There are multi ways to shape up.  Body-tone is good, but mind-tone is the yellow brick road to bridge stardom.  A most productive way is to practice “systematically reading bid sequences“ - that is defining a hand that fits a particular sequence of bids.  Here’s a simple illustration:

NORTH              SOUTH
1 §                      1 ©
1 NT

 

To read North’s hand, you must think not only about what she is telling explicitly, but also what she is denying.  The 1§ opener says she has opening values, no five-card major, and clubs as good or better than diamonds.  The 1NT rebid is most enlightening:  it denies a four-card major; it limits the club suit to a max of five; and it limits strength to a near-minimum 13 to 15 points.  The most likely description of North’s hand is a minimum opener and balanced 3-3-3-4, 3-2-4-5  more or less. 

If you are North’s partner, you must do this analysis; but you should also do it whenever you are on the defense.  Also you can practice doing it any other time you come across a bidding sequence - newspaper daily bridge problems for instance.

Here is a more complex sequence for you to tackle (East-West passing throughout):

SOUTH           NORTH
1 ª                  2 §
2 NT                3 ª
4 ª