Study Skills and Test Strategies PDF

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Bennett Library, 3020 – Surrey Fraser Library, 3695 – Vancouver Belzberg Library 1002  https://foxtrot.com/2017/10/15/studying-time/ STUDY SKILLS & TEST STRATEGIES By Michael Sjoerdsma September 2024 LEARNING OBJECTIVES Understand a brief overview of memory and what studying does to the brain Overview of study strategies Learn some test strategies  !!!WARNING!!! The material in this lecture is entirely useless, unless you do the following: ✓ Read the course materials ✓ Attend classes and labs ✓ Take notes in class ✓ Do the homework ✓ Study for the tests No matter how good you are at applying the following strategies, a failure to complete the course work pretty much guarantees failure in a test of the course work. MEMORY & BRAIN RESEARCH To remember information: Attend to the task Visualize the patterns Attention Repeat the information* (Amygdala) David Sousa. 2006. How the Brain Learns (3rd ed.). Corwin Press: Thousand Oaks, CA. Short-Term Working Memory Long Term Memory (Prefrontal Cortex) Memory (Hippocampus) (Parietal Cortex) (Many Places) *Recent research indicates that some time should elapse between IMAGING REPETITION repetitions (the material should REHEARSAL Seeing be partly forgotten) because (Visual Cortex) immediate repetition allows our attention to lapse. BRAIN-BASED MEMORY STRATEGIES (1) 1. Ensure you are able to devote your undivided attention to the material being studied. Shut out all distractions. Less than 5% of people can effectively study when it is noisy (TV, party, etc.). More than 95% need silence (or quiet music). 2. Try to visualize the material. Create an imaginary room in your mind where you can place objects or ideas (the idea of the “memory palace” goes back to some old Greek guys). To remember the word hippocampus, imagine a hippo-potamus sitting in the reflecting pond at the SFU campus. You would commit that image to memory if you saw such a thing. (The hippocampus handles short-term memory.) NB. Hippocampus is derived from the Greek for seahorse. BRAIN-BASED MEMORY STRATEGIES (2) 3. Or make a nonsense sentence out of the letters of a word like Amygdala: “AMY Goes Driving Attentively Late in the Afternoon. (The Amygdala is responsible for attention.) 4. How to Remember the Moh’s Hardness scale for minerals: “The Geologist Can Find An Ordinary Quartz Tourists Call Diamond” = Talc/Gypsum/Calcite/Flourite/Apatite/Orthoclase/Quartz/Topaz/Corundum/Diamond 5. Repetition is critical as that allows us to transfer information from working memory to long-term memory. The more repetition that takes place, the more synaptic connections are made between neurons. 6. Time should elapse between study sessions. Study some material one evening and return to it a couple of hours or days later. If you come back to the material too soon, your brain will say “Oh, I know that” and stop paying attention. BRAIN-BASED MEMORY STRATEGIES (3) 7. Spend 10 minutes/course in the evening after classes reviewing the course notes from that day’s lectures. A few minutes here can save many hours later in the semester. 8. One strategy for studying involves taking your notes and compiling them weekly. When compiling them, read them carefully, visualize the material, say it aloud, and write it down. The interplay between reading, writing, hearing, saying, and visualizing is a powerful form of repetition. 9. At week 7 and at week 13 in the semester, compile the notes again using the same method. Then bring them all together while studying for the final. The multiple repetitions maximizes your memory of the material. READ THE COURSE MATERIALS Most professors base many of their test questions on the course materials (less chance of a dispute). The textbook is an obvious choice for questions (questions prepared by the book publishers). Minor for ENSC 105W. Course notes/slides are also a good source of questions. Major for ENSC 105W! But they may also test things said in class by themselves or guest speakers or things posted or linked to online. Moderate for ENSC 105W. Read the course materials throughout the semester. Trying to cram before the exam is a very ineffective method as the material never makes it beyond short-term memory. CLASSES AND LABS The classroom is usually the first place where you hear the information. The repetition your brain needs builds on that. That’s also why chatting with the people next to you and watching movies during class is a really bad idea. (Think you can multi-task? Good luck with that! Less than 1% of people can actually multi-task. Odds are you are task- switching.) Professors give hints about what material will be on the exam. Write those things down. Look for their excitement. Professors may also provide short-cuts for solving problems. If you do not understand the material, ask questions. Many professors give out important info in the first and last 5 minutes of class, which is a very good reason to arrive on time and not pack up early.  TAKE NOTES IN CLASS Notes are not quite as important as they used to be, largely because most professors provide you with class notes and slides on websites. But you still need to keep track of what is emphasized and, of course, those hints about what will be on the exam. And the act of writing notes is, in itself, a good way to prepare the mind to remember things. Typing, by the way, is less effective than writing notes by hand. Too automatic. If you do take notes, ensure they are well-organized and that you use a system to highlight critical information. See the Cornell Notes (image on right) If you don’t take notes, you must carefully read and annotate the PowerPoint slides, textbook, and other materials. COMPLETE THE HOMEWORK Doing the problem sets is particularly important when you are working on Math, Physics, Engineering, and Computing courses. o Copying from others will result in low marks in midterms and exams Work through all the problem sets as these sorts of problems invariably appear in midterms and finals. If you don’t understand some of the problems or you can’t figure out how to solve them, seek help from peers, TAs, and the Instructor. Even in courses such as ENSC 100W/105W, you should do further research and review the course materials. These activities may help you to define areas that interest you or employers, to remember material for quizzes, and to complete smaller parts of large assignments. STUDY FOR THE TESTS Start studying early enough that you have sufficient time to go through all the required material. Collect all the course notes and other materials you need. Consider how the exam will be weighted For each week covered by the quiz, test, or exam, spend an hour or two studying (7-14 hours for the 105W quiz, assuming you have attended classes and read the material). Ensure you get adequate sleep (i.e., 8 hours) the night before an exam. Recent studies indicate lack of sleep significantly impairs cognitive function and memory. Stop studying at least an hour before the exam. Last minute studying is more likely to confuse than help.  EXAM ANXIETY Exam anxiety is a debilitating level of worry over exams. At its most extreme, it can be paralyzing. If you suffer from an excessive amount of anxiety during tests, you should consult SFU’s Counseling Service. It’s free. Being a little nervous is OK. Studies have shown that a moderate amount of anxiety in test situations leads to the best outcomes. No anxiety or excessive anxiety leads to lower grades. GENERAL EXAM PREPARATION Bring extra pens and pencils to the exam room. Ensure you have extra batteries for your calculator (if one is permitted). Bring a watch. If it is an open-book exam, bring your books and notes (you might want to “tab” them for quick reference ahead of time!). Ensure you study thoroughly for open-book exams as they are always more difficult than closed-book exams. Scan the exam from beginning to end before you answer any questions. Carefully read the information on the first page as it usually provides important information about what aids are permitted, what constitutes academic dishonesty, and how to complete the exam.  MULTIPLE CHOICE EXAMS Read the exam instructions very carefully to determine if each question has one or more correct answers and to determine if guessing is appropriate (depends upon whether or not wrong answers are deducted from right answers). If you go blank on a question, move on to another one. Often a brief break will allow the answer to earlier questions to percolate up from your subconscious. Answer the questions you are certain of first. In other words, collect the free marks before you move on to more difficult questions. If you are really unsure of an answer, usually your first instinct is correct. Change your answer! There is a better chance of improving your score on the second guess than first instinct. Kruger, J., Wirtz, D., & Miller, D. T. (2005). Counterfactual thinking and the first instinct fallacy. Journal of personality and social psychology, 88(5), 725–735. Https://doi.Org/10.1037/0022-3514.88.5.725 GUESSING IN MULTIPLE CHOICE EXAMS Most faculty are well aware of how to structure their exams in such a way that guessing won’t assist you. Still, many students will try the following strategies: Answers that use absolute words like always or never are more likely incorrect than answers that use words like usually or some. Look for logical contradictions or things that logically necessarily follow. Watch for patterns in how the answers are laid out on the answer sheet. Look for grammatical clues. If a sentence completion item ends with the article an, then the correct answer likely begins with a vowel. If the question is plural, the answer will likely have two or more items in it. The longest answer is often correct because instructors tend to add qualifiers to correct answers. Look for verbal associations. An answer that repeats key words that are in the question is more likely to be correct. Use hints from other questions in the test to figure out the correct answer. Please Note: The content-free quiz that follows will not help you pass any of the quizzes in ENSC 100W or ENSC 105W. But enjoy the quiz in any case. ­ The authorship of the quiz is obscure, being attributed to multiple authors. The earliest date mentioned on the web is 1982. It is widely used to help students learn to take exams. ­ Whomever the author is, we thank him/her for freely sharing his/her creativity and sense of humour. We have enjoyed it. CONTENT FREE QUIZ 1 The usual function of grunge prowkers is to remove a) grunges. b) snarts. c) trigs. d) grods. a) repeated word CONTENT FREE QUIZ 2 Antigrottification occurs on a) spring mornings. b) summer evenings, provided there is no rain after dusk. c) autumn afternoons. d) winter nights. b) longer, qualified answer CONTENT FREE QUIZ 3 Lurkies suffer from trangitis because a) their pads are always underdeveloped. b) all their brizes are horizontal. c) their curnpieces are usually imperfect. d) none of their dringoes can ever adapt. c) all but c use absolute terms CONTENT FREE QUIZ 4 Non-responsive frattling is usually found in an a) gringle. b) janket. c) kloppie. d) uckerpod. d) only d is grammatically correct (articles) CONTENT FREE QUIZ 5 Which are exceptions to the law of lompicality? a) the miltrip and the nattercup b) the bifid pantrip c) the common queeter d) the flanged ozzer a) only a is a grammatically correct answer (plurals) CONTENT FREE QUIZ 6 Which must be present for parbling to take place? a) phlot and runge b) runge c) stuke and runge d) runge and trake b) Logic: runge is present in all answers so only it must be present CONTENT FREE QUIZ 7 One common disorder of an overspragged uckerpod is a) copious vezzling. b) intermittent weggerment. c) non-responsive frattling. d) uneven yerkation. c) question 4 provided the answer CONTENT FREE QUIZ 8 Which of the following is most likely right? a) W b) T c) F d) ? d) the test follows a pattern: abcd, abc_ CONCLUSION NB. Mike and I design our quizzes carefully to ensure none of the preceding strategies for guessing will work. Study folks! Reflections: What is the term for the part of your brain that is responsible for short-term memory?