<p>I've been hearing people say prelims make students stressed. What makes them so bad? What makes them more stressful than finals at other colleges? Is there a way to avoid the stress?</p>
<p>prelims are tests, plain and simple. They usually count for a large percentage of your grade in a course (mine tomorrow counts for 45% of my final grade).</p>
<p>They are usually very hard. Cornell is full of absolutely brilliant students and prelims are meant to fool even them. </p>
<p>Compared to my previous college, Cornell's exams are significantly more specific. While my other college would ask for a general summary of something, i've had Cornell prelims that literally ask "from the lecture notes on week 3, the third work on page 7 slide 3 line 4 is _____." My stats prelims asked questions where the difference between one multiple choice answer and the next was a single word. </p>
<p>the best way to prepare for them is to start studying early!!!!!!!! Be familiar with what to expect. With hard work and dedication, prelims wont be an impossible hurdle. </p>
<p>Stress happens no matter what. It's just one of those things you have to learn to handle with experience. </p>
<p>Some prelims are harder than others. Just worry about doing your personal best. :)</p>
<p>Prelims = midterms</p>
<p>Cornell students get stressed over tests just as students from other schools get stressed over tests.</p>
<p>It's really a toss-up b/w which is the greater evil: prelims or papers. I prefer papers myself. Luckily for me, I attend Cornell so I get lots of both. 2 papers due last week. 2 prelims, a quiz, and a notebook due this week. 3 papers due next week.</p>
<p>how do you manage your time?</p>
<p>Not very well.</p>
<p>what school are you in at cornell norcalguy?</p>
<p>i'm currently doing a paper due tomorrow morning. Also, I have a big midterm tomorrow afternoon, after which I will spend the entire night in the library studying for a prelim on thursday. </p>
<p>I prefer papers to midterms, though both are abundant at Cornell. </p>
<p>Coffee is my friend.</p>
<p>CAS-bio major</p>
<p>the best to both of you.</p>
<ol>
<li>Do you think other ivy students work that hard? </li>
<li>Can you give me an example of one of the essay prompts? </li>
<li>How much time or "heads-up" do they give you to write your papers because it seems like they pack a lot of stuff into a few weeks. </li>
<li>Is it 3 papers per week? I really hope not.</li>
<li>What are the testing formats for prelims? Are they timed?</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Does an average Ivy League student work as hard as me? Probably not. Do other PREMEDS work as hard as me? Probably.</p></li>
<li><p>One of my papers (for a 100-level History class) was a comparative analysis of Rousseau's the Social Contract and Domat's view of absolutism. The other one was for a 400-level bio course. I had to read a research paper on cellular motility catalyzed by actin polymerization and then write a paper on it. Ironically, the bio professor is quite a stickler for grammar. He gave us a 4-page sheet w/ examples of students' grammatical mistakes. Apparently, saying "a protein is comprised of 4 subunits" is wrong. We should say, "a protein is COMPOSED of 4 subunits." Seems nit-picky to me. Especially for biology :/</p></li>
<li><p>The three papers due next week are part of a take-home prelim for a 300-level English course. He won't give us the topics till this Friday. They're due next Friday. Not much time for 3 papers. Oh well. And no, it's not 3 papers a week every week. In fact, these are the first three graded assignments for the class so far.</p></li>
<li><p>Formats for prelims varies. I've had prelims that are 100% multiple choice. I've had prelims that are 100% short answer. I've had prelims that are in-class essays. I've had prelims that are a mix of those. 90% of prelims are timed. Occasionally, like my upcoming BioBM 432 prelim, you get unlimited time. Unfortunately, those tend to be the prelims you don't need extra time for.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>"from the lecture notes on week 3, the third work on page 7 slide 3 line 4 is _____." </p>
<p>Is this a rare occurance, or does this happen a lot?</p>
<p>wow... I am officially afraid. norcalguy, how did you manage to get such a high GPA? Are you a genius or do you work hard or both? I have no idea how I will do at Cornell as a premed. If the majority of people are like norcalguy then I regret choosing Cornell as my undergraduate college :(. Please tell me you are above average in intelligence. And no modesty, please.</p>
<p>Okay... sorry if I come off as a prematurely paranoid guy but do the tests generally ask questions that one will be able to deduce from what they teach or will they ask something completely irrelevant that they expect you to know from outside their assigned work (just to see that you are reading sources on your own)? And if so, how often? </p>
<p>And again, I am very grateful for all of your responses.</p>
<p>"from the lecture notes on week 3, the third work on page 7 slide 3 line 4 is _____."</p>
<p>I mean, I love academic rigor and I'm psyched for Cornell's difficulty, but isn't the above a little gratuitous? Isn't this just asking questions designed to make kids fail rather than learn and question the material. I mean how much info. did line 4 of slide 3 on page 7 from the third work of the lecture notes of week 3 have and how important could it have been?</p>
<p>What exactly do u mean by a paper? Is it an essay, lab report?</p>
<p>i have totally forgotten week 3 page 4 slide blah blah blah...</p>
<p>Two of my profs last semester tested that way. Needless to say, I didn't really retain any of the info. Luckily, this semester seems a bit different when it comes to prelims. Some profs teach that way, some dont. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Do you think other ivy students work that hard? No (based on conversations with my friends at other ivy league schools)</p></li>
<li><p>Can you give me an example of one of the essay prompts? For my english class, we got a paper that said "write an essay, 9-10 pages." We have to formulate our own topic, research it, and draw conclusions ourselves. </p></li>
<li><p>How much time or "heads-up" do they give you to write your papers because it seems like they pack a lot of stuff into a few weeks. Usually about a week</p></li>
<li><p>Is it 3 papers per week? I really hope not. No.</p></li>
<li><p>What are the testing formats for prelims? Seek Norcal guy's answer. Are they timed? Yes.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>are the prelims department-wide or made by each individual teacher?</li>
<li>why are they called prelims?</li>
</ol>
<p>Prelims are made by individual teachers and reflects their teaching styles. For example, a different professor teaches the spring Bio 281 course than the one who teaches the fall Bio 281 course. The prelims for the two will be noticeably different (even though the material is about the same). One's a Drosophila expert. The other is a yeast guy.</p>
<p>As for me: above average intelligence? Yes. genius? No. Geniuses are the people who score 90+ consistently on orgo exams. I'm the guy who gets an A- or a low A in orgo.</p>
<p>Professors generally do not expect you to use outside sources. Heck, for most of my classes, they only expect you to know what's in lecture, making the textbook almost useless except to clarify what's said in lecture. There are exceptions of course: notably intro bio which relies extensively on the textbook.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>are the prelims department-wide or made by each individual teacher? They're made by the teachers, and they're often made to be administered at one time and one time only. </p></li>
<li><p>why are they called prelims? I think it's short for something like preliminary exam (or a preliminary test before the final). </p></li>
</ol>
<p>"Professors generally do not expect you to use outside sources" - true, you also generally dont have time in the time constrains of prelims. </p>
<p>The prelim i just took (and i think that I just rocked :)) was two essay questions. We had just over 15 minutes to do each question. Not much time to throw in alot of extra info. </p>
<p>Note: even though prelims are different from teacher to teacher, this doesn't mean that one teacher will be harder than the other: I believe the Cornell policy is that the average grade distribution for the course must be idential from teacher to teacher. The amount of A's given for impossible teacher X will be the same for easy as dirt teacher Y.</p>