of the piles with the corresponding topic title. Staple or paper-clip all papers in each pile together. Read through your notes and determine if they can be condensed (i.e. see what information is not needed or not covered by the exam). Creating an Outline An outline can be thought of as a condensed study guide. Outlines attempt to condense large amounts of information you have from all your course sources into a logical system. Some professors and textbooks provide outlines of chapters which you may find helpful. Some tips for creating outlines are: Focus on broad subjects, key issues and concepts. The goal is to put as much of the material on the front sides of just 1 or 2 pieces of paper. You don't need to be completely textual. You can use concept maps. Don't spend too long on preparing an outline. It is just one study aid. Building a Problem Set For problem solving courses, many students adapt the study guide approach. Your assigned problem sets are key for studying. Start a pile for each set of problems that covers material that might appear on the exam. Supplement each problem set with sample problems from your lecture notes. Match the problem set with its related lecture note. Next, copy sample problems (just the questions) onto blank sheets and fasten these sheets together with the problem set. This creates a large problem set by adding extra problems drawn from your lecture notes. Create questions based on the topic title.