Fucking studying.

Were any of you ever any good at this? I ask because I'm on study leave at the moment (hence the different email address from usual) - I've got three exams over Thursday and Friday this week, and I don't really know what I'm doing. I never really had to do this much at school.

I'm just making notes, summarising the main points of the exam topics likely to be covered. Is that a good way to go? Any suggestions?

After these exams are over I'm starting a part-time business studies degree in September, so any advice very gratefully received.

(OK, I'll stop buggering around on the internet now and get back to work!)

-- Anonymous, May 30, 2000

Answers

My mom used to say, "If you kept up with your classwork through the semester, then finals should be a simple review of what you already know." I always wanted to slap her! It's been a long time since I've been in school, but maybe you could find a friend to study with-- -if it's essay exams, you can ask each other likely questions.

-- Anonymous, May 30, 2000

I never learned anything until I was studying for the final, and then it would all sort of come together ... or not. If it's math-type stuff, just work through the different kinds of problems from the beginning of the course to the end, or as far as you can get before the exam.

If it's a soft course, social science or humanities, ask yourself what the professor's special hobbyhorses are. What questions is s/he likely to ask? Then write mock answers. Make sure you have written and more or less memorized several paragraphs' worth of extremely clever sentences that a) show you understand what the main point of the course was supposed to be; b) show you did the reading and maybe even extra reading; c) show you can use the terminology; d) show you know how the course relates to the real world (unless it's a philosophy course, where there are points off for awareness of the real world). Use these sentences during the test to decorate your otherwise boring essay answers and to get yourself through any moments of writer's block.

While we're on the subject of school, does anyone have any hints on paper writing? I used to do it by staying up all night. I can't do that anymore. I need to learn efficiency. Or speedreading. Or something.

-- Anonymous, May 30, 2000

Class notes. Study your class notes or borrow a set from anyone else. Because the only issues on which I was ever tested (at the university level, anyway)was the professors' favorite hobbyhorses. You don't have to know the underlying material -- just the pet issue or two that make teaching interesting to your prof.

If you only have two days to get ready for a test, first figure out what few things your professor actually cares about. Then, if she/he has written any books, skim them (like, read the table of contents and the first chapter) and learn the main point of each thoroughly. Finally, read the first paragraph of every chapter of the textbook. You're done! You can get back on the web.

I got through my last three semesters of college and last five of law school very handily on this formula and I NEVER had an unpleasant surprise. I didn't win any prizes for the work, but I was able to ride along with creditable marks and, most importantly, save enough time from study so that my education no longer interfered with my learning anything worth knowing.

Let us know how things work out!

-- Anonymous, May 30, 2000

Ooh, paper writing hints! Writing briefs (what I do now) is so much like term papers. I wish I knew then what I know now. Since I get paid for my writing, you know I have to take it a little bit more seriously than studying for exams.

But the best way to write a good paper is to find a recent article on the general topic, and mine the bibliography for citations. It can save you days of tedious reading in the treatises to find a good scholarly periodical. You can learn an awful lot of specific, useful information without wasting time on actually getting any depth or context that relates to the rest of the topic. What's more, one recent article will give you more inspeak and jargon phrases than fifteen book-length works.

This kind of writing can be a pitfall for me now, but it should be God's gift to the student writer.

-- Anonymous, May 30, 2000

Actually ... I've found that if I was in class and paying attention, I usually didn't have a problem with exams.

I took notes in class and chapter notes on texts and would refer back to these at exam times, so that I wouldn't have to spend hours and hours studying and cramming for exams.

So studying for me was just a matter of reviewing my outlines of each days' class notes, closing my eyes to remember a point here and there.

In a class where I felt uncertain, I would gather together all my notes and textbooks and make a "master outline" of the class, with all of the salient points that were covered in class, plus excerpts/outlines from the textbook when the prof. pointed to those places in the texts as being relevant and important.

I'd then go sit quietly for an hour or two, either in my room or out on the grass in spring and just read over the outline until I felt confident that I understood all of the most important points of the class.

For really tough ones, I'd invent exam questions and do a Q&A with myself ... just forcing myself to _think_ of what questions might be asked was enormously helpful, because it sort of put me in the professor's shoes.

More important to my mind, than stuffing your brain for exams, is to get plenty of rest. If you've been up all night slaving over a paper, or stuffing your head with facts, you'll be tired and blurry on the day of exams and you won't be able to remember anything that you studied anyway.

IMHO, exams are a kind of zen thing -- if you know the material and are well-rested and sort of ... in the groove, the answers will just flow ...

-- Anonymous, May 30, 2000

Thanks for all these tips. Logging on to read them has been an excellent distraction!

I also used to be fine if I'd been to the lectures, but this has unfortunately been via distance learning, so there haven't been any - only one workshop a month.

Distance learning sucks, by the way. I'm going to do my business degree three nights a week, so at least I will have gleaned some knowledge in time for exams.

The course materials we've been provided with are pretty thorough, but so badly written that I've been tempted to set fire to them.

The exams are a mixture of hard facts (employment law implications, statistics and finance) and soft stuff (culture issues, organisational management, etc).

I think I'll be OK. I've gone over pretty much everything except the finance and statistics now, so I can spend all day tomorrow drawing up pretty profit and loss statements and means, modes and medians.

If I don't post again next week, assume I've run away to join the circus.

By the way, this brief foray into the world employment law has redoubled my respect for all the lawyers of this world, so Tom and Beth, take a bow.

-- Anonymous, May 30, 2000

Just in case anybody is interested ... I think the exams went well. Two in particular I'm hopeful for fairly high marks, and the third (the finance and statistics one) I think I should have passed comfortably.

So one of these days when I'm CEO you can all count yourselves as having contributed to my success, and if you're ever in London I'll take you out for a drink.

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2000