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Dr. J's Incomplete Compendium
of Good Information & Slick Strategies
for College Success
g. m. johnson, phd
Work, Grants and Financial Aid
Money, it is said, does not buy happiness. On the other hand, poverty can be very distracting and grades are usually best when you can focus your best on your studies.
Be sure you visit your school's financial aid office and ask about all the available aid possibilities there are.
- You may be eligible for a grant (money you do not need to pay back as long as you maintain a minimum number of classes and a minimum grade average). You may also be eligible for loans (money you have to start paying back after you stop going to college, usually at low interest rates). There are sometimes some types of loans that are partially forgiven if you go into specified jobs where there is high need.
Ask about work study possibilities.
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Work study is a combination of work and study. It pays, sometimes it comes with tuition cuts and it has you working at the college.
Check into applying for other grants.
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Besides the more common grants that the financial aid office may tell you about, there may be other grants available. Many schools have an office called the Grants Office where the long lists of available small scholarships and small grants are kept track of. If your school doesn't have a Grants Office, visit the nearest large university. They'll have one. If they don't, the school's Financial Aid Office should have some idea of where you can find grants information.
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of different small grants (a few hundred dollars to a few thousand) that are offered by various groups across the country. The files can take up a lot of space and usually require one or two people to keep them updated, so usually there is a specified office. (For example, there might be a small grant from a Norwegian service organization available to ex-housewives of Norwegian heritage, or a small grant from a law enforcement organization for individuals going into law enforcement, or perhaps a small grant for someone going into social work from a service organization of social workers.)
Not many people apply for these grants. The grants are often small and wading through all the possibilities can take some time, but the application isn't usually too tedious, and if you happen to be in just the right category of life situation or study, there isn't much competition.
Strategizing Your Mental Health
Number one: have fun. Fun is seriously important to success in school.
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A fun blend of classes, work and social life is very important to ongoing success in college. The more fun you have being a student, the more you like school, and the more you'll work at it. Fun needs to be fun long term, overall. A few intense jollies that result in major negative consequences later are not what is meant by "fun" in this context.
School and learning need to be fun because they never really end. When you have choices, remember to consider the importance of sustaining a sense of fun throughout your scholastic experience. No matter what field of study you go into, or what career, there will be benefits in and expectations of continuing education until you retire.
Drop a class or two here and there and take an extra year or semester to finish, rather than sticking
to a schedule for finishing college that might finish you emotionally or scholastically.
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Face facts. What you can't do, you can't do. If it's worth going to college, it's worth finishing without burning yourself out and/or turning yourself into a mental mush.
Beware of trying to stay in college if you really don't want to be there.
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Beware of feeling like a failure if the failure is just due to not being ready, not being motivated, or feeling too pushed to be in school. Some students go to college simply because they feel caught up in a flow of events that they greatly resent but feel they can't get out of. Generally speaking, if you really don't want to be in college, you probably won't do your best. Worse yet, you might find yourself failing.
Beware of feeling like a failure if the failure is just due to not having the right strategies or skills.
If you have inadequate skills you might do poorly or fail completely at one or more of your classes. Be sure you find out why you are failing before you label yourself a failure or un-fixably inadequate. Some skills are highly modifiable. Some are not. Many people have uneven levels of skills -- they're better at some things than at others and they may have to work ten times as hard as everyone else to get the grade they want in a particular class. Fears of failure or fears about adequacy or ability are normal.
If you aren't doing as well as you think you should be, seek help from teachers or other professionals to find out why.
Strategizing Your Class Schedule (If Your Program Allows)
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The following section will not be helpful to students taking mandatory, pre-set curricula (where the school decides for all students in a particular field of study which classes they will take, during which semester and at what class times). This is often the case in professional programs (like nursing, as opposed to liberal arts programs where you don't have to "declare" a major until your sophomore or junior year). Some programs of study offer choices in what classes you take and when. Some do not. You may need to ask some careful questions to determine if you have any flexibility in when you take required and other classes. Even if your school pre-registers students and sets individual class schedules by computer, there may be a great deal of maneuvering room left to you.
Use the add-drop period to add and drop classes to your advantage.
The add-drop period is a period of time at the first part of a semester or quarter when students can add classes or drop classes without any financial consequence (some schools may have a different name for this period of time). It is during this period that the school allows students to fine-tune their schedules or make any changes that need to be made because of changes in their situations. It is always easy to drop a class, harder to add.
Sign up for one more class than you intend to take in a semester.
Register for one or two more classes than you'll want to follow through with. Then when you go to classes the first week, you'll be given the details of the teachers' expectations
for the courses (how many tests you'll have to take, how many papers you have to write, how much reading you'll have, how personable and likely to be a good teacher the teacher seems). You can't usually tell what a course will require until you sit down in it the first day and hear the teacher tell you the details. Then, when you have all the details, drop the most problematic one. (Don't tell your school this is what you're up to. Your gain is their extra paperwork.)
Research your instructors. Ask anyone you can whenever you get a chance.
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Get all the information you can from other students about their experiences with the teachers
you might have (currently or later).
Find out from former students
what to expect from the instructors you have. Get copies of
papers written for his class to see what type of effort gets what
grade.
Find out from former students what teachers to avoid if at all possible: which ones are boring, unpredictable, overly demanding of their students, etc. Also find out which seem to
actually foster the most learning (sometimes an overly demanding
or boring teacher can actually teach a great deal). Balance
the potential for benefit with an estimate about how demanding
or difficult a teacher might be.
Strategize your first semester so you start light, scholastically
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Your first semester at a new school will be the toughest semester in many ways. You need to work out and test new study schedules, new study routines, and new study strategies. You need to find your way around campus. You may also be getting used to a new living arrangement or a new roommate. You may be in a new city. Lots of new things to deal with. Don't let anyone tell you that you should start by getting all the tough classes out of the way the first semester
or quarter.
Strategize each semester thereafter so you have a "balanced diet"
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It isn't true that you should get all the tough classes out of the way first.
Breaking your back and your spirit with a monster load is the road to burnout. Also, don't leave all the tough classes till the last semester. Don't let anyone tell you that you should get the tough classes out of the way first.
Schedule yourself for optimum time use: try not to have chunks of unusable on-campus time in your schedule
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Try to avoid a schedule with big spaces of unusable time between classes. If you can't ask for a particular schedule at your registration, use add-drop to try to add classes or drop classes to pack your schedule together so you waste as little time on campus as possible. Study time at the library is great to have (if you're a library type), and so is some social time for friends. But don't leave yourself chunks of time that are useless if you can help it.
Some General Helpful Tips for Student Success
Get to know how a library works -- especially the one at your school.
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Ask the librarian to give you a brief tour of the library and its facilities.
Ask college students or former college students for examples of papers they have written to see what college instructors may generally expect.-
High school does not usually prepare you for what is expected in the way of college research papers. If you're in a liberal arts program, you'll be taking an English class focused on learning how to write papers during your first year. You may need to know what is expected, though, for your other classes until you get through that English class or if you aren't in a program that requires a paper-writing course.
You will need access to a computer with text editing capabilities.
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You will be expected to turn in papers type-written, double-spaced, and very neat in appearance.
Check your school's computer center. Your school will probably have a room or a building or two full of computers for students to share.
Make a copy! Before you hand in any work always make a copy and keep it safe.-
It's your responsibility to get your assignment to your instructor. Instructors assume that you
are responsible to hand in assignments that will not be misplaced or destroyed in their handling. You will be expected to furnish another copy if your instructor loses the one you turn in.
Always do your own work.
- College can seem fun and games at times. Some people may not realize that it is not considered "cute" or "impish" to sometimes do other people's
work for them, or to offer another's work as one's own. It is usually considered permissible to have a typist.
Strategies for Book Buying, Underlining/Highlighting
- Highlighting and underlining are the practices of marking your text book to show sections that are important for later review. Look at some used books at the college book store to see some of the strategies others have used in highlighting (with a colored marker) and underlining (with pen or pencil).
Books required by instructors are available at the college book store. You
can usually buy the books you need either new or used. Used books are cheaper but they are usually marked in by their previous owner. You might be able to find a used book without any marks in it.
Do not buy previously underlined/highlighted books: You don't know how successful that student was in marking the right material for later review. It can distract you or mislead you.
Strategies for the Classroom
Sit in the front of the classroom.
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Fewer distractions, more direct communication with the instructor. The more people in front of you,
the more distractions when pencils fall and bodies adjust their seating position. The farther you are from the board, the more you might miss. Your interactions with the instructor will be better.
Ask questions. It's your education.
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Stupid questions are only stupid when you have them and don't ask them. If you have a question in class, it isn't stupid. Even if someone else in class may already understand, if you don't your grade is on the line. You may find that there
are other students that understand faster and don't want to have the class slowed down by "dumber brains." You may also find there are other students that think understanding is far
less important than getting quickly through the material in hopes that the teacher will let class out early. Generally speaking, it's a good idea to place your success above other people's comfort.
If you feel you have a question that others might think is stupid, tough.
Use a tape cassette recorder to record lectures-
Re-listening to a lecture while
driving home, doing the dishes, shoveling snow or gardening can
give you an extra edge on tests. Having a listenably good recording
of a lecture is a nice luxury. You don't have to listen to it
but it can be wonderfully helpful if you decide to. Be sure your
recorder and your tapes make good quality voice recordings. Simply
set it up near the instructor if you can't run it from where you
are sitting. Your instructor will tell you if he/she is uncomfortable
with taping. Most aren't.
Note taking! The skill that makes champions.
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Note taking is the ability to jot down brief notations that reflect the bare essentials of what
your instructor says in class, what is presented in a film, or
what you are reading in your text book. Work on refining this
skill by checking your notes after class or reading to see if
they appear to remind you of the important details of all that
was said. The best measure of whether your note taking is competent
is your grade on tests: of the items on the test that were primarily
covered in lecture did you have the right information down in
your notes.
Ask to see fellow students' notes
to see what their notes look like. You can also ask instructors
to give you some ideas on note taking, either after class or during
class. Have one or more fellow students critique your notes.
Note taking ability is critically important to success in
college.
Peer support strategies: get to know someone in each class
- Pick out one or two people in each class that seem like they are level-headed and serious.
Invite them to exchange phone numbers with you so you can share notes, handouts, or recordings of lectures if one of you misses a class. You can also use these contacts to clarify information
about assignments or tests that you aren't quite sure of.
Do not skip class and rely on someone else's notes or lecture recordings unless you absolutely have
to.
Notes and recordings are NOT as good as being there (except in some rare classes where the
classroom information is worthless).
Teacher (instructor/professor) Strategies
Be certain you know what the instructor
expects
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Be alert to what your instructor expects on papers and for tests. Most will be clear about expectations, but they might not repeat them unless asked. Ask. Don't assume one teacher will have the expectations you are used to with another.
If you're not getting the grade you
want, ask your instructor to help you figure out why. Instructors have office hours
so they can be available to sit down and go over concerns, tests
and study strategies to help you figure out how to do your best
in class. (Note: some instructors are better at being instructors
than others, so if you get help that doesn't seem like help, don't
assume it's a hopeless problem -- but you might need to go elsewhere
-- like Student Assistance -- to get help.)
If you're not getting the grade you want, ask your instructor if there is anything you can do for
extra credit. It never hurts to ask if there is a paper, special assignment or extra test you can take to bolster a weak grade. More work, yes.
An apple for the teacher: stay awake
and apologize if you fall asleep
Teachers work best when it looks as if their students are awake and interested. Respectful attitude
is also nice. If you act bored or sleepy, the teacher will usually take it personally. If you yawn a lot through class or fall asleep, go up after class and give a reasonable excuse for your sleepiness
that gives another explanation than disinterest. A teacher that feels you don't care about what he/she has to say is a teacher that won't care much about your situation. You never know when you might need some sympathetic understanding.
Grade Strategies
What grades do you need; what grades do you want; what will you settle for?
Will you need a minimum grade point average for job or graduate school?
- If you plan to go to graduate school -- or if you might want to or need to go
to graduate school -- find out what grades will be expected. Some graduate programs require straight "A's" in their major and a strong "B" average in other classes. Other programs may require less stringent grade averages. Some types of jobs may be known to require high grade average. You need
to know what grades you need in order to strategize your time and efforts.
If you need to get a certain grade point average, then be certain you monitor your commitments and
your effort expenditures.
Especially with regard to how quickly you finish college: If you need a minimum GPA and that means taking fewer classes so you can work more on each, then
that's what it means. Kick the wall, cry, gripe a little, but accept the facts. An inadequate GPA accomplished in 4 or 5 years is a worthless GPA. If it takes you 6 or 7 years to complete
college with the GPA you need, and with mind and body intact, then that's what it takes.
If you DON'T need to get a high grade point average -- or a high grade in a particular class -- weigh your mental health, physical health and life enjoyment levels against late nights and missed social opportunities. Yes. Of course it's nice to get those high grades. But if a "B" is as good as an "A" and a divorce or being fired does not seem as good as a good marriage or a nice income, think about priorities.
Pass-Fail Options (Pass or Fail instead of A, B, C, D, or F)
- Some schools offer some classes that can be taken for either a grade or Pass-Fail. You can chose to take a class for a grade of "P" (pass) or "F" (fail) rather than a "letter" grade (ABCDF). If you choose this option, you either pass or you fail -- you get no other grade. Usually, if you are otherwise worthy of at least a "C" you get a "Pass" (you get credit for the class toward your graduation) and if you earned less than a C, you fail (no credit). At some schools, the "Pass" or "Fail" grade does not get figured
into your grade point average. (That way, three three-credit "A"'s and one three credit "Pass" can add
up to twelve credits and 4.0 GPA.) At some schools, the "Pass" or "Fail" might be figured into your GPA somehow. You should check with your teacher or registrar to be certain about
the rules.
As a general rule of thumb, you should avoid taking classes Pass-Fail in your major. It
doesn't look good to graduate programs and employers.
Studying Strategies & Realities
Places to Study-
Pick one, two or three study areas,
get used to them, and then stick to them.
You can't just study
anywhere.
Don't waste valuable time trying
to study in many different places. The brain gets used to places
and then "tunes out" regular sounds, physical sensations,
or visual stimulation (that's why you aren't always thinking about
your toes in your shoes or why fans don't bother people more).
It takes at least a few and usually several hours of studying
in a place for the brain to tune out the regular noises, physical
sensations, and visual distractions. Distractions interfere with
focus of attention, interfere with memorization and understanding,
and waste time.
The best study places have a fairly constant level of sound and activity.
Noises, physical sensations and visual stimulation need to be constant for your brain to develop
the ability to ignore them. Do not try to study in places where
there will be random sounds and interruptions. The sounds and
visual stimulation of a crowded, loud school lunchroom are easier
to become used to--for your brain to tune out--than a room or
area where there are sounds or movement of people only once every
several minutes. A place with mild random noises can sometimes
be made into a place with constant noises by the adding a masking
sound, like music (a few albums with music that has a fairly constant
level of intensity and sound -- instru-mental is best because
your brain may not tune out words as easy as sounds).
Expanding Reading Concentration,Endurance, Retention
- Your ability to concentrate on reading
for long periods of time can be enhanced.
Many people, unless they are
avid readers, have trouble concentrating on reading dry reading
material. After a few minutes their attention wanders, even though
their eyes keep going from one word to the other. A common
occurrence for many people in college is repeatedly finding themselves
realizing they haven't been really processing the words their
eyes have been looking over for a long, but indeterminate, amount
of time. They repeatedly find themselves having to go back-tracking
over the pages to find out when their mind left for its daydream.
You can build your tolerance
for reading just like you build a muscle:
First, time yourself. How much time can you sit and concentrate on your reading before your mind
wanders off into the void?
Start giving yourself little
breaks just before you'd expect your concentration to wander.
The break should be half a minute, a minute, perhaps two, once
in a while five. Then get back to your reading. Ten five minute reading spurts with a minute in between each works out to about 50 minutes of reading in an hour. It may seem like a silly indulgence to give yourself so many breaks, but if your brain is doing it to you anyway, you might as well structure the experience.
After you've been at one "speed" for a while, try lengthening your reading time between breaks.
Lengthen your time just a little. If it works, lengthen the time a little more. If you find yourself realizing you've wandered off again, you lengthened your time too much.
You can try expanding your time between breaks every few hours of reading. Little by little,
your endurance for reading will expand. (Note: You can expect that when things are on your mind, your reading concentration endurance will be less. When things are easy-going, your reading concentration will be better and last longer.)
Study Times, Memory and Memory Interference
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Information studied takes some time to be turned into permanent memory.
When you go over something in your mind, the brain stores the information in permanent memory,
but this takes a little time. The process, called "encoding," works pretty well but the process of encoding can be interfered with.
Allow yourself some break time between study subjects -- fifteen minutes or so at least, more time if you can manage it -- mindless time.
Old information still in the process of encoding can interfere with the encoding of new information. When the brain tries to encode new study information, previously studied information, if it is still in the process of encoding, can interfere with the encoding of the new information.
New information can interfere with the encoding of previous information. When the brain tries
to encode new study information, the encoding of the new information can interfere with the encoding of previously studied information if that encoding process is still underway and incomplete.
For optimum encoding, go to bed and sleep following studying the subject material that is most important. The most mindless thing you can
do after studying -- the least likely activity to interfere with
encoding -- is sleep.
Memorizing Detailed Info: Underlining, Outlining, Rehearsing
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Memory is most efficiently organized and accessed on the basis of important meanings and associations.
The meaning of information is very important to memory. It is very hard to recall information that was filed without developing and thinking about any associations or meanings. Facts and details are usually placed into memory on the basis of both their meaning and other information facts associated. To access information in memory (to "remember"), we try to remember on the basis of the meanings and the associated facts. So to call up some particular information, we search our "memory banks" by saying to ourselves, "lets see, it had to do with such and such," "its something needed
for such and such to happen", "the teacher was talking about such and such when he told us this," etc. So, to make sure information gets stored in a way that is easily accessed, be sure to think about its meanings and about how it fits into the larger picture of your study topic.
Rehearsal is VERY helpful for "encoding" (memorizing) material.
Rehearsal (to repeat, practice, go over and over) is a proven help for memorizing material. Encoding
seems to be stronger with repeated processing of the material to be placed into memory. Rehearsal using different thought processes and activities (reading the material, speaking the material, hearing
the material, writing the material) is even better. Thus there is a lot of rehearsal going on when you read something and then write it down--you are visually taking the information in as you read, going over it mentally to transform it into writing in your mind, writing it and reading as you do.
Underlining and outlining combines all the best aspects of establishing meaningfulness of information
and rehearsal.
Underlining and outlining (breaking down info and writing down the important aspects) as you read
is VERY helpful for encoding material. These processes provide establishing the relative meaningfulness of information with rehearsal, and provides for many tests of your understanding along the way.
When you read your study material, underline important parts of the reading. The process of underlining makes you mentally decide what part of the material is most important--it forces you to think in terms of its meaningfulness.
When you have completed the reading, go back and outline what you have read--either after a break or
on another occasion. Outlining is the process of hierarchically ordering information on the basis of its meaning and the relative importance of its meaning. (When you outline you put the key information down first and the details with lesser importance come later on.) You need only enough information in an outline to remind you of the mass of the information.
When outlining your underlinings, you will find the holes in the underlining of the material whenever
you don't quite remember how to make full sense of the underlined material. Underlining and then outlining involves one reading, then another reading (of the underlined material), a making sense
of the information and reminding of what it meant as you underline, and another process--writing the information down in the outline form--which both involves the translating into your own words
and then reading them as you write them. That's a bunch of rehearsal.
Strategies for Taking Tests
A STUDY TECHNIQUE FOR VERY TASTY TEST RESULTS: -
1) underline or highlight while reading
2) then outline
3) then underline your outline
4) then outline the underlining of your outline...
5) then go to the test, relax and take the test.
The night before a test coming up, go to your outline and read it over and see if there are parts
you do not remember the meaning of. Also read any chapter summaries. This will be a test of both your underlining and your outline, because holes in your understanding will reveal holes in your
outline and possibly holes in your initial underlining. Underline the important parts of the outline and then make a cursory outline of the lengthy outline. This cursory outline will be reviewed
before going to the test the next day. Any holes should be filled in then (that is, the information that doesn't make sense or seems incomplete in your memory as stimulated by the outline should
be looked for in the reading material or the lengthy outline and jotted in). The brief outline is then taken to the test and looked at just before the test starts.
The whole process provides for many rehearsals as you read, try to understand, condense information,
write it down, read it again, test understanding, condense information again, write it down, and then read it.
Obtaining and studying your instructor's past tests
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If you can obtain past tests that your instructor has given, you'll have a very helpful study
tool. Ask other students that have taken the class from your instructor. Lots of people save their class materials throughout college. You cannot substitute studying old tests for studying the assigned
material. There may be major changes in tests from year to year. Topics change, information covered changes. Even answers to the same question might change. But for the most part, history tends
to repeat itself, especially with regard to tests.
Practicing for Tests
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Two elements that are very helpful practice are
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1) being challenged to remember information, but being unable to at first (you rack your brain, can't remember, and when you find the answer a little "aha!" light
bulb goes on.)
2) "walking through" the test situation. (practice makes perfect. practicing testing makes great grades.)
Find out what you don't know yet -- test yourself.
Setting yourself up to find out what you don't know well enough 1) helps you discover what you
need more work on, and 2) causes a mental situation that increases the likelihood that you'll remember later.
When you look over information, your brain just works at an easy pace to remember it. When you
make a mistake and/or have found yourself unable to remember something when you struggle to remember and don't--and THEN LATER you find the right answer--your brain works VERY HARD to make sure that
in future you WILL remember. Our brains do not like the experience of not being able to remember something they think they should. Extra encoding time and energy are given to information that
has been found previously lacking in the memory.
Flash Cards
Flash cards are usually introduced in early elementary school and sometimes people may have the erroneous belief that they are childish. They are NOT childish and in fact are a POWERFUL tool for memorizing and self-testing on information. Not all study material can be reduced to flash cards (that is,
complex concepts, long historical progressions) but any information that can be reduced to a simple question and simple answer is perfect for flash cards. 3 x 5 recipe cards are cheap and easily
purchased almost anywhere where pencils and pads of paper are sold. Any paper type or size will do but recipe cards seem easily pocketed and transported but not easily lost or accidentally thrown
out. The question should be on one side and the answer on the other. In some cases either side can be considered the question and the other the answer.
With flash cards, one can rehearse retrieving information from memory and test the accuracy of the
memory. Flash cards can be used by asking the question and trying to answer it, then turning it over to see if you were right--and by looking at the answer and trying to generate the question. When one has successfully tested a piece of information, that particular piece of information can be set aside--so one develops a full set of flash cards and then works to test and re-test memory, gradually setting aside the cards that are routinely answered correctly. In this manner you rehearse, test, challenge, identify memory gaps, and ultimately end up with a small stack of problem questions/answers that you can very briefly go through right before a test without having to wade through well learned information again.
Enlisting a friend.
You can also practice for a test by having a friend test you. A friend who just looks through
the book asking questions or who tests you with your flash cards can be very, very helpful. Again, mistakes are often our best teachers, and because of the added social pressure, a question
that you find the answer to after you couldn't answer when tested by a friend is usually going to be a question you won't miss again.
Practice tests (very helpful)
Construct a test if you have the time. Or use an instructor's past tests if you can get them
and if they seem like they cover the same material that you will be tested on.
National tests. Use previous tests or packaged practiced tests for GRE's, SAT's,
and other national tests. For many national scholastic and professional tests (SAT's, GRE's, LSAT's, etc.), you can buy practice tests at most bookstores. The more variations of the practice tests
you can obtain, the better. (Most packaged test practice books have three or so tests in them.) These offer you the advantage of testing the same type of material, with the same format.
WHEN YOU USE PRACTICE TESTS, TRY AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE TO PRACTICE UNDER THE SAME CONDITIONS OF THE REAL TEST. Don't just try a question or two before dinner, another few during TV watching, a few before bed, etc. If the test will be one hour, set up a quiet test area, and take the practice test for one hour. If it will be four hours, set up a four hour block of time and stick to it. IF YOU INTEND TO GET GOOD BENEFITS FROM PRACTICE, MAKE THE PRACTICE AS CLOSE TO THE REAL THING AS POSSIBLE.
Getting Physically & Mentally Ready for Tests
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Eating and Sleeping
Enough food and enough sleep are important to the proper functioning
of the mind. Studying with a tired brain is very inefficient. Attention and comprehension are reduced by fatigue.
Watch out: Cramming for tests all night before a test can hurt rather than help.
Cramming -- resulting in fatigue -- can reduce mental functioning significantly (though of course if you
have to choose between not knowing the information and exhaustion, a well rested, empty mind won't score better on a test than a tired fact filled mind).
Watch out: Eating a hearty meal right before a study time or test may reduce brain power.
Eating a hearty meal may tend to calm anxiety BUT either the body will redirect blood flow to your digestive system in order to aid digestion -- which reduces mental functioning (that's
why people are sleepy after the noon meal) -- OR the meal will sit like a bag of wet concrete in your chest.
Watch out: Not having enough proper nutrition in the body reduces mental functioning.
Watch out: Drinks, Drugs, Fights, Worries
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Alcohol impairs understanding, concentration and motivation, and its after effects
can seriously impair your ability to understand, concentrate or remember. Don't drink to even mild intoxication and try to study. Don't drink to even mild intoxication and try to a take a test
that day or the next.
Marijuana impairs comprehension, motivation and memory.
"Speed" (amphetamines) and cocaine can seriously impair organization and memory.
Fights, worries, upset can impair higher cognitive functioning and memory. If avoidable,
stay away from fights and worries when about to study or take a test. Emotional upset of any kind can seriously impair cognitive functioning, especially concentration, comprehension and memory.
Relaxation exercises before and during a test can aid your ability to recall information.
Strategies for test taking: Guessing
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Guessing when a wrong answer is no worse than no answer at all.
When you don't know an answer, a guess is often correct. A guess is significantly more likely
to be right than random chance. There is much more going on in any mind than the thinker is aware of. When dealing with trying to remember information that may not have been well learned, there
may be an "inner awareness" or "unconscious awareness" of the answer to a question that does not seem apparent consciously.
IF WRONG ANSWERS ARE NOT COUNTED AGAINST YOUR SCORE, IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER, GUESS.
Guessing when a wrong answer counts against you.
On some tests--often on national professional tests--wrong answers are counted against you. In
these situations, a wrong answer may count as a negative 1, 1/2, 1/4 or 1/5 in the scoring. (So, for example, if each wrong answer cancels out a right answer, ten right answers and four wrong result
in a score equivalent to only 6 right answers; or, in the case that wrong answers count as 1/4 off, ten right answers and four wrong result in a score of nine.)
IF WRONG ANSWERS ARE COUNTED AGAINST YOUR SCORE, COMPARE THE ODDS OF A GUESS BEING RIGHT TO
HOW MUCH THEY ARE COUNTED AGAINST YOUR SCORE.
On multiple choice tests, you can capitalize on guessing by playing the odds--even when wrong
answers count against you. For example, if you are to be counted off a quarter point for each wrong answer on a multiple choice test with four possible answers, your odds of drawing the right
answer out of a hat is even money--a one out of four chance of accidentally being right makes a penalty of one quarter point per wrong answer an even bet. If random chance makes it an even bet, your tendency to guess right more often than chance puts the odds in your favor. Further, if you can eliminate one of the four answers as unlikely, your odds of guessing right are even greater. If, however, you are to be penalized one for one for wrong answers, you probably shouldn't guess--in such a case,
the likelihood that you might guess the correct answer simply
isn't as strong as the likelihood that you are right on the ones
you are sure of.
Using the test time efficiently
Plan to use all the time available
for the test. Trying to get through a test in as quick a time
as possible--or even allowing yourself to just believe it is okay
to finish before the end time of the test--can be serious folly.
Use the available time fully.
Move on through questions that you are not sure of, noting them for later if there is time.
As you take the test, keep track
of problem questions to return to if time permits. If you finish,
go back and review problem questions and review your answers.
If you can go back without looking at your answer, answer the
question again and see if your answer is still the same. Sometimes
information helpful to answering one question is "leaked
out" in the asking of another, later question. Sometimes,
later questions stimulate memory stores. After having gone through
the whole test, go back to the problem questions and see if you
now know more. (But remember, don't just second guess.)
For long tests, pace yourself to answer portions of the test within portions of the time.
Take your watch. If you are
to take a four hour, 200 question test--assuming that the general
difficulty level of the test is constant throughout--set yourself
a goal of answering the first quarter of the questions in the
first quarter of your time. As you move through the test, you
can then know whether to speed up or slow down.
Take a minute or two break at least every hour of testing to close your eyes, look at the ceiling,
stretch, relax.
Slow down, pace yourself in a test situation to take short breaks with deep breathing and other
relaxation exercises. Give your mind a little rest for a moment
between questions. Close your eyes for a moment and think of
a relaxing scene or situation; or stand up and stretch. Speeding
up means giving yourself permission to skip over tough questions
rather than taking time to rack your mind for the answer--simply
noting or marking questions on the test or answer sheet that you
cannot answer to come back to later if there is time.
On limited time tests with sections of different difficulty levels, but equal credit for all items,
do the quick questions first.
Some lengthy national tests are time limited and expect no one to finish the full test. Some
offer brief questions as well as very lengthy, wordy questions--but
the credit for both types is equal. If there are short questions
and wordy questions on the same test and if there is any chance
you might not have time for all the questions, breeze through
the brief questions and return to the wordy questions afterwards.
In this way you answer the most questions for the time.
Being comfy, staying mentally fresh
Wear your most comfortable clothes to a test, kick off your shoes.
To heck with what you look like -- dress to impress later, elsewhere. Obviously, you can't risk being dragged out for indecent exposure because there you are in your undies or less, but generally speaking, wear clothes for comfort when you are going to take a test. Tight shoes, pants,
shirt, skirt or coat can be distracting. Though in grade school
it wasn't permitted, in college or national test situations it
is usually permissible to slip off your shoes (wear clean socks
to assure acceptability -- foot odor is a no-no).
Take gum, soda, and/or a noiseless snack to long tests if permissible.
In college, national or other test situations it is usually permissible to bring a noiseless
snack to keep you refreshed through the test. Caffeine in moderation
is usually helpful to aid in focusing attention. A drink, snack
or gum is helpful to freshen the mouth--which can get a bit dry
under the stress of the test situation.
Take it easy, relax, stay cool
When a person gets anxious or upset, his or her body readies for running away or fighting --
not tests. The body is equipped with an ability to be instantly
ready for a fight or to run away--the adrenaline rushes through
the body in an instant, muscles pump up with blood, complex thinking
areas of the brain shut down. The trigger for this "fright/fight/flight"
mechanism are fear, anxiety and emotional upset. The counter-acting
mechanisms for this--the mechanisms that allow for relaxing and
thinking clearer when the danger or upset is over--are slow.
This works fine for dangers like muggers, but works very poorly
for dangers like possible poor test performance or interpersonal
hassles.
Test anxiety & solutions
"Test anxiety" is anxiousness that causes poor performance on a test and that comes
from worry about poor performance on testing. It is an anxiousness that turns into a self-fulfilling prophesy. Being very anxious about test performance actually sharply reduces your ability to
perform on a test.
Some of the possible countering strategies to the problem of anxiety interference in test taking
performance are:
1) reassuring yourself that you will do fine (which usually means you need to make sure you have studied and otherwise prepared yourself well for the test) -- that you are certain to survive, whatever the outcome of the test is;
2) avoiding any postpone-able upsets so they don't happen during the day of the test or the day or so before the test (i.e., it's not a good time to confront big issues with others that might deplete emotional resources or increase general
anxiousness);
3) taking deep breaths and imagining
yourself in a safe, relaxing scene;
4) having a little something
non-acidic in your stomach at test time;
5) being well rested; and
6) having a good record of successful test taking.
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If you have problems with test anxiety, hypnosis tapes/CDs can be helpful.
Of the head-cleaners tapes and CDs, "performance 2" directly targets the issues of test and performance anxiety. Two other tapes/CDs, "healing tree 2" and "two voices to imagine" also focus on reducing anxioussness and stress that contribute to test anxiety.
TAKE NOTE: In self-helping it's important to tell helpful from hurt. It's important to give yourself permission to consult a professional if you need one. Just as its important to get to a doctor if you're severely injured, and in borderline cases of injury it's better to waste the time it takes to go see a doctor than risk that you should have -- and just as one should not goof around with bandaids when an artery is gushing -- it's important to consult a psychologist,
psychiatrist or other counselor or physician -type professional if you believe you might, in fact, need one. Better safe and not sorry -- a stitch in time saves nine. If it turns out its a false alarm, the professional will tell you. You might take a look at the comments on finding a therapist for some tips.
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