Exam Prep

Hi, everyone.

Hopefully, you know that you
have your first exam coming up,

and I thought I would address here,
in a short video, how you might study.

Because one of the most common (if not the
most common) non-content-related questions

that I get from my online students

is how to approach studying
for course exams.

So let's just take a step back here
and talk about exams.

So in terms of the grading for the course,
one thing you might want to know

is that there's kind of a blend
of both what you might call

"low-stakes" work
and "high-stakes" work.

So by" low-stakes," I mean there are
some graded elements of the course,

where basically, if you
do a reasonably good job,

you get full credit.

so the reflection assignments
and the application assignments

are examples of that.

But there also are high-stakes elements,

and the most notable example are the exams.

The exams are the tough part, you might say,

and exams are worth over
half the points for the course.

They take -- they tend to separate out
the students who really know their stuff,

who really understand the details
of what we're covering in this course

from those who kind of know the gist of it

or really haven't worked very hard.

So definitely, the exams require work.

And so, to help you for the first exam,
I've prepared a handout that goes through

kind of what to focus on and gives
a couple of example questions.

I'll also give you a handout
for the final exam

because there's so much to kind of
think about for the final exam;

and that will include the essays
that you will submit.

But I'll be honest.

So, when I went to college,
I never got a study guide,

and I know a lot of you
want a study guide,

but I don't know if that's
typically what's done in college.

I think it's expected that college students

learn the skill of determining

what is most important to focus on
in their studying and then to study well.

So that's kind of what I
want to talk about here.

How to create your own study guide,
how to figure out what to focus on,

and how to study to do as best
as possible on the exams.

Honestly, if you wanted
a study guide for this course,

I have a colleague that prepares a study guide
for his version of introduction of psychology,

and I think it's like 30 or 40 pages long;
it's ridiculous.

And the reason is, because
this is a 4-credit survey course,

and I don't know if you're familiar
with that, but this is not a 3-credit course.

It's a 4-credit course, meaning that if
you took the course on campus,

you'd be meeting 4 hours a week
during a normal Fall or Spring semester.

And about 8 credits per week

if you took the 7-week version of the summer course.

And so, that's where the designation
of a 4-credit course comes from.

It's more work, it's more intensive,
it requires more time.

And then the old adage is,

you spend that amount of time
in class and then you double that

for the amount of time
you spend outside of class

to kind of do all the work necessary
to do well in the course,

so you can do the math.

There's a lot of time that's potentially
necessary to get through everything

and prepare well for these exams.

And I think a lot of students
don't kind of appreciate that

when they take the course online.

If you were taking the course face-to-face,

you would be having that much
time every week in class

and then you have all that additional time
outside of class to do homework .

And online, it's the same kind of expectation
that you would spend about that amount of time.

So as a survey course, the goal
of this course, in some ways,

is to introduce you to the
entire field of psychology,

which is a tall task,
kind of an absurd task.

But that's one of the goals,

is to introduce you to
a lot of different things,

to give you a breadth of exposure.

Now that makes studying really tricky

because you're exposed
to so much in this course.

Now, I'll be honest...

Of all the people who teach
this course at Normandale,

I emphasize breadth the least.

I assign the least reading.

I assign you a textbook that's actually
called an "Essentials Textbook,"

which means it's a shortened
version of the full text.

And I don't assign about
a third of the Essentials text.

I have some colleagues who actually
think I'm not doing a good job

by not having you read more,

by not exposing you to more breadth,

but that's something I've chosen to do

because I try to emphasize
depth a little bit more.

But still, having said that,
there's a lot of information

there's a lot of reading
in this course, and so,

one of the great challenges is figuring
out what to prioritize in your studying

So part of the difficulty of the exams
is that this is a survey course,

and in some ways, you are
randomly tested on concepts

from everything that you
are being exposed to,

and that's to kind of see how much
of that breadth you're learning.

So one of the (I think)
recommendations

that follows that is, you have to
spend enough time in this course

to really expose yourself
to all of that material.

You need to read everything
in depth, in detail,

and you need to do all the other elements
of the course that I'll mention in a minute.

And then you have to
learn from that enough

to be able to recognize it
in multiple-choice questions.

So when you're looking
through your textbook,

there's a skill involved in really

gaining as much knowledge
as possible from a textbook,

and when you go through this textbook,
there are some hopefully helpful features.

So as you go through,
note the bolded terms,

note the major ideas, pay attention
to the figures and the tables

because they kind of are highlighting
what's most important.

And then there are "test yourself"
kinds of questions

sprinkled throughout the chapters.

And there are also questions
at the end of the chapters,

and I would absolutely do those.

The answers are provided and
they provide a way to kind of

check yourself to see whether
you're learning from the text

as much as you might be
expected to learn from the text.

Now, I will say, those questions in the
text are more detailed, more specific,

more kind of nitpicky than
my questions on my exams,

but they're still helpful to kind of
practice and to kind of check and see

whether you're getting from
the text what you need.

Now, when you're going
through the text, especially,

I would absolutely take your time,
read it deeply, read it in detail.

I would be in an environment
where you're not distracted.

I would remove distractions such as
your phone and things like that.

Put it away, put it in a different room,

and really focus on what you're
reading and take notes.

You can take notes in outline form.

A lot of students really benefit
by taking visual notes.

They take out like a big piece of paper

and they produce diagrams where they
highlight the most important bolded terms

and the interconnections among those bolded
terms from, like for example, every chapter.

But I would do something like that
because you don't, in the end --

For example, before an exam,

you don't want to have to go
back through and reread it all.

That's a waste of your time
(if you had read it once)

to go back and reread it again.

You want to read it once
and take notes so that then,

before the exam, you can
use those notes to study

rather than going back
through everything.

You might have to go back through

and cover some details that maybe
you're a little bit more foggy on,

but you want to use your notes.

Now, like I said, I tend to emphasize
depth over breadth, and so as a result,

I do assign -- maybe not,
maybe it doesn't feel that way --

but I do assign less
reading from your text

and I supplement that in a
variety of ways with other articles.

I write my own reflections on
what material means to me.

There are videos and
podcasts that you're assigned,

and then I produce material.

In the Announcements section,

I write about material, I produce my
own videos about material sometimes.

I produce my own podcasts
about material sometimes.

And so, that's an attempt

to kind of emphasize what is
most important in the course.

So in this supplemental
non-textbook material,

pay attention to where
everything is kind of focused,

and, in particular,

anything I produce is my
attempt, as the instructor,

to show you what is most important,

what will be emphasized on the exams.

Now one of the great mistakes
that students make --

and this is kind of the traditional way
of studying -- is [that] they will study

mostly what's in the textbook and
they'll go back and they'll reread

the textbook over and over
as a way to prepare for the exam.

Actually, in the material that you're
learning about from memory this term,

one of the points that's made

is that that's a really ineffective
and inefficient way of studying.

And so, just in terms of memory,
it doesn't work too well to do that.

So what I want you to do is,

I want you to focus most of your
studying on what I produce.

So any time I write a reflection,

any time I write in the
Announcements about content,

any time I make a video or a podcast,

any time I produce practice handouts

where there are problems that I'm
giving you with the answers provided...

Because I'm the instructor,

I'm trying to show you through that
what will be emphasized on the exams,

and I would start studying by
mastering that, anything I produce.

And that's the way to get, I think,
the most difficult material studied,

and it's the way to kind of be
most effective and efficient.

Now, like I said, it is a survey course,
so those are not the only questions.

The questions are not only
based on what I produced,

but I'm trying to help you focus on

what's most important
in what I produce,

and then you have to kind of
get a sense for everything else

through the major themes,
through the bolded terms,

things like that, of your textbook, alright?

So the "test yourself" concept

that you're learning about in this course
in relation to memory in particular,

I think is really helpful.

Rather than trying to go back and
repeat material and reread material --

which, generally speaking,

research has shown is not a
very effective study strategy --

see if you can test yourself

and in particular, since I'm saying
most questions come from or

are kind of related to or
mentioned in things I produce,

look at that very carefully and see
if you can come up with questions

that check whether you
understand that material.

So like, when I was a student,
for instance, what I did was,

I would take my notebook
and I would go through,

and any time a term was mentioned,
I would cover the term up and

I would ask myself what the
meaning of the term was.

And so, the first time I'd go
through the material,

I wouldn't really know it very well,

but then I would look
at it until I kind of got it,

and go through all of the
material in that fashion.

And what I'm saying here is,

you could do that with
anything that I emphasize

and the bolded terms of Meyers.

Go through all of that once

and check and see
whether you understand it,

come up with your own
examples during that time

or some examples that connect what
you're learning about to something else.

That'll help you to
really remember it better.

And then go through it
a second time like that.

Usually, when I did this,
it took me three times,

and by the end of the third time,
I kind of had it and I had it mastered

and then I would do well in the exams.

But if I did it once, you know,

I wouldn't do very well
because I didn't know it.

And so, when you get to the
multiple-choice questions on the exams,

they are an attempt to determine
who really has the material mastered

from those who just
kind of have the gist of it.

And so, you want to be someone
who has mastered the details,

and to do that, you have to
spend time with the details,

trying to learn the definitions,
trying to understand the applications.

Now, because this is an online course,

of course, you have the potential to have
material in front of you during the exams.

You have a limited amount of time

and the reason is because I don't
want you to look up everything;

I want this to be a test.

I want to see what you know,

and I want you to prepare for the exam

just like you would prepare for
an exam that was face to face,

where you had no access to any material.

You need to prepare, but the way I would
prepare would be a little bit different.

I would have my notes,
I would have things organized

I'd have my textbook,
I would know where things are,

and then, when you did the exam,

go through and answer the questions
that you know pretty well,

and click the answer and save it.

And then go back to the
questions you're less certain of

and be aware of the time,

and spend that time wisely

to look up as much as you can
to answer those questions.

Now, the multiple-choice questions
for the exams in this course

are not necessarily straightforward
definition questions.

You have to be able to understand

and apply and think critically
about that material.

That's why you have to prepare for
the exams to be able to do that, so --

But still, it's helpful to have
that material in front of you;

and then, when you get to
those more difficult questions,

take some time and
try to think it through.

One of the common mistakes students
often make in psychology courses is,

they will refer back to what
they kind of have always known

or what seems common sense,
what seems right,

and because psychology
tends to oftentimes show

that what seems true isn't true,

I would kind of encourage you

to pause and not always
necessarily go with that hunch.

Think about what you're learning
about in the research in this course

and go with that answer.

And now you have to know
the research well enough to do that.

A good sign is, if you're going through
the multiple-choice questions and

you think to yourself: "Well, I see
the first one and I see the second one

and I can see how someone would pick one
of those two if they hadn't really studied,

but I know based upon my reading
and what we've been discussing

that it's actually the third one."

If you can understand where students
might go astray during the exam

and why they're wrong,
then you know you're prepared.

So you want to get yourself to that point

and it does take time,
it does take detailed attention.

So I am here to help you and I've given
you materials that I hope will help you.

The practice materials, the things that
I have produced, are all meant to help you.

Don't skip over my videos and podcasts
and writings because, like I said,

that's where I'm really trying to point
you in the direction of what's emphasized.

But if you need help, please contact me.

My contact information is
at the top right of D2L

and we can talk it through
and I can help you study

and I can maybe give you
some suggestions.

So good luck, and I hope it goes well.

And never hesitate to reach out if
I can do anything for you to help. END