<p>My operations class has been a nightmare. No matter how hard I study, it never seems to be enough I got a D on my first exam. I thought I did everything I could to prepare sufficiently for the next exam. I made my own study guide for concept questions, I practiced problems until I was blue in the face for a week before the exam, but even then I only came out with a lousy C. I have an exam in this class next Monday, but after such a horrid experience I'm finding myself to be very apathetic towards it. I don't know what else I can do at this point and I'm finding myself very discouraged and in a state of paralysis where I see no point in killing myself studying as it will make no difference. I need to find a way to change my attitude or I'm done for. Any advice?</p>
<p>Have you talked with your professor? Considered getting a tutor?</p>
<p>I’ve taken both of those avenues actually. I even paid for a private tutor for a while, but the only person tutoring it has a very inflexible schedule so I had to stop. As for speaking with my professor, I’ve had several meetings with him and he’s told me I just need to relax and focus more. I can’t say I really found that helpful, but that’s what I was told. I really can’t get myself to relax seeing as I’m one more awful test from getting into unacceptable territory…and then there’s also that cumulative final to think about. I need to get myself to care again, but after such meager results after trying so many different avenues I’m just really discouraged and don’t know what else to do.</p>
<p>Have you looked over your old exams and gone over why you go the grades you did? Was it because you were rushing through the exam and made careless errors? Was it because you didn’t understand the concepts? Misunderstood the questions? Did you have trouble applying the concepts to new problems that you hadn’t seen before? Are you just overthinking all of the questions?</p>
<p>Going through the exams (maybe even with the professor or a TA if you can arrange a meeting) may help you figure out where you should be focusing your efforts.</p>
<p>Another thing you may want to consider is forming a study group with other students. Even if you don’t study well with other students, explaining the concepts to other people can really help you learn the material and helps you figure out what sorts of areas you don’t understand as well. The understanding of a subject that you get from teaching it is very different than the understanding you get from just practicing problems and memorizing concepts.</p>
<p>I’ve tried the whole group studying thing with my second exam, while it really helped me hone on in on the key concepts, it obviously did me no good as far as performance. I’ve looked over my exams with my professor, a lot of it was rushing and careless error and a majority of it is his questions. I think you explained well. The way he constructs some of his questions utilize the concepts in a completely different way than in the way most students, myself included, study the concepts. There is no conceivable way to predict how he is going to apply the concepts and I’ve found that my test time usually dwindles because I have to spend some so much time trying to figure what exactly he’s talking about. Ordinarily I would use the “skip this question and come back to it” approach, but almost every question is like this. Time spent trying to understand these questions eats away at my time left to solve problems, which leads to rushing, which leads to bad grades. Unless he changes the way he constructs questions and uses concepts I really don’t see a way how more studying will do me any good. It hasn’t done me any good so far.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, something like that usually takes practice with his types of test questions and getting good at predicting the sorts of things that professors might ask. There’s no right way to get at that, and it might not be something you get really good at by the time the class ends. But getting good at predicting what sorts of things your professor might ask is a really good skill to develop, especially as a student.</p>
<p>Having professors test you by making you apply concepts to new situations or in new types of ways is actually fairly common (at least, in my experience it was), and it’s a really good skill to have when you need to use this information in the real world, since not everything is going to be presented in exactly the same way that you’re used to.</p>
<p>You could try predicting types of questions that he might ask (maybe even as a group, so you can get different perspectives and questions), using the type of thinking that the professor demonstrated in the previous exams. I’m assuming he doesn’t give old exams or practice exams (although you could ask him if he would be willing to), but a nice TA might be able to help you brainstorm types of questions he might ask. You could also try using different textbooks on your subject to try out different practice problems they might have or get different explanations of concepts. Perhaps, you could try to find someone who did well in the class before (or is currently doing well on the exams) and ask them for advice on how they approach the test questions.</p>
<p>If it’s just a problem of understanding what he’s asking for, you could try to ask the TAs or professor during the exams to clarify the question. They won’t be able to give you hints or anythings, but if the wording is strange, you could ask them to clarify it by telling them how you’re interpreting the question. It never hurts to ask; the worst they can say is that they can’t answer your question.</p>
<p>Thank you for your advice Baktrax, although it didn’t really help me. Most professors have some type of discernible pattern to their questions. This guys is just complete and utter fruit cake of a wild card when it comes to his questions and even trying to guess what he would ask would be a waste of time. I appreciate you taking the time to provide me with your thoughts however. </p>
<p>My test is on Monday. I’ve resolved to try and push away my anxieties and despair regarding my past performance and try and do my best. I’ve prepared an outline of key concepts and will practicing problems with vigor.</p>
<p>One thing that I haven’t given any weight too is the wacko way he grads his exam. 85% of the exam is closed book, while the other 15% is open book. Out of that 85%, one part is worth more points than the other. Perhaps I spend more of my efforts on the part worth the most points, perhaps my exam score will be higher than if I tried to tackle the entire monstrosity with the same effort as a whole. I guess I’ll see if this strategy works on Monday.</p>