By Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel

Last year, we published our book “Ace That Test: A Student’s Guide to Learning Better”. We recorded a podcast episode introducing the book, but I thought it would be useful to follow this up with a brief blog post and to share with you a brief survey we are currently conducting to find out how you are using our book.

We have written the book for students in their final years of schooling or first years of college/university. The book has three parts. In the first part we introduce students to our general approach when making recommendations and outline the scientific methods we subscribe to. The second part is called ‘Getting ready to learn’ and here we give an overview of some things that are important to understand about our mind and body before diving into studying. Finally, in part three we lead students through effective study strategies one chapter at a time. Each of your strategy chapters comes with the same structure:

A.    Brief description and introduction of the strategy

B.    Overview of the scientific evidence behind the strategy

C.    How to use and apply the strategy

D.    In action scenarios of someone using the strategy and questions to answer

We offer many concrete examples throughout the book, e.g., when describing a strategy or highlighting the scientific background. After reading a chapter, students can start applying the strategies right away – either using one of the ‘how to’ suggestions, or by coming up with an implementation themselves based on what they learned about the strategy. In our first chapter, we state that the book can be used flexibly. That means while students are welcome to read the book cover-to-cover, this is not the only way to work with the book. The chapters are written so they can be read independently from each other. Students can dip in and out of chapters and use them as guidance if they get stuck or want to try something new.

Our book is not exclusively for students, teachers can use the book as a resource to create materials for students to engage with different learning strategies or support them to understand the role of metacognition for learning, see chapter 6 ‘How do I know what I (don’t) know’ or what about busting the myth of multitasking (see chapter 5 ‘The myth of multitasking: Preparing your environment for learning’)? So, there are different ways on how to approach using our book and that takes me to our current survey.

We would like to know more about how you use the book. Whether you are a student, a teacher, a learning support officer, a parent, etc., we want to hear from you. We put together a short survey and would appreciate your input. Your answers are completely anonymous and confidential. Here is the link to the Ace That Test Book survey. Feel free to share the link with others who are using the book, too. Thanks in advance for sharing your feedback.

(cover image by Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel)