Right now, a lot of your time is taken up worrying and whinning about your problem instead of teaching yourself and solving your problem. When you get a little space in your day, read a paragraph, or read a page. Nibbles are more do-able when you’re busy and you feel better, because you see the progress. The nibbles will sink in better because there’s only a portion to consider in between readings, rather than a whole turkey dinner (chapter) with 40 ingredients (overwhelming amount of information to digest).

Hey, and don’t keep burdening yourself with guild over what you haven’t done. Feel good about yourself for having just read a paragraph or two, or four if it takes that much of a bite to find a good stopping place. You can do it. It’s the starting that’s hard when there is so much. So just take little starts, and never go so far that you O.D. on it, or you may never want to pick up the book again. Stop while you are still feeling good about what you are doing.

By the way: How long did it take you to write the above question? You could have read half a chapter in that time.

btw: How long will you waste reading the answers. You could read the other half a chapter in that time.

btw: Why are you on Yahoo Answers when you could be on a history website or asking questions on a history forum?

One of the most important lessons in college is learning how to teach yourself. You’re going to be your own teacher for the rest of your life for anything you want to learn about.

Here’s how I do it. What do I want to learn about today? Surf it on the web about it and get into some particular that actually grabs my attention. Talk about it to someone else who’s interested in that subject. If I don’t know anyone else, then I talk about it on a discussion forum or group on the web by asking and answering questions, or just chating and sometimes even venting or whining. Then I try it out, experience it (growing a plant), write it like I was telling someone else what I know about it to teach them. If there are holes in my knowledge, I might notice that while I’m writing or doing.

I might take notes by just putting down the subject and writing a question to go with it to look up later.

Anyway, I won’t take any more of your reading time away from your course book.

Good luck.

I’m one of your contacts, it notifies me when you have a new question 🙂

As for studying, many of the suggestions on here were great, but I’ll try summarizing.

Don’t read the whole chapter. It’s a waste of time. Skim through it and read the areas that interest you. This will set a foundation.

For all those areas that didn’t interest you, utilize some method of gathering that information. Sparknotes might help.

As for this weekend, be at the wedding for the important parts, BUT be dillegent about walking away to a coffee shop during those other (less important) times and get some studying in. I find that places away from home are usually more conducive to material absorbtion than sitting next to a sibling or infront of a computer/TV.

You have to be dillegent though. If you let up, then thing will come tumbling down on you.

One last thing. Make sure you see all of the info, before the test day, even if you don’t memorize it all. Then get a good night’s sleep. On the test day, your reasoning skills will allow you to fill in material gaps with logic (if x event happened in 1780 and y event happened in 1784, then this one was in between them).

1) Read for vocab and main events that were turning points

2)Make a vocab list as you read

3) Make a timeline of events

4) Make your own exam (it will help you study, it always has worked for me and is better than using the stare until you remember technique). Make up questions (Who was the first? What was the treaty of blah for…etc.) and keep the answers blank. Make a separate answer key.

The idea is to condense what you’ve read into something portable so that you can study as you go. It sounds like work, but it will really help you focus which is what you need.

At work, while you’re waiting for the ceremony to start, etc., look at your vocab list (you may want to convert them to cards), your timeline and take the mock exam you made.

Stop worrying about all the details and complaning about the way the teacher is presenting the material. You dont’ have control over that. You do have control over how you study.

Good luck and try to have fun at the wedding! You sound like you have to go to it, you may as well as relax and have fun.

If you are not in the wedding party, I would skip the wedding. You are already behind in your history, and if you go to the wedding it is going to be awful hard to get caught up and pass. I know at your age, it is hard to give up a good party for something having to do with school. It is your cousins day, and if you can’t be there they won’t notice at the time. I am sure your family would be understanding that you are looking out for your future by looking ahead. If you have plans to go to college it is very important you don’t start falling behind so soon. It is very obvious to me that you are already distracted and falling behind. History is a requirement for graduation, and if you fail it, you have to make it up in either summer school or an after school program. If you have to make up history in summer school, most grading for summer school is pass/fail. The grades you get during the regular school year are based on a point system. I don’t know how that would look on a college application, or how it would figure into things. I never had to go to summer school so I don’t know anything about how the grade transfers or looks to a college.

If you pass on the wedding, and put your history studies first you should be okay. Don’t worry about taking notes, but the notes you do take should keep track of whatever the teacher stresses during the lecture part of your class. I always found that if something was going to be on the test, that wasn’t in the chapters we read, the teacher normally stressed it seperately during class. Another thing which I found was always the most helpful was the research questions and volcabulary at the end of the chapters. Once you complete reading the chapters, then go to the questions and answer them by writing them out as well as the volcabulary. If you do this and review your notes before the test you should do great. Get your head into this History Class and off of everything else. You don’t hate this History, you hate being behind because it distracts you.

Believe in your self and trust in god.

Think of the success and joy after completion.