Check out this website. It includes study/learning techniques empirically proven by modern scientific studies to increase learning efficiency and overall effectiveness.
To signal my credibility a bit here, I graduated with a major GPA of around 3.89 (A-'s aren’t 4.0) from a real fucking difficult university. The overall GPA fell because of Wealth Magick, what can I say. I still got into grad school so it didn’t matter.
For subjects that require you to intake large amounts of information, like reading large, dense, technical texts, this is what I did. Read the book and take notes. In your notes, write down the titles of each section. Beneath these, use bullet points to note down important information. You don’t need to be super specific, but capture what’s important. You’re not trying to re-write the text (or slides). You can always go back to the text. The notes are to capture the important points and help refresh your memory.
That’s while you’re reading. Mathematics and engineering students do problem sets, other students have readings. Do your fucking homework.
While you are studying for an exam, this is what I did. When you reach a title headline in your notes, so like the title of a section, first try to recall as much as you possibly can about what’s in that section. Don’t read the rest of your notes yet and don’t check the book. Try to retrieve from memory all that you can first. You can think in your mind or try and explain things out loud to your study buddy stuffed animal that houses your academics servitor, or in writing. Be wary of group studying. Usually “group study” actually means “social hour cause we can’t be fucked to study,” and I’m guessing you don’t get to “group take the exam,” so don’t waste your time. Hang out after you study.
Then after you try and recall all that you can, you can look at your notes. Repeat this process several times for all of your notes across several days. I usually studied for about 4 days prior to an exam, around 3-4 hours each day. This was, of course, after doing the readings and taking notes in the weeks prior.
This will seem more difficult than just reading your notes. That’s exactly the point. Will you get to just read your notes during the exam? This method lets you practice doing what you’ll have to do on the exam - recall the information. If you cannot explain every single piece of information that could possibly be on the test without consulting your notes or the text (or slides) as you are walking through the door, then you’re not doing it right. This powerful knowledge will put you at ease.
It is important that you space out your studying across time. Everyone tells you to do this, almost no one listens, and it is their loss. You will perform more effectively and spend less time studying if you spread it across more days. The only time I ever had to pull an all-nighter in university was when I very poorly managed my time and left all the work up until the last moment due to procrastination. All-nighters are for chumps. It’s amusing that those who are perhaps grilled the most about efficiency are so laughably inefficient when it comes to their studies. No, they aren’t smarter than you, nor are they to be admired for inflicting suffering upon themselves. You can relax in the peace of knowing the way that is by far more efficient and just plain more effective.
During exams, I would wear ear plugs, the squishy kind that construction workers and whatnot use. I’d show them to the professor first so they don’t think they’re ear-buds/headphones. One time some dipshit TA almost didn’t let me wear them, but I persisted and perhaps went to the professor. Nothing drives me more insane than trying to concentrate on an exam with 10 people sniffing shit up their faces the entire fucking time. Blow your nose fucko. If it’s not allergy season it’s cold outside. Blow it again. But I digress.
The ear plugs will block out random noise and will make your breathing sound really loud. This is good. Focus on your breathing and take long, slow, deep breathes through your nose. If you are concerned about being loud, the snifflers are way obnoxiously more loud than you (there is a special, special place in Hell for the snifflers, manned by me personally), and your breathing may actually help other people be calm too.
Take it one question at a time. If you are not certain, mark the question, move on. You can come back to it later. Don’t get bogged down and start freaking yourself out. It’s not a big deal, especially if you study like I suggest, which means this won’t happen very often. When you reach the end, go back to your marked questions and see if anything new comes up. Sometimes it totally actually will. If not, best guess and move on. After this, double-check all of the questions. I always, always caught at least one question I goofed on. Sometimes that one question is the difference between the B and the A, or the A- and the A. You got anything better to do? What’re you gonna do, go jerk off in the bathroom or something? No, you don’t. Don’t fuck up your exam. Check your work and thank yourself later.
I’ve used all sorts of different occult methods for learning. This is usually the first thing I look for and think about when I see a new form of magick, to this day. Goetia demons, Lucifer demons, sigils, whatever you want to do can work. If you need a book suggestion, I can give you that if you tell me what sort of magick you are wanting to do.