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Most students are not studying badly across the board. They are studying badly in one or two specific ways, and which ones decides what is worth changing first.

This takes about five minutes. It scores four habits separately rather than giving you one number, because a single score would tell you nothing you could act on.

Study Habits Inventory

This tells you which of four study habits is costing you the most, so you know what to change first. About 5 minutes

  1. Rate each of the 24 statements for how true it has been of you over the past month.
  2. Answer as the student you are, not the one you intend to become.
  3. Get four separate scores and the chapters that address your highest one.

Most students are not studying badly across the board — they are studying badly in one or two specific ways. One overall score would not tell you which.

The scoring happens in your browser. Your answers to the individual items are never sent anywhere — only the four totals, and only if you ask for the result by email at the end.

Scale: 0 never · 1 rarely · 2 sometimes · 3 often · 4 almost always

0 of 24

Passive encoding

When I study, I reread notes or textbook sections.
I highlight or underline as my main way of engaging with a text.
I finish a study session without having tested myself on the material.
I copy or rewrite my notes to revise them.
I read a worked solution and consider that problem studied.
I feel I understand something immediately after reading it.

Massed scheduling

Most of my studying for a subject happens in the week before the exam.
I study one subject for long stretches before switching to another.
Once I've covered a topic, I don't return to it until revision.
I work through problems of the same type in a block.
I have gone without proper sleep in order to study.
I don't have a planned schedule for reviewing old material.

Attention fragmentation

My phone is within reach while I study.
I check messages during a study session without having decided to.
I keep unrelated tabs, video or chat open while working.
I reach the end of a page or a lecture segment unable to say what it covered.
I reread the same passage two or three times to absorb it.
I study in places where I'm likely to be interrupted.

Poor calibration

I decide I've studied enough based on how familiar the material feels.
I judge how well I know something right after studying it.
I don't keep a record of the questions I get wrong.
I begin with the topics I find easiest.
I have been surprised by an exam question on material I believed I knew.
I couldn't currently name my two weakest topics in my hardest subject.