How to Take Notes For The GED?
It is said that the GED (General Educational Development) Test is not hard to ace if you get well-prepared. There are many tips and tricks proposed to help you perform better on your actual GED test. Hence, in this article, Estudyme continuously introduces you to some useful information regarding note-taking such as what the benefits of taking notes are, how to take notes for the GED smartly, and so on.
1. Why Are Effective Note-Taking Skills Important?
The note-taking skill seems essential to many aspects of our lives and important to numerous jobs. More specifically, when you are preparing and studying for your GED exam, good notes will help you remember concepts, develop meaningful learning skills better, and obtain a deep and comprehensive understanding of a topic. Moreover, effective notes will even lead to less stress when test time comes around and save your time to recall. Note-taking helps you organize and systematize your knowledge effectively. You will memorize only the key knowledge when taking a gander at your notes instead of remembering everything.
As you see, you can benefit from learning how to take better study notes. Moreover, GED is a battery of 4 subtests including Mathematical Reasoning, Social Studies, Science, and Language Arts. Hence, you are required to learn a lot of things so note-taking is the best way to improve recall and understanding of what you have learned.
2. How To Take Notes For The GED Effectively?
Note-taking might make people either love or dread it. However, if you find the right note-taking method, your studying will become more effective and enjoyable. Below are some incredible tips on how you can take effective handwritten notes when studying for the GED. Let’s check them out!
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2.1. You should date your notes
Let’s leave space at the top of each page to add a detailed date, which helps you keep your notes well-organized and more easily go back to review later.
2.2. You should create headings and subheadings
You had better use headings and subheadings to make your note well-organized, otherwise, you will be confused with an indistinguishable block of text. Breaking up the text into major headings and smaller subheadings will help you easily find key points on the page when revising notes. Furthermore, using bullet points and numbered lists also make your notes stay organized and easy to understand.
2.3. You should highlight or underline key information.
Using a colored highlighter to make key information stand out will help your note become more appealing and clear. Additionally, you might underline in red this vital information in order to memorize key content better.
2.4. Don’t worry about aesthetics
Keep in mind that you don’t need to bother about how they look which might distract you from jotting down vital information because notes don’t have to be fancy; make them clear, concise, and structured in a way that makes it easy for you to read later. Let’s pay more attention to the content instead of obsessing over aesthetics.
2.5. You should use nice stationery
Some helpful stationery such as pens, pencils, paper, and other office supplies might assist you in taking notes. For instance, colored pens and markers will make the top points in your notes stand out more. Thus, when creating a new page of notes, write the heading in color so you can easily see which topic the notes are on. Furthermore, don’t forget to keep a pad of sticky notes handy because you can use them to take notes such as formulas, equations, or definitions.
2.6. You should attach drawings, symbols, icons, and graphics to your notes
When taking notes, feel free to use symbols, icons, and your own drawing if it helps. Strikingly, for some learners who prefer to use images, graphics, colors, and maps to communicate ideas and thoughts, visual learning helps you retain info longer, better understand complex topics, and absorb knowledge more quickly. You don’t need to worry that drawing is not your forte because your graphics don’t have to be masterpieces and you only need to draw simply what makes sense to you. What’s more, you can also print out graphics and paste them into your notebook…
2.7.Develop your own shorthand
The key principle of note-taking is that you don’t write everything down. You need to note the main ideas, some supporting ideas, key terms, and headline information. To improve your stenography, let’s use phrases rather than complete sentences. Don’t pay more attention to constructing perfect sentences because you aren’t graded on your grammar.
We hope these tips will help you along your GED journey. Let’s visit GED Test Pro for study tips, practice tests, interactive tools, and more.
3. What effective note-taking methods should you take?
Using different note-taking strategies is important when studying for GED. Here are 5 effective note-taking techniques you can use to start taking smarter notes. Try these 5 methods proposed following to find the best note-taking method for you!
3.1. The Cornell Method
The Cornell Note-Taking method helps organize your notes into easily digestible summaries to review and pull out major ideas and concepts easily. The main points, details, study cues, and summary are written on one page so you can learn effectively. To create a Cornell note, you separate the paper into 3 sections: a 2.5” margin to the left, a 2” summary section on the bottom, and a main 6” in-class note section.
3.2. The Mapping Method
The Mapping note-taking method is a more visual way to organize to learn more about relationships between topics. On a mapping note, the page will be organized by main topics branching out into subtopics with detailed information about each. Hence, let’s begin your note by mapping the main topics and then branch off the main topic, and write a heading for each of the subtopics. Subsequently, write any important notes underneath each subtopic.
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3.3. The Outlining Method
The Outlining note-taking method mainly uses headings and bullet points to organize topics. For this reason, outline note-taking will be most useful when learning about topics that include a lot of detail.
On each outlining note, every section begins with a heading of the main topic. Then under the proper heading, each subtopic will be given by being indented slightly to the right. After that, any details and supporting facts will be written slightly to the right of the subtopics
3.4. The Charting Method
Charting note-taking methods using columns to organize information is useful for lessons that cover a lot of facts or relationships between topics. On the charting note, the page is separated into columns labeled by category. Moreover, the details of each category are filled out in the rows below.
3.5. The Sentence Method
By simply writing down each topic as a jot note sentence you have applied a sentence note-taking method which works well for fast-paced lessons where a lot of information is being covered. To optimize your note, you can start a new sentence or point for each new detail and use headings to organize points by main topics.
4. How to get the most out of your notes?
If you’ve got your notes in hand, how do you get the most out of them? The greatest way to maximize your notes is to review them later the same day.
Be certain that you review your notes soon after taking them in order to help you retain the information. Ideally, you would use the repetition method to memorize your notes by reviewing them several times before the test rather than cramming them at night before the test. Bear in mind that let’s review a small portion of your notes every day and don’t try to cram before your test. Thereby, you can reinforce what you have learned and convert your short-term memories into long-term ones.