Hi, so far i am putting a lot of time and study hard just to pass my classes, i am taking 16 credit hours in community college, i finished high school with 3.9 gpa( i had ap and honor classes) and received a full tution scholarship for two years. In every exam i study so hard and understand the materials and help other people but just on exams i tend to make a lot of very stupid mistakes. For example in caluc i do the whole math correct but i would right 3*5=20 make all rest of problem mess. And same for chem. 10 questions, 9 of them i made stupid mistakes and i got 66%. What should i do. Dont tell me review before turn your test. Time is not enough
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Make sure you read the chapters /do the homework.
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Go to Professor’s office hours early in the semester. Ask this question: “I know this is a really difficult class-- what are some of the common mistakes students make and how can I avoid them?”
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If you have problems with the homework, go to Prof’s office hours. If they have any “help sessions” or “study sessions” or “recitations” or any thing extra, go to them.
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Form a study group with other kids in your dorm/class.
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Don’t do the minimum…for STEM classes do extra problems. You can buy books that just have problems for calculus or physics or whatever. Watch videos on line about the topic you are studying.
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Go to the writing center if you need help with papers/math center for math problems (if they have them)
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If things still are not going well, get a tutor.
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Read this book: How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less by Cal Newport. It helps you with things like time management and how to figure out what to write about for a paper, etc.
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Withdraw from a class (probably too late now) and focus on classes that you can do well in (while staying full time)
It sounds like time is the main issue for your exams.
If you understand all of the material but are just running out of time on tests, I would recommend you practice doing problems in a test-like situation. For example, before a calculus test, you could take a whole bunch of calculus problems that are likely to be on the test (extra problems taken from the textbook, problems taken from old calculus textbooks that are may be in your university library, problems taken from online, problems you make up yourself, homework problems where you change the numbers, etc). You may even be able to find old calculus tests online (not necessarily from your class, but from any college-level calculus class) that you can pull problems from. Now that you’ve seen a test in this class, try to mimic the test in length and complexity. Then practice going through the test in timed situations. Go to a place where you don’t normally study so you are in a new environment, like a different place in the library or somewhere else. Try to be in a place where there are other students around, studying or writing or typing, so you are accustomed to being around the distractions of a classroom environment. Time yourself, and try to take the practice test or tests that you made. See if you can get fast enough to have enough time to check your work afterwards. Make sure you take careful consideration of what is slowing you down–are you spending unnecessary time on problems? Do you get caught up in problems you don’t understand and then have to rush through problems you should know very well? Is there a certain type of problem that slows you down? Do you just get anxious during exams and do them slower than you might do homework?
Or instead of making mock tests, you could just try to drill the different types of problems that are likely to be on the test. Keep doing more and more problems until you get faster at doing them. Try to identify what is making you slow down or what types of problems you do slower than others. Are you perhaps doing problems in long ways, while there are shorter ways that you could be doing the problems?
Have you tried asking your professors if they have any suggestions? Make sure you don’t imply that they should lengthen the exam, but just explain your situation. You seem to be running out of time on exams and making careless mistakes. Do they have any suggestions for ways you can do the problems faster or extra problems you can practice with? You could ask if other students have had these problems in the past and if the professor knows of how they dealt with them?
Have you had trouble with other timed tests in the past? Like AP exams, SAT/ACT, other standardized tests, high school exams? How have you handled that?
Your idea sounds really good. I am really going to practice it. My calc instructor has 2.1 on rate my professor. She is considered one of the worst instructors in my college. And for answering your questions. No i didnt have trouble in AP exams, and i really didn’t care during my ACT exam because i was international student and was thinking about going home. Thank you for your advise