The ugly includes the passive forms of studying  we all default to - what we were taught in grade  

school. This includes re-reading your class  notes or powerpoint, or highlighting in a  

textbook and re-reading those highlights, or  passively listening to lecture recordings.

The bad is in the middle, where students have  intentions of breaking out of the passive  

studying purgatory, but do so suboptimally.  This includes making subpar flashcards,  

writing questions for yourself without writing  down thorough answers, or doing practice questions  

and only checking if you got the answer right or  wrong, rather than deeply reviewing the content.

The good study strategies have three steps. Step  1 is to first focus on comprehension through your  

initial exposure to the information, followed by  addressing confusion and gaps in understanding,  

after which you practice by applying the  information. Step 2 is memory consolidation,  

primarily through spaced repetition  with active recall. And step 3 is  

to remember the larger context to facilitate  learning. This includes optimizing the place,  

time, and environment in which you study.

For more, check out my full video on the  good, ok, and the useless of study techniques.