Exam Studying - Page 2
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BuGzlToOnl
United States5918 Posts
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Refrige
United States179 Posts
For geography I like to cover the names up with paper/w/e and then name them, seeing that I am more of a visual learner. Science it sort of depends on the subject...what are you taking? | ||
Ichigo1234551
United States649 Posts
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ninjafetus
United States231 Posts
I can talk more about the topic if anyone's interested, but for now I'll tell you the single most important thing people get wrong when studying for a math test. They study, but they don't study under similar conditions to the exam. In an exam, you can't look back at examples and try and fit your question to them. You check the answer, and then work backwards to see how they got it. You especially don't get to read over a bunch of examples and write "I understand" or "I don't understand." But that's exactly how lots and lots of people prepare for exams. Before a math test, here's what I would do. First, make a list of all the topics going to be covered on the exam. Next, choose example problems for each topic, and try and complete them without any outside help. Don't look at your notes, don't look at examples. Act like it's an exam. Only when you get stuck on a problem do you go back to examples and see if you can find out where you went wrong. If you try problems this way, you'll have a much better appreciation for the solution method than if you had just read over the example without attempting the problem first. You will have a better appreciation for the steps that do work, and you'll learn something else that's important- what not to do next time. Next, after you've convinced yourself you understand that type of problem, put all the notes, etc. away, choose a similar one, and do it all again. Repeat this process until you can choose any random example problem from any of your problem types, and you can get it right without any help. Know the problems well enough that you can describe solution methods for the general case. Be able to complete any example problem with nothing but a blank sheet of paper and a writing implement (and a calculator, if they apply). Then, when you go into the exam, you'll be doing the exact same thing you were doing at home, and you'll be set! It will be easy. Does this sound like a lot of work? Sure it does. But it's focused and productive work. Studying over notes is fine. Looking at some formulas at the last minute so you don't forget them is also fine. But having all the formulas memorized, or all the examples memorized won't matter if you don't know how and why they work. I can't tell you how many times I've had students do poorly on tests and then tell me, "but I understood all the example problems." When I sit them down and talk them through it, they do understand, but at a lower level. If we write the 'levels' out in something like below, I would say a lot of people are at 1 or 2 and think they're prepared. 1. When I'm reading over the solution, I understand the steps they're taking. 2. If I have the exact same structure, I can repeat the exact same steps to get the correct answer. 3. I understand why they chose the steps they chose, and I know when to use (and when not to use) these steps based on the problem given. You want to be at 3. | ||
ragnasaur
United States804 Posts
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