HELLOO GUYS!! THIS IS THE LAST REVIEW FROM BOOK MOTIVATION AND
LEARNING STRATEGIES FOR COLLEGE SUCCESS. DON’T MISSED IT. J
Chapter
10 : Preparing For Exams
a six-step procedure for how you can
develop a study plan for each of your scheduled exams:
Step
1: Determine the Content Coverage and Question Format of the Exam Exam
questions come from many different sources. Omitting any of the following sources
can result in incomplete information for exam preparation:
Course
Syllabus.
A review of the course syllabus will help you determine the exact content
covered on the exam.
Textbook
Chapters.
After checking the textbook chapters covered on an exam, make sure the
instructor did not announce any changes during the term. If the instructor
failed to emphasize certain chapters or paperback books, do not assume they
will not be covered on the exam. If you have questions, ask the instructor
whether he or she will emphasize certain material in the course. Finally,
assess how well you understand the material in each chapter and determine which
chapters need more extensive study.
Lecture
Notes.
Review your notes to determine whether you have all the lecture notes. When
notes are dated, it is easy to determine whether any notes are missing. If
notes are missing or incomplete, borrow them from another student. Finally, ask
your instructor or classmates questions about confusing aspects of your notes.
Previous
Exams and Quizzes. Some instructors hand out copies of past exams, place them
on reserve in the library, or allow students to review them in his or her
office.The purpose of reviewing past exams is to identify possible topics or
issues that are likely to appear on future exams.
Instructor’s
Handouts.
Do not limit your review to lecture notes and textbook reading. Many
instructors pass out summaries, outlines, lists of terms, sample problems,
maps, or charts that provide information for exams.
Information
From Other Students. Did you miss any lectures during the term? Is there
information you do not understand? Do not hesitate to ask students in your
class questions about the course content. In addition, consider whether you
could benefit from participating in group study sessions.
Information
From the Last Class Before the Exam. Review the content covered for the
exam before class so you will be better prepared to ask questions in class and
understand the instructor’s reply to other students’ questions.
Step
2: Organize and Separate the Content Into Parts Many students open their textbooks
and notes and proceed sequentially through the content. They focus on
dates, facts, formulae, or definitions found in textbooks or lecture notes.
Often, studying textbooks and studying lecture notes are viewed as separate
activities. The problem in this approach is that it is easy to lose sight of
the important ideas and issues in the course. An alternative approach is to use
thematic study, which involves organizing all relevant content, no matter where
it is found, around specific topics or themes. For example, a unit covering
different wars in history might be organized as follows: causes, major battles,
military leaders, and political and economic consequences (repeatable
categories in a matrix). All the factual information could be studied within
each of the repeatable categories. The advantage of thematic study is that it
forces students to determine which topics are most important and to integrate
the information from lectures and chapters in the textbook. Here are some
suggestions for using this approach (McWhorter, 1996): First, review the course
syllabus, introductory chapter, and lecture notes to determine whether the
instructor or textbook author identified themes or topics for the course. A
review of the table of contents in a textbook can be helpful in identifying
themes. Second, identify how the lectures relate to the material in the
textbook. Finally, try to integrate related material from the textbook and
lectures. As illustrated in the earlier example of the study of wars in history,
one useful way to determine major topics and themes is to use representations
for as much of the material as possible. Such representations can be helpful in
organizing the material and provide help in generating possible exam questions.
Step
3: Identify Specific Study Strategies
If you follow the procedures for
reading texts and taking lectures notes, respectively, you already have been
generating and answering questions related to the content in your courses.
Therefore, you do not have to start from scratch. Your mirror and summary
questions for each lecture will be useful for study. The questions in your
textbook or the self-generated questions from the headings are another useful
source. Finally, the representations developed after reading or note taking can
help you generate questions.
Step
4. Identify the Amount of Time Needed for Each Strategy
Different study strategies involve different
amounts of time. For example, making study cards to review definitions of terms
often requires less time than developing a representation of content in a
chapter or summarizing a short story.
Step
5: Allocate Time for Each Study Strategy
Think about the examinations on which
you used massed practice. How much of the content did you remember a few days
after the examination? For each exam you take, consider how much time each of
the study strategies you plan to use will take and then identify time in your
weekly schedule for each of the strategies. For example, in some cases you may
need 1 or 2 days to prepare for short quizzes or exams, whereas for more
detailed exams, you may need a week or more to prepare.
Step
6: Modify the Plan as Necessary
The fact that you developed a study plan does
not mean you always will follow it as planned. Students constantly make changes
in their initial plans, because of an underestimation or overestimation of time
needed to study different content. Many different factors influence the need
for change, such as: the unavailability of certain study material, the
inability to study because of interruptions and distractions, or the
realization that you need to review certain material that you do not understand
or cannot recall.
Chapter
11 : Taking Exams
Now that you have
learned how to prepare for exams, you are ready to improve your test-taking
strategies. Although you will learn a number of strategies to help you succeed
on exams, it is important to remember that these strategies are most effective
when you prepare properly for an exam.
WHAT STRATEGIES CAN I USE TO ANSWER
OBJECTIVE TEST QUESTIONS?
How
Should You Manage Your Time? To properly manage your time, adhere
to the following guidelines:
•Always
know how much time you have for the test.
•During
the test, check the clock once in a while so that you will know how much time
is left
•When
you begin the test:
a.Answer
questions you know first.
b.Do not spend too much time on hard
questions. Try not to get upset when you cannot answer a hard question.
c.Skip
hard questions and go back to them at the end of the test.
•When
you have answered all the questions, go back and check your work.
How
Should You Approach Each Question? Use the following guidelines to
approach each questions:
•If you do not know the answer to a
question, read the question again.
•Read each of the answers
•Mark the best answer only after you have
read all of the answers.
•If you cannot figure out the answer to
a question, guess.
•Be sure you mark one answer for each
question. Do not leave a question blank.
When
Should You Change an Answer? You should change an answer:
•When you make a mistake.
•When you think another answer is better. A few
minutes after you start taking a test, you sometimes get into the swing of the
test and see things in the questions that you did not notice at first. After
you finish the test and start going back over the questions, if a different
answer seems better, you should change your answer.
Strategies
for True–False Questions
The following are strategies for
answering true–false questions:
•Carefully read key words such as all,
most, some, always, little,
none, completely, better, and more. A
key word is a single word
that can determine the overall meaning
of the statement.
•Do not read too much into the
statement. Base your response
on the information provided in the
statement, not additional
knowledge you may know about the topic.
•Carefully read questions that have
two-part statements.
Remember that both parts of a statement
must be true for you
to correctly mark it “True.”
Strategies
for Fill-in-the-Blank Questions
The following are strategies for
responding to fill-in-the-blank test items:
•Read the questions carefully and look
for clue words (e.g., as,
an, the, and, these), especially just
before the blanks. Make your
response grammatically correct.
•Be sure the answer makes sense.
•Do not leave any blanks. If you cannot
think of the exact word,
write a synonym for the word or phrase.
You might receive
partial credit for your response.
Strategies
for Multiple-Choice Questions
The following are strategies for
answering multiple-choice test questions:
•Follow the directions to determine if
there is any special information for answering the questions, such as a choice
in the number of questions to be answered.
•Determine how much time you will allot
for answering the questions. Use the rule: Percentage of total points =
percentage of total time. This means that a question worth 20% of the exam
would be allotted 20% of your test time.
•Read the stem and all of the choices
before determining the best answer. Many students quickly select an answer
without reading all the alternatives. In most multiple-choice tests, you are
often asked to select the best answer. Therefore, you may conclude that there
is more than one correct answer, but that one choice is the best answer.
•Skip difficult questions at the beginning
of the exam.
•Review choices that are very similar.
Many students complain that multiple-choice questions are “tricky,” because two
items appear to be similar. Try the following strategy: Translate the similar
choices into your own words and then analyze how the choices differ.
•Use caution when “all of the above”
and “none of the above” are included as choices. Look carefully at each choice.
If you can eliminate one choice, you can eliminate “all of the above” as a
response. Likewise, if you are certain that one choice is correct, you can
eliminate “none of the above” as a response.
•Review difficult questions before you
hand in the exam.
•When in doubt, guess. If there is a
penalty for guessing, still guess if you can omit at least two of the
alternatives.
•Whenever possible, review exam
results.
THE END~.
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