How To Study Productively Even During A Pandemic | COVID Study Tips

COVID-19 has hit us all hard. Through lockdowns and online learning, it has become harder than ever to learn and be productive. Fortunately, we’ve recruited some of our top Matrix students and alumni to share with you how they managed to study through everything, even a pandemic. Read on for their COVID Study tips!

Your complete handbook to studying during COVID-19:

1. Pandemic-proof your plans.
2. Turn your distractions into learning opportunities
3. Switch up your study spaces.
4. Work + Play = Productivity.
5. Sleep at night (not during your online classes).
6. Stay physically distanced, but socially connected.
7. Write notes you want to read.
8. Think beyond high school.

1. Pandemic-proof your plans.

Things don’t always go your way, especially during a pandemic. So, it’s important to be flexible and to plan your time realistically. If you study consistently and steadily, you will be prepared in the face of any roadblock that might come your way. No last-minute cramming — how good does that sound?

Matrix Scholarship recipient Emily Dinh graduated from James Ruse Agricultural High School with an impressive 99.05 ATAR and she found that creating weekly plans which can be divided into daily goals worked best for her.

Assigning a few tasks to each day makes completing all tasks seem more achievable as there is constant progress.

In such changing times, Sydney Boys graduate Alan Wong emphasises the importance of being adaptable and having resources that suit you.

Here’s what Alan recommends:

I personally find Matrix+ Holiday courses really useful for content-heavy subjects which require understanding, like Chemistry or Physics. The main benefit is that you can rush ahead with the course, and work out any explanations beforehand.

Often the Matrix course does a better job covering content than school does, so it gives a really nice foundation off which you can build the rest of your knowledge. It certainly helped me during Trials having attended the TPCs (Matrix Trial Prep Courses).

Although in general, doing the Holiday course for any subject and then learning it in school basically means you’re covering the content twice, helping you to memorise it. And unlike many other tutoring places, the content isn’t covered so far ahead of time that you completely forget it when you cover it at school.

The long term benefit is that you end up memorising a substantial amount of knowledge so when exam time comes around, studying is easier and you’ll know more.

During Term 2 lockdown, I used Matrix+ for all my subjects:

• Mathematics Extension 2
• Mathematics Extension 1
• English Advanced
• Chemistry
• Physics
• Then, in Term 3, for Mathematics Extension 1.

I’m not going to pretend as if during Term 2, I managed my time perfectly and managed to do every lesson on time. That would be disingenuous, as I definitely fell behind. It definitely helped seeing a teacher’s face as we went through the book.

Sometimes I found it easier to go through the content myself first, and then refer to the video with teacher worked solutions if I couldn’t work out a question. That’s definitely the best part of Matrix+ – the flexibility. It’s also really helpful to have the forum where we can ask questions and receive replies, often as our peers have the same queries.

Sometimes I found it fun and even relaxing just to play the theory video while I did other tasks like cleaning up or organising, kind of like listening to a podcast or music.

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2. Turn your distractions into learning opportunities.

If you are anything like Alan who scored a perfect 99.95 ATAR (which we are sure you are!), you may find yourself on Youtube more often than you should be.

If that’s the case then use that to your advantage!

Here’s what Alan has to say:

When I was first searching for Chemistry videos from the likes of Crash Course, or even by searching up “Module X” and finding school teacher recordings, I’d do it all on a special separate study Youtube account.

But I’ve found it’s a lot easier just to watch them on the personal account you usually use.

If you watch enough videos, the algorithm will begin to recommend Chemistry videos on your homepage, making it easier to resist the urge to watch for leisure and instead watch to learn.

Perhaps you learn so well using videos you might as well use them completely instead of any theory notes.

For example for my Modern History HSC, I memorised three modules of content by repeatedly listening to podcasts (search up Wonderly’s American History Tellers – Civil Rights: this was the single resource I used for the Civil Rights’ Option) and watching lecture videos (“The Faculties” Youtube channel has some excellent Soviet Union lectures off which I based my essays).

In the 2019 HSC, I based my power struggle essay upon Dr James Harris’ “Stalin’s Rise to Power” by listening to it repeatedly before and after school!

Don’t let a Pandemic stop your learning.

With Matrix+ Online Courses, you can study where you want, when you want. Whether that’s in your pyjamas or at the crack of dawn, Matrix+ will be there during all your bursts of productivity.

3. Switch up your study spaces.

One thing Matrix Scholarship student Vaneeza struggled with during lockdown was being able to concentrate whilst studying. What really helped her though, was taking the time to organise her study space.

She advises the following:

I know that having video classes for school often means that you can find yourself stuck in one corner of your room for a large majority of the day, and so switching up places to study really helped me think clearly. Even studying in the backyard was fun! 🙂

The environment you study in is so important for the mindset that you have when you study, so make the most of your study space to help you focus. I always make sure that there’s enough room for me to spread out my books and not feel so cramped.

4. Work + Play = Productivity.

As a Year 12 student of 2021, Penelope Lukes from Sydney Girls knows exactly what you are going through. Apparently, she found it was possible to study TOO much!

Here’s her experience:

During the first few weeks of quarantine, I found myself finishing the days burnt out and unmotivated after spending almost all day locked away in a futile attempt to be productive. As the shutdown period gave me a lot more time, I eventually realised I needed to substitute those extra hours with a personal hobby.

I did a lot of crochet – a repetitive task allowing me to stretch my fingers and meditate on my thoughts. While it seemed counterintuitive to spend more time on things that aren’t school-related, I found it ultimately made me more productive and more motivated, ultimately lifting my mental health and my school performance. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

5. Sleep at night (not during your online classes).

Days can really roll over when you at home all day in your pyjamas. At least, that’s what Baulkham Hills graduate Muskaan Gupta told us and she got an ATAR of 99.60!

It was quite easy to get distracted during COVID and sleep in during the day.

I made sure to follow my regular school timetable.

This included waking up early so that I wasn’t behind on my schoolwork.

It was really nice to have Matrix+ and have all the study materials delivered to my house. Even though COVID-19 was not an ideal situation, I didn’t feel like I was disadvantaged because I had access to in-depth videos and Matrix resources.

Likewise, Eric — another Matrix scholarship holder in the class of 2020 — made sure to organise his time well.

He suggests:

To stay focused, I maintained a modified schedule that suited me better and started later in the day (think of what your schedule would look like if you didn’t have to wake up so early!).

To stay on top, I studied at my own pace in my own way. What I mean by this is that if I felt the class was fast/slow on a particular day, I would adjust how long I spend on each subject.

I found it much easier to stick to the rhythm I was already using, while only changing the time periods for studying.

6. Stay physically distanced, but socially connected.

Friends are great (most of the time), so why wouldn’t you make the most of them to brighten up your lockdown days!

Justin Kim graduated from Knox Grammar with an ATAR of 99.85 by doing exactly that.

During his 2020 HSC:

We managed through this quarantine period by playing Minecraft during classes and holding student-led zoom lectures that helped with attacking HSC questions.

Outside of class, I ensured that I was always talking with my friends to stay motivated (be it via Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram etc…).

Sometimes I would even go into zoom calls just to study together because I often lost the motivation to study by myself.

7. Write notes you want to read.

Staying at home can be pretty monotonous, but your notes don’t have to be — Alan’s were far from that and he ended up scoring a 99.95!

Discussing his notes, he writes:

Much of my notes collection is a hodgepodge of various different resources, post its, bookmarked websites, matrix book, school homework book.

Indeed for me, I feel like this may be a more effective strategy than one unified set of notes.

Not only is it easier, splits all the content up, I feel it’s also easier to memorise and learn.

Instead of 100 pages in the same font, dot point style, I review through different pages with different styles and colours, and especially if the notes go over the same content in different ways, than that’s a bonus for understanding and memorising.

8. Think beyond high school.

Your greatest motivation will never be a number scrawled in red over your exam paper. To truly overcome procrastination, you will need to be inspired by something bigger than that. Alan (yes, he’s the one who got the 99.95 ATAR!) explains how you can do that.

Start seriously thinking about university and all the other options you’d like to pursue. I went into the year thinking it would all fall into place, and in some sense it has, but I’ve also missed out on opportunities to apply for scholarships and early entry programs simply because I didn’t think it was important to think about university until after HSC exams.

If you don’t have a great idea of what you want to do after high school, you might hear people tell you “that’s alright, you’ll work it out when the time comes”. This was the advice I was told, and I went with it.

In hindsight, I would suggest simply browsing course finders, university websites, resources like Study Work Grow, and just looking at all the options available. Try flipping the order: instead of career -> course, try course -> career.

I’ve found it more useful and helpful to look at university courses first, and then envision how that course could help me in my future development, rather than thinking the other way around.

Perhaps this is a helpful strategy if you have a broad range of interests and possible paths in the future.

Finally, if you could have planned for the pandemic, what would you have done?

Here is what Year 12 Matrix Scholarship student Jennifer Dang has to say, first-hand:

To prepare for 2020 and beyond, beforehand I would have completed more holiday courses at Matrix rather than term courses.

I believe the holidays are a great time to get ahead and as Matrix provides the opportunity, I would have joined more holiday courses.

Moreover, if I knew this pandemic was coming, I would have studied more difficult subjects to understand like Physics or Chemistry more because then I would have figured out my weak areas and would have time to ask the teacher to explain the concepts further when we had face to face classes because Zoom calls always had their limitations.

I would have honestly tried harder to get ahead with all subjects. Especially for English, I would have asked senior friends what they studied last year and began reading the texts to get a more solid understanding of the text and the author’s writing style.

I would also practice creative writing more, searching the web for writing prompts so I could build a portfolio of characters and ideas that I could easily adapt to for school tasks. I believe this would also be extremely useful for year 12 as the Craft of Writing module calls for these skills.

Locked in? You don’t have to fall behind.

Keep up with these high achieving students who study with Matrix to get ahead.