5 Study Tips for Better Grades in Science Classes Like Biology and Chemistry

With high school science classes like chemistry, biology and physics feeling more complicated, Teachers on Call's tutors share helpful study tips to keep your grades high.

In high school and university, higher-tier science classes can begin to start feeling more complicated, and students may find previous study habits are no longer doing enough to help achieve good grades.

For science classes such as chemistry, physics and biology, it’s a good idea to start mastering some new study tips to help grades stay high.

Here are some study tips you may find it useful to adopt (or even re-adopt!):

Make flash cards to tackle terminology and paired concepts

Flash cards may have been something you’ve not bothered with for years, however these sorts of science classes are chock-full of brand-new jargon, and many of these words might be similarly spelled (like hydrophilic and hydrophobic!). Even though you may not need to memorize the words for your test, memorizing the new words anyway, and what they mean, may make a big difference in both understanding concepts… and answering your other test questions correctly.

A few flash cards every chapter is a great way to get a little extra practice in! Never distain something simple that works. 

Be sure to understand – not just memorize

Memorizing facts, names, and numbers might help you pass a quiz early on, but it won’t help you further down the line if you don’t truly understand the foundational parts. So be sure to take time to learn how each concept works.

Take notes by hand, or hand-write explanations and summaries

By the time they reach university, a lot of students think that taking notes on laptops are the way to go – or voice recording lectures on their phone. While it’s faster and more convenient than traditional notetaking, using technology this way might actually make it harder to learn.

If you voice record the lectures or type notes as you listen, you should also consider to hand write your own condensed notes based on the lectures afterwards. Here’s why: When you’re transcribing something by hand, it’s a slower process. To keep up, you have to synthesize and summarize, which may also involve replaying or rereading data to fill in the blanks, and this is a great way to learn and remember!

Diagram, diagram, diagram

Anyone who has ever had to learn about electron shells can tell you, it’s a lot easier to understand some concepts with visual aids. While writing your notes down, be sure to add diagrams too. Just like handwritten notes, it helps in processing and understanding.

Organize and categorize

Did you know that organizing information helps you remember it? It’s true! Coupled with handwritten notetaking, organizing and categorizing information into tables and groups makes information easier for you to process, absorb and memorize. Organizing information also allows you to use other tricks and tips like making your own mnemonics to help you remember it.

Never be afraid to get a little extra help if you need it – a different perspective might really help things click. If you’re having trouble understanding why or how certain things work, study with a friend who can help explain, or check with us for some online tutoring time to help!