How do you study for a test?

[Scorpion]

You have a huge test coming up. Theirs +200 terms and definitions that you need to memorize. How do you go about studying for this test? Study directly from the book, write them on notecards, or use another method?

[MTV]

Rewrite the terms and their definitions until you are able to do this by heart

[EDM92]

Rewriting definitely helps you to encode the information in your brain particularly well.

[DrockNJ]

make an audio clip of you saying the terms and their definitions and then just put it on your ipod and listen to it all day...

[BKV122]

Note cards and rewriting them is the way I would go about it

[Kroy]

Do you have any practice test/questions? I usually go through the questions once. Grade myself and study what I got wrong. Then go through the test again. Knowing what I got wrong usually helps me remember easier.

[leJUNd]

how much time do you have?

[Scorpion]

The test is on Wednesday, the 24th. Shes tells us what all is going to be on the test. But she only uses around 1/4 of what she tells us. Their aren't any test questions specific to what she gives us to remember. I just tried making some notecards, but don't think it's for me. I've just studied from the book previously, but since theirs so much we have to remember was thinking their might be an easier way. Wouldn't be this bad if it was the only class I was taking, but I got 3 others. For some stuff I just picture where it's located in the book and that's how I remember it. Then theirs spelling to worry about as well. It's for my medical terminology class, so the words can get pretty complicated.

[ben14142001]

Review the hell out of it, haha. That's what I do. I'm in med school and we routinely have 50 question tests over 800 pages of material in which they ask the smallest of details that might be mentioned in a box on the the corner of one page. I just read it until my eyes bleed.

[leJUNd]

That's plenty of time.
notecard never worked for me. Making cards is just too time consuming.
You have today and 4 full days, so I'd divide them up. Set a goal for the next each day, study that much each day and review what you learned previous day. So today, you try to learn chapter 1 and 50 terms in that chapter. Tomorrow review what you learned today. and study what you've planned to study. Next day review what you learned the past two days and study what you had planned for that day. If you forgot any of the stuff, restudy them and pay a special attention to that material you've forgotten when your reviewing. (I tend to forget same stuff over and over again).
If you start today. You will have learned everything by monday and have a day to review on tuesday.

If it's just terms and definition... It'd would depend on test format. If it's multiple choice, than I would make a list and read the text that the words are used in.
If you have to remember spelling or have to write the definition, I would just write it over and over again.

[Kroy]

You gotta break down the terminology and make sure you know why each term is named as such. A lot of terms will share the same prefix/suffix.

[ibeclueless]

write it on paper, keep writing it until you remember it

[Blake]

[immiketoo]

Originally Posted by Scorpion

The test is on Wednesday, the 24th. Shes tells us what all is going to be on the test. But she only uses around 1/4 of what she tells us. Their aren't any test questions specific to what she gives us to remember. I just tried making some notecards, but don't think it's for me. I've just studied from the book previously, but since theirs so much we have to remember was thinking their might be an easier way. Wouldn't be this bad if it was the only class I was taking, but I got 3 others. For some stuff I just picture where it's located in the book and that's how I remember it. Then theirs spelling to worry about as well. It's for my medical terminology class, so the words can get pretty complicated.

This might help with the spelling part. The word you want is there or there's. As far as the test is concerned, everyone is a different type of learner. You sound like a visual learner from your comment on remembering where in the book the answer is. I would concentrate on that. I am a tactile learner so I need to be doing something like writing or modeling etc. Some people are auditory learners. Usually a combination of all of these is the most effective. It's up to you.

[immiketoo]

Or you could do it blake's way...

[BMW F22]

You could write down the words a few times to remember them but it would take many tries and that could be very time consuming (especially if you have many words). I had a class where we had to pretty much memorize the words, definitions, and related concepts and theories for tests. The teacher recommended flash cards and that's what I did for all the exams.

Here's what I did so hopefully it will help you out. I read the materials twice (2x), write down the words on flash cards, go over them a few times (you can divide them up if you want to) and then take a nap or go to sleep. Keep in mind that I usually study the words the night before so they're fresh in my head. Also, if you're like me (and most college students), you would procrastinate until the night before or simply have too many other things going on so you couldn't help but wait until the last minute. Anyhow, we usually had about 60-80 words or so + concepts and theories. I would divide them up and go over 1/4 or 1/2 before moving on to the rest. When I felt like I had a pretty good grasp on them I just went to sleep. Sleeping is the brain's time to relax and process information so I've found that it helped tremendously.

The next morning I would wake up early (or earlier than usual) and go over them a few more times. Then I would scan over the materials in the book(s) and go get ready for class. I've found that just having a relaxed attitude helps tremendously. Some people would stay up all night and cram things and then go take tests. It works for some but the rest end up in a panicky state where their minds are all jumbled up so it's hard to remember things clearly. I've always gotten at least a B+ or A- on those tests so I know that that method's worked for me. Hopefully it will help you out too.

PS- I think the reason why it might work for most people is because that method pretty much covers all bases. When you read it, you're visualizing the words. When you write them down, you're "finger printing" (so to speak) the words so that your cell memory could recreate the words later (tactile). Then when you read the words out loud to remember them, you're trying to remember the words by sound (auditory). Hell if all that doesn't work I don't know what will.

[SantaPimp27]

guess

[PINeely]

Write them and read them over and over again You will notice that you remember more and more each time. Keep doing this until you get it down to the ones that you just absolutely cannot remember, write these on a sheet of paper, then cram them 5 minutes before the test.

[Scorpion]

The kid sitting to the left to me has been guessing and got a 48% on the last exam. The girl sitting to the right of my studies like crazy and got a 101% lol. When I was writing the notecards it did take me sometime to write them out, when I was going over them didn't seem to help much since I'm use to memorizing with a pattern from the book. I never tried constantly writing the words down, I'll give that a shot. She just gives to much unnecessary stuff memorize.

[jlstyle]

Cheating paper

[JayKay335i]

Get off the forum. Turn off your computer. Sit there. Study.


/end thread

[Scorpion]

Haha that's what I should probably do. Can't make a cheat sheet, sit in the front row :/.