Blog: How to Study for Your Exam

1. Study the Provided Material   (subtitle: Learn from the Teachers)
1. Study (read + comprehend) the material provided. Preferred method is often videos, but the textbook and powerpoint slides should not be overlooked.
2. Organize your study into the two key areas of responsibility: concept and memory.
3. Pay special attention to problems 'worked-out' by the experts. Your textbook and videos (course and/or worldwide web search) will provide a near endless set of illustrated problems.


2. Practice Problems (subtitle: Ride the Bike with Training Wheels)
1. Work practice problems yourself. Worked out examples give the answer, but work them without looking at the answer first.
2. Many practice questions are provided in the textbook with only the answer provided. Another source of practice are the quizzes and/or homework assignments. Work problems!
3. After your best effort you can't determine the correct answer, ask someone. A tutor, an instructor, TutorMe, and the AC Tutoring Center, to name four resources.


3. Module Quiz (subtitle: Take the Training Wheels Off)
1. The Module Quiz is essentially a practice exam. Take this without any help, and answer them at a pace which 'feels' like an exam. No google; no study partner — just you.
2. In short, you want to take the Module Quiz under "exam conditions," which will give you an indication of how well you are prepared for the actual exam.
3. Any areas for which you do poorly, return to Step ② for that area. Rinse and repeat until you know it.
4. Take the Module Quiz early enough such that you have time to learn/review any materials for which you did poorly.


4. Exam (subtitle: Ride Like the Wind)
1. After you have demonstrated (not mere said, but actually demonstrated) to yourself you know the material, you are ready to take the exam.
2. At this point, you have watched others work problems, worked problems with the help of other, and worked exam-level questions by yourself. Nothing left to do but take the exam


5. Followup: Self Assessment
1. After the exam, if your results are well below what you expected, perform a self-analysis, and adjust your study strategy to fit your personality.
   ¿I studied the wrong types of questions?
   ¿Didn't know the material as well as I thought?
   ¿I started studying too late, and didn't have time to thoroughly practice/learn the material?
   ¿After watching the videos and observing the textbook examples, the experts made it look so easy, I didn't feel I really needed to spend time practicing?
   ¿I really know the stuff, I just choked under the pressure of the exam?
   (Rarely is this really the case... I have interviewed many students making that claim, and they still couldn't work the problems under non-exam conditions.)