Jerry Dallal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Students report learning as much if not more from preparing what
> they call "cheat sheets" (I refer to them as "reference notes") than
> from any other class activity. I had one PhD student tell me last
> year that while she was analyzing her data, her sheets were her most
> frequently used statistics reference.
I found as a student that when studying for an exam, preparing a
one-sheet summary of a subject (which usually requires several
stages of editing down and choosing what's important) was *the*
most important part of exam preparation.
I only started doing it after I had a subject that allowed such a
sheet to be taken in.
After that first exam with one, I don't think I've ever actually
/needed/ the sheet in an exam (though I occasionally have looked
at it for reassurance); it's the creation of the sheet that's the
essential step. So I soon learned to do it for every exam - it
didn't really matter much if I had it there with me.
When students occasionally ask me for exam preparation advice
(it's surprisingly rare), it's one of the things I strongly
encourage them to do for all their subjects for which such
preparation could possibly be useful.
As a student I *always* preferred closed book exams. If I know the
material I don't need the book, and if I don't know the material,
the book isn't going to help in the exam enough anyway. For open
book exams I soon learned not to open the books if at all possible.
(If it became necessary, leaving all questions requiring reference
to the books until the end was a good strategy.)
I had one student a few years back come to me and say "I've failed
a lot of subjects," (a fact I was already aware of) and then said
"could you give me advice on how to do well on exams?". So I spent
a full 25 minutes outlining precisely the techniques that I followed
for every single subject since I discovered how to do them (and after
which I had almost a perfect academic record, though it had previously
been quite undistinguished). The techniques that let me get away with
very little extra work over what I'd done before, but made effective
use of time both during the subject and especially during the exam.
That took me in the space of a year or so (the year I figured out most
of the stuff I was telling her) from being a very ordinary student to
winning prizes and getting on the honours list. My explanation of how
to avoid exam nerves. All of it.
[Some of it was counter-intuitive to her, of course, like me telling
her to study *less* during the exam period, and get plenty of rest.]
Her response after hearing my gems of very-hard-earned wisdom?
"Oh, I couldn't possibly do /that/!"
I was flabbergasted to say the least. The student had been doing
stuff that plainly did not work for her, and yet was unwilling to
try doing something different, even though that's what she'd
specifically asked for, and even though it came from someone who
(as her lecturer) was obviously quite successful academically.
Guess what? She failed my subject as well. ISTR she got 7%
on the final exam. /Both/ times she got to do it.
Glen
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