[Open Discussion] Have you found an app or website that can be really helpful for studying?

[Matthew_SMARTY]

Having graduated from uni a couple of years ago, it’s nice to be able to see April roll around and no longer have upcoming exams and coursework looming over me! For about ten years (starting with my GCSEs), my Easter holidays used to be dominated by revising and essay writing – so although I’m glad to be done with all that malarkey, I can empathise with others who still have them coming up.  

With that in mind I thought it could be great to get a discussion going about apps or websites that can make studying easier, in case anyone has exams coming up, or knows someone who does and wants to help. 

My go to back in the day was probably Get Revising. It has a pretty handy tool to quickly create a revision plan with a lot of customisation options, letting you allocate more time to the topics that need it most or block out times you’re not able to study. It also had a good flashcard maker, so I could break down everything I had to learn into much more manageable chunks and test myself with plenty of quickfire questions. 

Something I’ve been using to help me keep focused at work lately is the Forest app. You plant a seed in a stopwatch or timer mode and a tree will start to grow. If you use your phone for other apps, the tree will die. It’s a little thing, but can really help incentivise you to keep off your phone and get some work done. I would revise in half hour chunks before having a short break, repeating this process multiple times a day. I could have really done with this when it came to revising! It’s available to download on iOS and Android. 

These are just a couple of things I’ve used to help plan, learn and focus effectively – we’d love to hear about any great suggestions you might have that could help someone get the grades they’re looking for! 

[MSF]

I graduated fifty years ago....yes, 50!  At that time, it was published textbooks, journals and paper and pencil for study - no computers, internet, apps etc.

More recently, I signed up for another load of study and must say that being able to access university libraries with journals and articles online made a huge difference. We were still using standard published textbooks, but one app that made this much easier was VitalSource bookshelf where you can download the electronic version of the textbook (if you have the rights). Being able to search for a section/text etc without literally thumbing through hundreds of pages made life so much simpler.

Now I'm sure that not all textbooks are available via this route, but it's a great help if they are (in my opinion).

Well, that's my 'dinosaur' view, but I'm sure people will have far cleverer apps that they have found.