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hey guys i just got a quick question so expect nothing special here
im currently studying business administration at an average university in germany and in january are going to be my first exams
how do or did you prepare for your exams? just some basic information about your routine and when you did start learning, how much time you spend, did you still attend a lot of courses at university while excercising ?
im learning now since the beginning of december but i've already seen while browsing here that this community has a ton of very intelligent people, especially from very good and well known colleges and universities around the world
and also if you attend such a college, how is your routine if you have to prepare for exams and is it much more time compared to people you know who are studying at a "normal" college?
thanks for your time and once again really nice community!
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What?
You read your material, take practice exams / answer the questions in your book, go over lecture notes.
If you don't have prac questions and stuff, just make outlines of the things that you've read, and make sure you know them.
Or just go into the first test blind, and figure out from there if you need to study more or don't bother studying for that class ever
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Honestly?
I was very lazy with my exams. For some classes I studied in advance, but for most I really just a) made sure I did most, if not all of the course work b) made sure I did most, if not all of the reading c) attended most, if not all of the lectures d) read through my notes once the night before.
I got high honours. But that was what worked for me.
One piece of advice I could give you is to write down the most important things while you're reading through your notes to create a sort of study sheet of the biggest points or the ones you have trouble remembering. I would make those and read them over and over right before the test. If you can memorize something like a mantra then when you get into the room you can just immediately write it down on some scrap paper or something and use it later.
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I did a business information systems degree and got quite good results in University.
I usually get as many practice exams as I can find (10+) and then do one or two of them with no time limit, researching questions I don't know as I do them.
Once I'm comfortable with that I'll do 5 or so exams timed, then mark myself (or if they're more verbose answers that are hard to mark you can ask a friend/lecturer/university study resources to mark it for you) and research the answers to what I got wrong etc.
I'll just cram out practice exams until I'm comfortable.
I always found reading my textbook and going over my lecture notes a complete waste of time unless it was in doing research for a specific question that I couldn't answer on my own.
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If you want the maximum grade possible you study every minute you can, you make notes off of the material of the stuff that is most difficult and you sit down and go over them until you know them by heart (aka you can recall them not just recognize them).
If you don't care that much just keep up with the material and in the day or so before the test go over the more pertinent stuff and make sure you've read everything you're supposed to.
If you're talking about getting motivated to study, that's a different can of worms 
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Adam Robinson's book "What Smart Students Know" is very good, in my opinion.
He developed a note taking system where you ask yourself key questions pertaining to what you are learning in order to get the big picture. When taking notes in class, he teaches you a unique yet organized manner of taking notes that forces you to make connections between the material taught in class. This will enhance your understanding and therefore retention of the material. After class you will reform and rewrite your notes until you can condense them to a single page for each chapter. When exam time comes around you will take all of your final chapter notes (Lets say the exam is on Chapters 1-5...you would take your final page of notes from Chapters 1-5) and condense all of them into one sheet of notes. You will repeat the process for all of your exams and eventually the final exam. Meaning, you will have only one sheet of notes to study off of on the final exam.
I have also implemented other forms of note taking strategies into my studies. For instance, I apply some concepts I got from Derren Brown, Arthur Benjamin, etc... Basically I also take the material from all of my classes and correlate the information with as many subject topics as humanely possible. For instance, I can make connections between a Sociology class and a Calculus class. Or make connections from Starcraft to an Engineering class, etc...the theory is the more 'highways' you have to connect the information, the higher likelihood you will retain the information on the exam.
Basically, I don't believe rote memorization is a good way to study. I think mnemonic devises can be helpful if you have to memorize a large amount of information over a short period of time. However, I would advocate to using a study and note taking system that centers around understanding the material. Also, I don't think practice exams will really help you understand the material. I think they are excellent for measuring generally where your understanding is, but I think focusing on making information highways between subjects is the best way to memorize information. But what do I know, I am majoring in Physics so I don't have to memorize large amounts of sometimes uninteresting material. Also, the process I described seems time consuming, but its really not that bad. Scott Young also has a good book called "Learn More, Study Less." He is currently doing a mock computer science degree from MIT in 12 months where he takes an entire college class over a period of four days.
"People who remember forget, people who understand remember."
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Rewrite your notes or the textbook's important parts as succinctly as possible and use this to study.
Need to memorize something exactly like a math definition? write it down repeatedly.
Need to remember the broad details of a bunch of certain concepts? Read about them right before you go to bed and try to keep the information churning in your mind as you fall asleep. (you'll be surprised at how powerful a memorization tool this is)
Don't keep going over stuff you can already easily remember.
If you are in a class that has no practice problems, try to anticipate/make up all the questions you might be asked and answer them.
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I pushed myself, with a reward system.
As much as i hate studying, I know that deep down I need to do something about it or else I'll fail. So I just play Starcraft or relax for a couple of hours, then focus on studying for a couple of hours. then repeat. However this is going to take up a lot of time. So you have to plan ahead. Finals on Friday, got plans on tuesday and thursday, You got 4 chapters to cover. No problem 2 chapters a day. Monday, 2 chapters on the 2 hour relax and 2 hour play interval. You must go in depth with the chapters and understand fully before claiming that you're finished. When you are done, you'll feel very accomplished and reward yourself with some starcraft. Rinse and repeat, that's how I do it with my classes.
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I try to not read teamliquid as much as possible.
Aim for a goal, then study with that goal in mind. Relax more studying for easy/unimportant things, buckle down for the hard/important ones.
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On December 17 2011 12:03 ThaZenith wrote:
I try to not read teamliquid as much as possible.
Meaning of impossible.
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Something that always helped me was to study multiple things at once, at least during my freshman year. Now I can focus enough. It works very well on homework still though too.
Basically, you switch on and off each subject every so often, say 20 minutes or whatever you are comfortable with that is still a solid block (I personally wouldn't go lower than 15). Work on a math problem for 20 minutes, then switch over to psychology, then back, then maybe to biology. I found this idea our through my psychology professor, who said that he found studies that validated this, along with anecdotal evidence from grad students.
Basically he said that the brain can be terrible at focusing on one single thing at a time (Unless you train it, I suppose. Or maybe I just find the stuff I am studying interesting now). We see this in every day life, and I'm sure you have a plethora of examples that you can use. For example, you may be reading this, switching over to facebook, then back to some other site, then to this again. It keeps the mind alert instead of drudging on. Ever been reading something and not remember it? This more or less prevents that.
Last year my GPA was something like a 3.9 or 3.8. I achieved a 4.0 during winter quarter as well. I was a psychology major.
This year my GPA was a 3.1. Chemistrry caught me by surprise and I got a solid C in that four credit hour class, so it brought my grade down. The rest of them were A's or B's. Chem lab I even got an A in. Damn Lecture
So take it for what you will.
Also, it is much better to understand how things relate to each other and how they work together. I don't know if you can use this in your field, but I do this in anatomy all the time. It made learning how the muscle contracted incredibly easy.
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When it comes to exam time here is a system I've developed (still needs to be refined):
1) Know your topics - basic, but it forms the basis of understanding your subject and how the puzzle completes.
2) Go through past papers - read em, do em, whatever, this forms the understanding of what key questions they will ask. Such as (your doing business admin), the SWOT analysis maybe in there. Internal control as well, management hierarchy.
These 2 points above cover the 'scope' of your exam, in which sets out your 'nature' and 'extent' of your study.
The actual study:
1) Set yourself a time of day to study - key is to enhance your psychological mindset by creating a pattern of when your brain absorbs information. Note: it doesn't need to be long hours. 2 hours IMO is sufficient.
2) Create an environment of what your comfortable with - if you like studying with people or if you like studying by yourself. It helps.
3) Note taking - biggest problem is people who write out whole paragraphs then complain that their wrists/arm are sore. Try to use 1-5 words that best defines a term (eg: Integrity = honesty) in which you can then expand upon in your exam, it's amazing how so few words can be expanded to a paragraph. This then creates understanding if you know how to explain it in your own words. A full page of notes in my study book only contains about 50 words.
4) Use diagrams - psychologically it's been proven easier to remember a diagram than a whole page of text (picture tells a thousand words?)
5) Form links with real life stuff (been mentioned above) - such as expanding a business could be correlated to a fast-expansion in starcraft, there are risks and rewards etc..
6) If your feeling burnt out. Take a break. Play some starcraft.
I just finished my accounting degree at uni.
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I don't study per say. I have trouble focusing on stuff like that because whenever I read about it, I suddenly remember what it is, so I naturally just skip over. However, I find it really useful to make associations with real life examples or play on words as you're learning it.. But that might just be me.
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Just study and pace it well.
My motto is, if its time to study, its study
if play, then play
if time to fool around, then do it.
Just make sure that a day before the exam you have already finished and learned completely everything there is to know about your exams.
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Go to the library. There is not much distraction there. Well, at least that is what I've heard from most people
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Well for me it was usually 6 exams per semester. I tried to learn 3 of those, let's say the more interactive ones like SQL, programming or CAD during the semester. The other 3, I planned 1 week for each 8-10 hours learning per day.
During the actual studying I once read through the whole script and tried to compress it 50 foliages to one DIN A4 paper. After that I started doing old exams, if your uni doesn't make them available you should ask around. The first semester I just read scripts and didn't even know about the old exams and it was 10 times harder. If you go through the exams and don't know how to answer something read up on that chapter.
I didn't even buy one book so far, I used mostly scripts and the internet.
If you have some subject which you know will be very hard you should think about learning one day each week. I did this after I failed one math exam with 80% failrate on the first try -.-
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what you should realize is that some methods of what other people not necessarily works for you.
while some people are able to study everyday and study earlier into semester (this takes a lot of discipline), often many people find that its very hard to study productively 1 week before the exam, as opposed to 1-2 days before the exam. unproductive people like me find it hard to be motivated and since i dont have the habit of studying i dont study until the end.
my advice is to look at your past results, courses, classes in highschool w/e, and look at your best result and then your worst result; then just study the same way you studied for your best class, and avoid habits from your worst.
personally, if im behind in 2 months of classes and the day after tomorrow is the exam, i would just look at the course outline, pick up the most important points/equations because that is where you will pick up most partial marks (at least for an engineer). try to find past exams with the same professor (likely, they will format the questions the same way, and you can anticipate which questions will most likely not be on the exam), and solutions are great (if you can understand them).
this is simply my method of passing comfortably. if you want to achieve amazing grades u have to mindcontrol yourself to become more disciplined. another idea is to do the labs and assignments completely without copying others. more than often these force you to use your disciplinary knowledge, boost your term marks and it will be easier to study some of the material. review is always easier than first time learning.
of course, no harm in sharing methods of study, but my personal advice is to do what works for you in the past. if you are getting less than optimal results, you should find out during quizzes, tests and midterms and should have time to tweak it accordingly
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Repetition is important. Expose yourself to the material a little bit each day well in advance of the exam. Don't cram at the last minute.
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I can't say much everyone else hasn't.
Your main priority should be to get a study group. Do not think they are an unproductive waste of time like most first years do.
When you have breadth first courses (most artsy sciency courses) you can study with flash cards and you'll be fine.
Depth first courses are harder and when past exams aren't reused, your only chance is to understand the material.
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If I'm feeling tired or lazy about studying for an exam, I will force myself to rewrite my notes.
Although I find that its not the most effective study method, it is relatively easy (mentally) and gets me to realize what areas I'm strong in and what areas I'm weak in. If I come across a section where I'm not understanding what I'm copying, I'll make note of it and come back to it later.
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EPT
