Sunday, September 16, 2007

Study Sessions and Exams

I thought it was extremely weird when I first found out that exams were not done in class. I really didn’t understand this concept. The other day I had my first exam, and I’m not going to lie I was a bit nervous. It sounded so serious, my teacher gave us strict instructions about meeting in Elliot Hall. She even sent us all emails about what section we would be in and that we had to be fifteen to twenty minutes early. I studied like crazy, the term exam instead of test made it sound so much more intimidating.

When six thirty rolled around on Tuesday, I tried in every way to prepare myself. I had my number two pencils, my student ID, and I set my phone on silent. I decided to go to campus early to study a bit before going to the exam that way I knew I wouldn’t be late getting there because I would already be nearby. This turned out to be successful, and I even got some necessary study time in at the library. So I would recommend this idea because it forces you to study and it’s always a good thing to study right before an exam so everything is fresh in your mind.

Another thing I would recommend is to go to the study sessions, even if you think you already know everything. It was actually a mistake that I went to my math study session on Monday morning. It was the day before the exam and the only reason I quickly found out it was optional was because of the lack of students in my class that morning. I forgot that it wasn’t mandatory and I am glad I did because I cannot say I would have WANTED to get up at 9 am on Monday to go to a what is posted as an optional class.

I thought I knew everything pretty well; I took notes, did all the homework and did well on the quizzes we took daily. However, when I went to the study session, students asked questions that I didn’t even think of that ended up helping me on the exam. Most of the problems we went over were very similar to the questions on the exam also. All in all I ended up getting only one problem wrong, which I didn’t think was too bad. I am confident in saying that I will continue to go to any study session offered even though it is optional. After all, it will only be about four times a semester; I think I can make the sacrifice of not sleeping in for a better grade.

1 comment:

KJ said...

I have my first exam today and I'm also a little bit nervous. I went to a study session yesterday and I have mixed feelings about how much it helped me. Some of the questions brought up seemed like they might be useful, but we didn't cover much material in the first hour because there were so many people and because of the time it took to work out each problem. It seemed like a waste of time and I felt like I could be accomplishing more on my own, so I ended up only staying for half the time. Hopefully study sessions in the future will be more helpful...