can somebody help me pick out key topics for the begginning of the cicil war

Question

Best thing to do with stuff like this, since you already have a textbook, is learn how to scan for the information.

Look through and see if you have titles for subsections in the chapters. You're looking for the beginning of the civil war, so don't skip to the end of the civil war section and start looking.

Once you found the selection, it might be titled something like "before the first battle." (Just imagining a title here) Write down a list of questions about that. Just brainstorm. Any question that comes to mind, write down even if it doesn't directly relate. You can edit the list later:

"Who was important before the civil war actually started?"

"Did one event start the civil war or many?"

"What disagreements were there that lead up to the war?"

etc. etc. etc.

With those questions already written out, you will be able to be more focused on the reading rather than doing a "panicked" reading 5 minutes before your class. It's a good idea to do this even if you're NOT pressed for time. It will save you so much time because you won't think back as much with "Who was that again?" or "What happened in that battle?" You would have already thought about it by the time you read it.

One of the greatest lessons you will learn, and this is often a difficult way to learn it, is how to take a LOT of information and organize it to make it easier to handle so it's not really so much. Too often, people just try to "keep going" to learn more by not stopping. What will actually help them is to learn how to organize information before hand so when they come to it, they remember it more.

I have not read through this web site entirely, but have found some good tips on here in the past on how to study. It might be worth looking at when you have some free time. Think of it this way. If you don't have free time to look at it, you need to read it ;-)

http://www.how-to-study.com/

Good luck on your test today!
Matt