Fear, dread and the sickening feeling of nervousness settle in the pit of one’s stomach when the time to settle down and study approaches on the night before a test. Often the root of the issue lies within the study process itself. How can someone read “Catch-22” the night before a big test? How can one review for a five chapter American History test with such little time? How can someone be expected to memorize all the elements on a periodic table? Students look to online study sources as helpful resources.

Popular online study sources include SparkNotes, CliffsNotes, Study Blue and Quizlet. These tools help students engage in learning and make it easier to study even for dreaded last-minute assessments. SparkNotes provides students with resources such as overviews of novels containing summaries of each chapter, character analysis and study questions. SparkNotes also contains study guides and analyses of a wide range of topics such as biology, European history and even SAT Subject Tests.  It gives students a quick review if they learned the topic and teaches students who have not learned the material yet.

“When I need to study after reading a book, I use SparkNotes,” freshmen Alyssa Hefty said. “It helps by giving summaries, plot overviews, and the main ideas. It reinforces the material previously read.”

Study Blue made studying even easier by creating online flashcards on the phone app. A user can simply speak into their phone and have the app translate their speech to text on the flashcards. The ability to customize flashcard with text, audio and images makes learning engaging and easier. Study Blue gives students access to their library which provides excellent online resources for research papers. The website and app give students several modes of studying and learning such as the review sheets, digital flashcards and automatically graded quizzes with the feature of tracking the student’s progress.

“I made flashcards for history,” senior Raquel Rosales said. “It organizes the information and the cards which makes it easier to memorize.”

20 years ago, the idea of even using the internet seemed ludicrous because people could not wrap their mind around the concept of world connection at the push of a button. However, some people are against the use of online study resources to learn because it does not give the reader a chance to appreciate the piece due to the lack of time reading it and not reading the novel from the primary source which leaves out beautiful detailing. Readers no longer connect to the character like they would by spending time reading the story themselves.

“If students read something not as good they should use [SparkNotes] as literary criticism,” Ms. Dalia Pullido said. “SparkNotes should be used with novels alone.”