first, go to lecture, go to lecture, go to lecture. Unless you're amazingly bright you are not going to learn most subjects from a book (at least not science and math) because books won't elaborate on a point for you like a human being can. Go to lecture and listen, I used to teach at the college level and I noticed a high correlation between sleeping in class and being pissed at your grade. You will not passively pick up information from class at a high enough level to succeed, you have to attend lecture and actively participate in learning by taking notes and asking questions. Honestly for any course 2000 (sophomore) level or below going to class and taking good, complete notes will be enough to get you a pretty good grade because 75% of the class won't even do that. Once you start getting past "pre-algebra addition and subtraction" courses though you may need to do more than write down the information one time. I'm a science person so I'm going to write how I study/studied for more advanced courses. 1) Do the reading before class, do it. I know reading, especially science and math, can be boring. I don't care, you need to know what you're going to talk about and formulate questions that you want the professor to answer during lecture, and you need to wait through the lecture to see if they're answered. This is both a great way to familiarize yourself with a concept before lecture (makes it easier to understand) and keep you active in learning as you will be waiting to see if the points that needed clarification are clarified. 2) Take notes in class. I never went too overboard trying to organize my notes in class because I focus on trying to get all of the information, but for concepts make sure you write down "how the concept works". Even if it's just a little blurb like "renal artery stenosis; htn and high renin ... renin due to decr flow" 3) Re-read your notes within 24 hours of writing them, make sure to write down the important points. This is a crucial step for concrete memory formation, go back over the information and make sure you know what you need to know. You don't have to completely re-write your notes but at least write bullet points of important facts. 4) Go back to the text and see if you understand it, if you still have problems, ask your teacher. They're teachers they're job is to clarify this for you, not once have I had a professor upset that I read and tried to comprehend the assigned reading. If your question is amazingly esoteric though, save it for private Q&A time (before/after class or office hours). OK all that was not actual studying per se but rather how to prepare to study. If you did the reading, took notes, reviewed your notes, and reviewed the reading asking for clarification along the way you are ready to study. 5) Begin by organizing your thoughts. For example when taking a microbiology course I tend to organize my notes into list such as "Gram Negative, + DNA, dsDNA, etc." I then go back to my class notes and begin to fill in the blanks. I generally try and create many many lists with each thing I'm learning generally making it onto mulstiple lists. This allows you to compare and contrast the information "E. coli is a gram negative rod with some species creating potent toxins. Salmonella is another gr - rod that is found in the colonic environment that can cause GI distress, both are enterobacters" I find that connecting thoughts like this is very helpful on a test because topics are already connected in your brain waiting for one of many trigger words to bring it to the forefront. I've noticed that when I flashcard instead of list I need the "key word" to get all of the information about a topic rather than getting information by thinking of the information in the prompt (hope that sentence made sense). 6) Now that you have your lists begin to write notes using those lists to write out all the information you have on each topic in paragraph form. It's amazing how much more you retain when you have to create a story from bullet points. My brain at least is very good at remembering concepts as stories. 7) Find practice problems, and do them all. If you can't find practice problems form a study group where everyone writes practice problems in whatever format the test is going to use. 8) Relax the night before the test. Give yourself at least 45 minutes before bed to relax and do something like listen to music or read regular literature (unless your an english lit major). Get a full nights sleep (7-8 hours) and set multiple alarm clocks (once woke up at 9am for a 9:05 final because my roommate unplugged my clock during the night) and rest. Nobody is as fast when they're tired as when they're awake so make sure to sleep.