<p>So, we recently had our first in-class quiz in my Physics I class. Although I am well aware it is a weeder class, I did not know the professor would give questions based on concepts that are very irrelevant and weren't emphasized in class. For example, one of the questions along the lines "According to the atomic clock of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, how is the second defined?" In short, I didn't do as well as I'd have liked, especially since physics is my strong subject and it is rare for me to score <90 on any test, midterm, or final. </p>
<p>Any tips on dealing with profs that teach concepts that most likely won't be on the exam, most probably another "weeding out" technique?</p>
<p>Study all the material, not just what you think is relevant or what is emphasized in class. It is time for you to become responsible for your own learning, not just what you are spoon fed. Harsh, maybe. But that is the reality of college, particularly in weeded classes.</p>
<p>^
Lol really, now. Serious question, but are you serious fishymom? I’m an incoming college freshman this year, and I’m wondering how the hell am I supposed to study for a test that has irrelevant **** on it that the professor never went over in class or even told us to learn? Take responsible for your learning? Shouldn’t doing what the professor instructs a student to do be enough? I mean I would be guessing at what I’d have to learn if I were to go above and beyond the presented curriculum.</p>
<p>You don’t know that the second is defined as the rate of vibrations of a cesium atom? (Although I think it might be a trick question because they might have recently changed to a different atom that’s more accurate).</p>
<p>Yeah it’s a stupid question. Why’d you sign up for a weeder class when there’s ratemyprofessor and myedu to tell you what classes to avoid?</p>
<p>Really there’s nothing you can do but struggle and pass or drop. The only reason I know how a second is defined is because I’m filled with useless trivia answers.</p>
<p>Was the information covered in any any assigned reading? Just because a professor does not cover it in lecture, does not mean it is not going to be on the test. If it was in required reading, it is fair game. Welcome to college! LOL</p>
<p>Along the lines of ^, I often find professors go out of their way to test on what they don’t cover in class. Hence it’s often pointless to show up for lectures since test material will come from the more obscure portions of the book.</p>
<p>And if you want to know how to deal with professors that have “obscure” questions, the only recommendation I can offer is to make an appointment with professor during his office hours and ask him the best way to prepare for his exams. Unless they are a total jerk, they will tell you something along the lines of “I take about 75% of my questions from lecture and 25% from required reading”, or something along those lines. He may give you some other tips as to how he tests as well. What you do NOT want to do is be confrontational and accuse him of unfair test practices. You may also want to try to find a student that was successful in his class previously and get tips from them. Hope that helps!</p>
<p>Vlines’s advice sounds good. But I did have a professor once who pulled stuff from thin air–the exam material was not in book(s), lectures, anything! And it wasn’t a weed class either. All you can hope for is some curve so that everyone misses that question (or section) and it gets cancelled out in some way.
Fishymom–hard to believe professors would do that to students but they do–sometimes it really doesn’t matter how much or what you studied. Yeah, the reality of college…</p>
<p>If you are absolutely positive that a question on a test/quiz was not covered in lecture or required reading, and you were not expected to know it from another required assignment, then ask the professor. Be nice, but upfront. “Dr. ____. I completely missed any information that we were given to review related to the Atomic Clock and the definition of seconds. Where was that in the material I should have covered for this quiz? I want to make sure I am reviewing all of the correct resources”. They will either tell you where the info was, or may even admit it was not in the material. Some professors re-use class quizes/tests. If they changed books, it is possible that the atomic clock info was a sidebar in an old text. He either does not realize it changed, or has not updated his quiz.
But be prepared for a snotty reply like “That was a gimmee question. If you are in this class, you should already know that info, I should not have to cover it”.<br>
I’m not saying it is right, but it does happen.
But you need to try to find the info in the required reading / assignments before you approach the professor. Just so you do not look bad.</p>
<p>The correct answers are above, but I will echo the sentiment of “welcome to college.” I had quite a few professors who tested primarily on things that weren’t in lecture/on homework because they figured why test on what you were already taught. Some classes aren’t looking to see if you know the material taught, but see if you know how to think to apply what you know, to what you haven’t learned. The question you gave doesn’t seem like a good example of this, but that’s also fair game in college.</p>
<p>Your best course of action, especially as a freshman, is talk to your professor. By in large, they aren’t out to “get you”, even if they are trying to trick you. Just don’t be like “This question was so unfair.” You should say “I was hoping you could help me understand why I missed this question. I don’t recall it in lecture/the reading and was hoping for a more effective study strategy.”</p>
<p>The difference between college and high school is that you are now responsible for your own learning.</p>
<p>Expect that the lectures will present only one facet of what you are expected to learn. Don’t expect that the lecture will be a repeat of what your read…it’s college, the professors assume students are competent to understand the readings on their own, or to get help on their own if they don’t. </p>
<p>Expect that required reading is requires;expect that optional or recommended additional reading also is required, because a lot of times in lecture or on an exam a concept will extrapolate from that reading.</p>
<p>Which brings up one more thing…most college exams don’t expect you to merely repeat what you heard in lecture/read in an assignment. A lot of the time you will be expected to take it to the next step, or the next three steps, applying the theory or concept to something that takes creative thought and thorough understanding…that’s how professors separate the As from the Bs from the Cs.</p>
I can understand expecting something not covered in the lecture, but it not reasonable to expect to it be on the test if the textbook reading didn’t really emphasize it (no more than an interesting fact, like how a second is defined according to the atomic clock, which is useless actually learning the concepts). Or, let me guess, this apart of the “college experience” as well? Expecting questions you haven’t encountered in your problem sets and not emphasized at all in the textbook?</p>
It is unavoidable and needed for my program (physics). Usually, physics classes aren’t supposed to be weeder classes (except for engineering majors, and they take different classes to the pure physics majors, fortunately) and I heard it gets better in second year. I am thinking the reason is all these premeds who need to take it as a prereq for med school. Also, relative to my class, I did extremely well (the majority of them did terrible).</p>
<p>The above answers are excellent. One other thought:
Go outside of the Professor’s class zone, and study/read/do practice tests on the physics topic at hand from noted online science university sites: </p>
<p>Hone in on the material covered in upcoming tests. The greater your comfort zone on the material presented in multiple ways, the easier you may see the questions posed. </p>
<p>Hardly anything will protect you from a determined obscure “got you” question though. Don’t sweat the small stuff.</p>
This is chapter 1. Whether or not you thought it was important or “emphasized” is irrelevant. There’s nothing wrong with the question. The take-away here is to spend time on ALL the material, class and text both.</p>
<p>Sometimes professors do come up with questions out of seemingly nowhere though, and there’s not really anything you can do about it. I had a question ask “Which of these contains magnesium?”, when not only was it not mentioned in the lectures, it wasn’t mentioned in the book, either. To make it worse, all of his questions were like that. There’s really no way to prepare for that. I still got a B+ in the class because he decided to make his final the same trivia questions word for word from the other tests, but now I feel like I only know a fraction of what I should about intermediate inorganic chemistry…and I have to take advanced inorganic in the spring. I’ve heard that it’s similarly a joke though…</p>
<p>3 of my classes this semester are weeders, I had no choice but to take them because of scheduling issues. One class has a 40% fail rate. But, I killed the first test, the class average was a 72 with grades ranging as low as a 38%, but, I got 100. How? Simple, I didn’t rely on just the professors lecture. I studied everything covered in the chapters, practiced it all, listened to related topic lectures on youtube, did online activities I found that matched the subject material. My reward? The only 100% on the first test out of 150 other students.
I’m going to come out of my classes knowing the material thoroughly because I didn’t just learn the material for the test.
Take an interest in the subject your taking, learn it thoroughly, study things that are in the chapter but aren’t in the lecture.</p>
<p>^This. Jennifer has done exactly that which every good professor wishes their students would do. Take an interest in mastering the subject, not just in passing the class.</p>