How to Listen to a Lecture

Hey guys, I've been in college for 4 years and I've found it's not about how hard you study, but it's about how hard you listen during the lectures. Here are the strategies you can use to get good grades on the exams by just paying attention to the lectures:<br>- **Don't bring your laptop**: I've experimentally proven that you'll get better grades when you don't bring your laptop and just take notes with your hand. It's because you can't write down everything the teacher says, so you'll have to paraphrase it, which in the process helps you understand better.<br>- **Don't write down everything**: Write down the key points, headings and the stuff in bold. You don't need to write down everything. Just write down the stuff that's in bold or italics. If it's not in bold, you can easily derive it on your own.<br>- **You don't need to take notes on the obvious stuff**: Obviously, if someone tells you "Water is a compound of 2 Hydrogens and 1 Oxygen", you don't need to write that down. You already know that. You should only write down stuff that's actually relevant to the course.<br>- **Identify the important stuff**: Listen to the teacher carefully. If the teacher is talking to you slowly, then it means that it's something important. Write it down and make sure you understand it. If the teacher is talking very fast, it means they're just talking about the "obvious stuff". Don't write that down. Just listen.<br>- **The teacher will literally tell you what's on the exam**: If the teacher says "You don't need to know this for the exam", don't write it down. If the teacher says "You will be tested on this, make sure you understand it", write it down and make sure you understand it. It's that simple.<br>- **The teacher will literally tell you the answers to the exam**: Many teachers will literally give you the answers to the exam questions, you just need to identify it. For example, the teacher will ask "What are the 5 causes of the Great Depression?". This is an exam question. Write it down and remember. Or the teacher might say "How do we know if a person has Disorder XYZ? They would have Symptom A, Symptom B and Symptom C". This is an exam question, write it down.<br>- **The teacher will literally tell you how to answer the exam questions**: Let's say you have an essay question and the teacher has given you the model answer. All you need to do is memorise the model answer and write it down during the exam. The teacher will also tell you "How to answer this question" and "What's the most important thing to include in this question".<br><br><br>Follow these tips and you'll see that you'll save a lot of time studying. If you listen carefully to the lectures, you'll know everything you need to know to get good grades on the exam. And then you can spend your time doing more enjoyable stuff :)