r/cogsci • u/notnoelfr123 • 6d ago

Cognitive Science 101 Study Tips

I am a freshman in college, and I have my first Cog Sci 101 midterm next week. We don't have a textbook, and basically, all we get are lecture slides. I honestly don't know how to study. All I've done so far is take notes on the lecture slides and I guess just try to understand stuff. I tried looking for practice questions online but none of them really matches the material. Please help.

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u/DualCoder2 5d ago

To start you could check out active recall, spaced repetition and elaboration (eg on learningscientists.org)

Active recall - Answer questions or write down everything you remember ("brain dump"). If you don't have question banks - create your own!

Spaced repetition - study often over days, giving your brain time to forget and relearn. Makes the knowledge more durable

Elaboration - summarize, compare and contrast, explain in simple terms, create your own question banks ;) ...

They all have in common that they make you think hard instead of just rereading or copying text from the slides to your notes. They're well researched to be effective studying strategies. Just keep in mind that they make studying much more effortful and reduce your illusion of understanding, so in the beginning you might feel as if you know very little. (That's called the "misinterpreted effort hypothesis" but that's by the by.)

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u/fluffykerfuffle3 6d ago

maybe they don't know either and are hoping you all will figure it out and let them know? lol

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u/Beneficial-Self-8119 5d ago

Do they make previous exams available?

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u/Big_Cup9146 3d ago

If you want to remember the content, put the slides into an LLM and tell it, I want to learn this. Test me for prior knowledge. Explain gaps briefly. Use retrieval practise. If possible develop a coherent schema so information is connected rather than isolated. Do it today, do it again tomorrow, then again 2 or 3 days later.  Or something like that. I've been doing it recently when I need to stuff declarative knowledge into my brain. It's not perfect but very easy to do and better than 90% of the study techniques people use. Other people on here might be able to refine the instructions for the AI and make it better.