Stop Re-Reading Your Notes: 7 Coaches Share the Study Habits They'd Ban (and the Ones They'd Double Down On)

Ask a room full of academic coaches what students should stop doing, and you won't get polite answers. You'll get a firing squad aimed at the study advice everyone repeats on TikTok.

We reached out to seven coaches and private tutors from across the country — folks who collectively have spent thousands of hours watching students either level up or stall out — and asked one question: what's the most contrarian study tip you actually believe?

Buckle up.

1. "Ban re-reading. Completely. Forever."

— Test-prep coach, Chicago

"Re-reading feels productive because it's easy and the material looks familiar," she told us. "But familiarity isn't memory. If a student has time for exactly one habit change, I make them replace every re-reading session with blank-page recall — close the book and write down everything they remember. It's brutal. It also works."

The takeaway: If your notes look perfect and your practice test scores don't, the notes were the problem.

2. "Highlighting is a placebo."

— College writing tutor, Austin

"A rainbow-colored textbook means nothing. Highlighting is a decision-avoidance tool — it lets you feel like you studied without ever engaging." His replacement: turn every highlighted line into a question before you close the book. No question, no highlight.

3. "Embrace productive failure on practice tests."

— Academic coach, Boston

This one divides students the most. "I tell my kids to take the practice exam before they feel ready," she says. "They'll bomb it. Great. Now we know exactly what to study instead of guessing." Struggling to retrieve information — and failing — is one of the strongest learning signals the brain has. The failure is the studying.

4. "Your GPA is a lagging indicator. Track inputs instead."

— Private tutor, Atlanta

"Students obsess over a number they only see twice a semester," he argues. "I have them track daily inputs: number of active-recall sessions, practice problems completed, hours of real sleep. Grades follow inputs the way weight follows the gym. You can't control the scale, but you control the workout."

5. "Stop studying in the library."

— SAT coach, suburban New Jersey

Half joke, half not. "Most students go to the library to socialize with occasional studying between texts. For a lot of them, a boring empty classroom or a kitchen table with the phone in another room outperforms the social scene. Location isn't magic. Attention is."

6. "Music while studying is costing you more than you think."

— Learning specialist, Denver

"Lyrics hijack the exact verbal working memory you need for reading and writing," she explained. "If you need sound, use instrumental or white noise. Students hate hearing this. Then their focus improves and they hate it slightly less."

7. "Do the subject you hate first. Not last."

— Academic coach, Seattle

"Every student schedules their hardest subject for the end of the day, when willpower is gone, then wonders why they never make progress. Flip it. Your worst subject gets your freshest brain. It's the least fun scheduling advice I give and the one that changes report cards fastest."

The Pattern Behind All Seven Tips

Notice the common thread: every coach attacked comfort. Re-reading is comfortable. Highlighting is comfortable. The library, the playlist, the easy subject first — all comfortable, all ineffective.

Real studying is retrieval, struggle, and honest self-assessment. It's slightly unpleasant in the moment and enormously rewarding at the end of the semester. That's the gap a good academic coach closes: not teaching content, but coaching students through the discomfort that actually moves the needle.

Pick one tip from this list — just one — and run it for two weeks. Your study habits won't be the same, and honestly, that's the whole point.