想要证明什么?他论证的逻辑脉络是什么?你可以从每章的开篇介绍及结论部分找到答案。然后找一两个例子记下来(写下来),日后它们会帮你重新构建作者的观点。
18. Don’t read everything, but understand everything that you read. Better to have a deep understanding of a limited amount of material, than to have a vague understanding of an entire course. Once again: Vague is bad. Vague is a waste of your time.
不要想着读遍所有的书,但是要理解你读的每一本书。深刻理解有限的资料比模糊理解所有资料要好得多。再说一遍, 模棱两可是很不好的,模棱两可就是浪费时间。
19. Bullet points. For essays, summarizing, everything.
列出要点。用这种方式去写论文,写总结,做任何事情。
Phase IV: Reading Period (Review Week)
第四阶段:阅读(复习周)
20. Once again: do not move into the library. Eat, sleep, and bathe.
再说一遍,别住进图书馆。要吃,要睡,要洗澡。
21. If you don't understand it, it will definitely be on the exam. Solution: textbooks; the internet.
如果这个知识点你不会,那它就一定会被考到。解决办法就是,回去看教材, 上网查资料。
22. Do all the practice problems. This one is totally tiger mom.
一道练习题都不要放过,这是虎妈教的。
23. People are often contemptuous of rote learning. Newsflash: even at great intellectual bastions like Harvard, you will be required to memorize formulas, names and dates. To memorize effectively: stop reading your list over and over again. It doesn’t work. Say it out loud, write it down. Remember how you made friends? Have them quiz you, then return the favor.
人们总是轻视死记硬背。 但是你知道吗,即便在哈佛这种聪明人云集的地方,你还是会被要求背诵公式、人名、日期。怎样背诵才能更有效呢?别把你要背的东西反复看来看去了,没用的。要大声念出来,写下来。还记得你交的朋友吗?让他们考考你,你也考考他们。
24. Again with the friends: ask them to listen while you explain a difficult concept to them. This forces you to articulate your understanding. Remember, vague is bad.
还是和朋友有关的建议,你可以让他们听你解释一个很难的概念,这会逼着你清楚表达你所理解的知识。记得我说的吗,模棱两可是很不好的。
25. Go for the big picture. Try to figure out where a specific concept fits into the course as a whole. This will help you tap into Big Themes – every class has Big Themes – which will streamline what you need to know. You can learn a million facts, but until you understand how they fit together, you’re missing the point.
掌握宏观的知识脉络。弄明白一个具体概念是在你所学的知识的哪一部分,这会帮你掌握一个大理论,而每一门课都会有一个大理论,它会帮你串起所有的知识点。你会学到无数个知识点,但是只有当你把知识点都串起来了,你才不会错过要点。
Phase V: Exam Day
第五阶段:考试
26. Crush exam. Get A.
完爆试卷,考个A!