You've probably seen the TikToks. "This ONE hack got me straight A's!" "Study smarter not harder with THIS trick!" And then it's someone color-coding their notes with 47 different highlighters while lo-fi music plays in the background.
Look, I get it. We all want the magic shortcut. But here's the uncomfortable truth: most popular "study hacks" are either useless or actively hurting your grades.
Let's expose the worst offenders.
This one hurts because it feels so productive. You spend 2 hours turning your messy lecture notes into a Pinterest-worthy masterpiece. Different colors for different concepts. Perfect handwriting. Maybe some cute little diagrams.
The problem? You're not learning. You're doing art.
Rewriting notes is what researchers call "shallow processing." Your brain is focused on the appearance of the information, not the meaning. Studies show that students who rewrite notes perform no better on exams than those who don't—and they waste hours doing it.
What actually works: Instead of rewriting, try explaining the concept out loud without looking at your notes. That's active recall, and it's 3x more effective for retention.
If your textbook looks like a highlighter exploded on it, we need to talk.
Highlighting feels productive because you're "identifying important information." But when everything is highlighted, nothing is highlighted. Your brain has no way to distinguish what actually matters.
Worse, highlighting is passive. You're not processing the information—you're just marking it for "later." And let's be honest: you're probably never going back to those highlights anyway.
What actually works: Instead of highlighting, write one-sentence summaries in the margins. Force yourself to process the information and put it in your own words.
"I'll just study for 6 hours straight on Sunday and knock it all out."
No. No, you won't.
Your brain isn't designed for marathon learning sessions. After about 50 minutes of focused work, your retention drops dramatically. By hour 3, you're basically just staring at words while your brain plays elevator music.
The students pulling 8-hour library sessions? They're spending maybe 2-3 of those hours actually learning. The rest is phone breaks, snack runs, and zoning out while pretending to read.
What actually works: The Pomodoro Technique—25-50 minutes of focused work, then a real break. Multiple shorter sessions across different days beats one long session every time. Spaced repetition is your friend.
"But I study better with music!"
Maybe. But not with lyrics.
Your brain's language processing center can only handle one stream of words at a time. When you're reading about cellular biology while Drake talks about his feelings, your brain is constantly switching between the two. Neither gets your full attention.
The research is clear: music with lyrics decreases reading comprehension and memory retention. That lo-fi hip-hop stream? Fine (mostly). Your Spotify Wrapped top songs? Not great.
What actually works: Instrumental music, white noise, or—controversial take—silence. Try it for one study session. You might be surprised.
This is the granddaddy of bad study hacks, and somehow it's still treated like a college rite of passage.
Here's what happens when you don't sleep:
That all-nighter isn't helping you learn more. It's actively sabotaging the information you already studied.
What actually works: Even 4-5 hours of sleep is significantly better than none. If you're behind, study until a reasonable hour, sleep, then wake up early to review. Your rested brain will retain more in 2 morning hours than your exhausted brain will in 6 overnight hours.
Study groups can be great. Study "groups" that spend 80% of the time talking about weekend plans? Not so much.
Be honest with yourself: when you "study" with friends, how much actual studying happens? For most people, it's somewhere between "not much" and "we literally just hung out."
What actually works: Study alone first. Learn the material on your own, then use group time to quiz each other, explain concepts, and tackle problems you're stuck on. Teaching others is one of the most effective learning methods—but you have to actually know something first.
After all this, you might be wondering: is there anything that actually helps?
Yes. One thing. It's not sexy, but it works:
Active recall + spaced repetition.
Test yourself on the material. Repeatedly. Over time. That's it. That's the whole secret.
Close your notes and try to remember what you just read. Use flashcards. Take practice tests. Do problems without looking at the solutions first. Space these sessions out over days and weeks, not hours.
This is why tools like Snitchnotes are actually useful—not because they make pretty notes, but because they generate practice quizzes from your material automatically. You upload your lecture or PDF, and you get questions to test yourself with. It's the active recall part of studying without the setup work.
Here's what nobody wants to hear: there are no shortcuts to actually learning. The "hacks" that work are the same ones researchers have known about for decades. They're just not as Instagrammable as a perfectly color-coded notebook.
Stop optimizing for feeling productive. Start optimizing for being productive.
Your GPA will thank you.
Want study tools that actually work? Snitchnotes creates practice quizzes from your lectures and notes so you can test yourself—the method that actually improves grades. Try it free at snitchnotes.com.
Notes, quizzes, podcasts, flashcards, and chat — from one upload.
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