A Confession and a Plea!

Ok guys, I will now confess to you one of my deepest, darkest secrets:  I was always a horrible student.

I was able to keep this secret for so long because I managed to get pretty close to straight A's in high school and A's with a few B's in college but this really had nothing to do with being a good student.  My M.O. was to do the LEAST amount of work/studying as humanly possible, take every academic shortcut along the way, and hope my quick wit and extraordinary b.s. skills could fill in the rest.  I almost never studied for exams, I never underlined or highlighted a single text book and I mastered the skill of writing English papers on books I had never cracked open (Just to be clear, I also never plagiarized or "cheated" in the academic-code-of-conduct sense of the word, it was b.s. but it was always MY b.s.) I think I had to learn these horrible study habits due to the fact that I've always been a terribly slow reader, possibly had undiagnosed A.D.D. and, ironically am a total, anal-retentive perfectionist when it comes to things I really care about.  These three things made actually putting a lot of work into school nearly impossible, so I just didn't.

Whew! That feels so good to finally get off my chest after all these years.  Ok, but now we get to the real problem.  

I am now studying for my NASM Personal Trainer Certification Exam.  Not only do I have to pass the exam in a couple months, but I also really would like to retain this material long-term so that I can be a successful trainer.  The material is definitely not brain surgery, a lot of it is common sense but it does require a whole lot of memorization of anatomy and movement science terms as well as mathematic formulas for program design.  I have a big ole' text book and work book, as well as some pretty great online resources (computer flash cards, DVD presentations, practice quizzes and exams) but what I don't have is any method on how to learn this stuff.

I'm on chapter 6 of 18 right now.  So far I've been reading each chapter, outlining the information in a notebook in my own words as I read along, then watching the DVD presentation and doing the workbook assignments at the end of every chapter.  I thought I was studying really well but then I started practicing with the computer flash cards that cover chapters 1-6 and kinda freaked out because I feel like I didn't get anything right and haven't retained anything.

So all my friends out there with your advanced degrees and your academic prowess, HELP ME! How do I get this stuff in my brain and keep it there long-term? Any advice is much appreciated.  Thankssomuchoknowbacktostudying.