Kevin Kim's 20 minutes test prep

After each class:

At the end of each week:

One or two week before the exam:

Overview:

For this week, I would like to talk about my favorite strategy, the 20 minute test prep. This was one of the first strategies I have learned, and yet I still use it in most of my classes. In my BIO 121 class, and PSY 205 class. it has worked effectively for me because both classes are test based, and a lot of information is covered. I found that the 20 minute test prep organizes my time, and forces me to study little by little for any upcoming test. It helps me not cram information 2 days prior to my tests, and anticipating question helps retain information.

The Topic Outline was a great tool for me when managing my time. It showed me how much information I had to study, and it helped me organize my time to get all the readings and notes done. For BIO, I had a lot of information to study for compared to my PSY. That is why I put in more time studying for my BIO exam than my PSY exam.

Lately I found out that I retain information much better if I rewrite my notes. So, if I take down notes during lecture, I would retype them, and organize the information. This helps me reinforce the information, and keep it to memory. Also, I helped my friend with both BIO and PSY, and just by teaching him the information it was a great tool for me to reinforce the information. Overall, this strategy provides everything I have to do in order to do well in both my classes. It keeps me organized, and task driven to get everything done.

I LOVE TART & Charlie is Smart!

Charlie is Smart: Charlie is Smart is an extremely helpful strategy when trying to chunk out your reading. I use Charlie is Smart and START together because they work so well together if you need it to help organize out and outline or study for an exam. This week I used Charlie is Smart to help chunk out my reading in my EAR101 exam. After chunking out my reading I was able to use START to help organize out my information for the EAR101 exam that I had coming up. For my diagram, I made the Cornell/ SU notes because it helps me out a lot to write all my information down so I can having something to look back and go over with. Cornell/SU notes are great because it keeps all my information organized and I am not confused when I look back at my notes the next day.

Skim: After chunking out my reading, I skimmed all the important key terms that I had to know for my upcoming exam. Once I highlighted the key terms, I wrote them down on my Cornell/SU notes.

Terms: For my EAR101 course it is important to know the general concepts of how our earth works. The two important ideas of dynamic earth are to know the concepts and key terms. Before every lecture, I read the chapter that we will be going over so I already have an understanding of what we will be talking about and won’t be so lost when we go over general ideas in the sections. After each lecture, I make sure to go over my notes so I am able to retain the information gone over in the lectures. I make sure to make Cornell/SU notes because I like that I am able to put key terms in one sections of the notes and the definition and understanding on the other side. It helps me so when I go back to look over the notes, it is organized and I know exactly what we covered in that lecture.

Attend: Attending lectures is key if you want to be successful in Dr. Samons EAR101 course. Not only is the attendance an important factor if you want a good grade but also it is helpful to understand the information that you read in the book. My professor is really helpful in going over information and helping us understand it better because it can get confusing at times. Attending class is the most important thing if you want to succeed in this course!

Read: I make sure to read over the chapter before attending class so I can understand the information better and I am not lost when he goes over the chapters. Creating Cornell/SU notes was also a helpful strategy because it organized all my information out so I wasn’t lost when I wanted to look over it the next day.

Test: Reading the chapters before class and creating Cornell/SU notes was an extremely helpful strategy in anticipating test questions. I was able to put all the important information that was gone over in lectures in my Cornell/SU notes because I knew those would most likely show up on the next upcoming exam.

START and Charlie is Smart is an extremely helpful strategy when wanting to help you stay organized for either a paper or an exam. I love using this strategy for both because it really helps me think everything through and stay on task. It also give you a really good visual representation of all the work you have done while still keeping it extremely organized!

Just TART is out!!!

This is how you TART:

Terms: I decided to use TART for my Biology and Oceanography classes again because not only are there are a lot of terms and concepts but right now they are my two most difficult classes. So before the lecture I did the same thing, were I would write down the terms that I felt were the most important or even the most difficult ones. Then writing down the definitions helped me so that when I went to the lecture all I would have to do is listen for those specific words and if the professor went more in depth on them, then I would add to what I already had.

Attend: Going to the lectures was a lot easier for me to just listen for the words that I had already previously written down. If the professor brought up a word or concept that he thought was important than you would just add to what you have.

Read: Having did all that, after the lecture I would have a much better understanding of the terms and main concepts. So overall this strategy helped me connect the terms to what they were talking about in the chapter. It was easier for me to find the relationship between things.

Test: With the words that I wrote down and had gone more in depth with, I was then able to anticipate possible test questions. This was also used as a study aid and is basically the same thing as the 20 minute test prep.

By me using TART again it just helped me get a better understanding with how to break up the chapters so that it was easier for me to understand better. It made me feel less stressed about how I was going to remember all the terms and concepts in the chapters. During lecture it was a lot easier because all I had to do was listen and take"extra" notes. So far TART has been the most beneficial strategy that I have tried.

Anticipating Test Questions with Adaptations

This week I used one of my favorite strategies, Anticipating Test Questions, but I made a few adaptations to it. I used this strategy for my ECN 203 class and my PHI 192 class. I used Anticipating Test Questions because I like how you can make your own mini quizzes and continuously quiz yourself so you are staying on top of the material. I feel like I learn the best when I am very active with the material and Ive found
that quizzing myself is one of the best ways I learn. For my ECN 203 class we get power points so what I did was I took power point notes. I would take notes on each slide the professor was talking about. After I was done taking the notes on a specific slide I would anticipate a question or two based on the slide we just went over. The professor usually goes through about 15 slides each class so by the end of the class I had anywhere up to 30 practice problems. Any time after the class I went back through the slides to look over the notes. After I went through the notes I looked at the questions to see if I knew them or not. If I didn't know the answers then I knew I needed more practice.

For my PHI 192 class the teacher just lectures us the whole time, so i would take notes based on his lecture. He tells us what the most important things to know are so I would make the important stuff bold. In PHI 192 we take essay tests and he tells us the topics that he wants us to write about. To anticipate the questions I took the main topics he wanted us to write about and asked how different theories could be applied to the topics. That allowed me to analyze a number of theories we learned and how they could be applied to the

situations he wants us to write about. This strategy worked real well because it allowed me to get a good understanding of how different theories could be applied to certain situations, which is what the professor wants us to know.

TART

For this weekends Tech Assignment I used TART in my PHI 192 class and my ECN 203 class. I used TART for both these classes because the reading is more skeletal then comprehensive. I also had to make a lot of adaptions to this method since I don't have texts books for PHI 192 or ECN 203. Instead of reading a textbook I used to method to read through my notes. I would have used the method for my WRT 105 class but all the reading is comprehensive reading so I thought it would be easier to use TART for skeletal reading. For my PHI 192 class I did the steps in different orders. I would first go to the lectures and take all the notes. During the class he would tell us the most important things so whatever he said was the most important I would make it bold. After class I would look at all the bold key terms so I was familiar with them. After I got more familiar with the bold terms I would go through and read all of my notes that I took from the class just to clarify everything that was talked about in class. I don't anticipate test questions for PHI 192 since we only have essay tests. And he gives us the topic of each essay on our syllabus. For ECN 203 the professor gives us power points and on top of the power point we get notes. I would use the power point to act like a text book. Before class I read through the power point to look at some of the highlighted key terms. During class I would take the extra notes right on the power point. After class I go through both the power point and the notes so I can anticipate test questions. I really like this technique because not only do you get good review but it allows you to focus on the key terms so you aren't going over anything unnecessary. The anticipating test questions also works as a 20 Min Test Prep.

TARTY, TART, TART!!!

TART:

Terms: For my Biology and Oceanography classes there are a lot of terms and concepts that we have to remember in each chapter. So before the lecture I wrote down the terms that I felt were the most important or even the most difficult ones. I then wrote down the definitions so that when I went to the lecture all I would have to do is listen for those specific words and if the professor elaborated more on them, then I would add to what I already had.

Attend: When I went to the lectures it was a lot easier for me to just listen for the words that you had previously written down. If the professor brought up a word or concept that he thought was important than you would just add to what you have.

Read: After the lecture I would have a much better understanding of the terms and main concepts. This strategy helped me connect the terms to what they were talking about in the chapter. It was easier for me to find the relationship between things.

Test: With these words that I wrote down and went more in depth with, I was then able to anticipate possible test questions.

TART was very helpful for me because it helped me break up the chapters so that it was easier for me to understand better. It made me feel less stressed about how I was going to remember all the terms and concepts in the chapters. During lecture it was a lot easier because all I had to do was listen and take "extra" notes.

Charlie Reads SmarT

Chunk- I am reading "Spit Back a Boy" by Iain Pollack for my ETS 107 class. This book is made up of a collection of poems, so instead of counting the number of pages I read, I decided it would be more accurate if I counted the number of poems I read before my attention span waned. I was able to read about 8 poems before I started to doze off. Then, I divided 8 by the total number of poems, 32. I thought this was a creative way to manage my time when reading a book.Sometimes I tend to over read, so usually I end up not remembering much of what I actually read. My limit for this book is 8 poems, so as long as I take a break every 8 poems I should be able to retain more information about the book.

Read- My ETS 107 class is not about knowing every detail of a book. Instead, we have to analyze the book, and critique it on its tone, theme, and literary devices. These are exactly the things I looked when reading.

Summarize- For my summary I made subheadings
(overview, title, sonic, violence, diction, tone), and
I wrote examples and the the purpose of each
subheading. It is presented in the documentation.
I thought this was a good way to annotate the poem.

Test- I made questions afterward for possible
questions on the biweekly quizzes that we have. I
thought this a good way to reinforce the information
I have just gathered after a reading. As a learner who
needs to write down notes and reinforce it after reading, I thought this strategy was very helpful in keeping me
in check.

TART

Terms- For my BIO 121 class, I have a lot of terms and examples in each chapter. Knowing these terms before I went to lecture was helpful because since I knew what each definition was, during lecture I was more engaged in class, and was able to understand the lecture better.

Attend- For each term I wrote down the professor when more in depth about each term, and gave an example.

Read- Now that I have a better understanding of the main concepts, I read the chapter, and it basically connected all the terms I have just learned by explaining the relations they have with each other.

Test- Just like the 20 minute test prep I created test questions after the lecture.

Evaluation of TART: I thought it was very
helpful that I read the key terms before the
lecture. I noticed, for me, it kept me more
motivated to listen, and take notes during
lecture. This strategy definitely fits my
learning style.

Reading Strategies

above is a picture of my outline and another picture of TART and Charlie is Smart

For my Indigenous Religion course, the class is advised to write four papers over the course of the semester. For my final paper, we must write a 6-8 page paper of any indigenous tribe. To help me get started with this paper, I applied TART and Charlie is Smart to help me organize all the information from readings and lectures. By combining these two reading strategies, I was able to gather information from lectures and the readings to create an efficient outline that will organize my paper. I decided to use these two strategies in a paper outline form because I usually have trouble organizing my papers out so that they make sense. These two strategies really helped me collect all the information needed for this paper while creating an outline and rough draft that are proficient.

For TART and Charlie is Smart, I first chucked all my reading out that I had for my indigenous religion course. I read twenty pages each day starting Monday all the way till Sunday. By doing this, I was able to complete the course novel. For every 20 pages that I read I would go back skim all the important key words and terms within those chapters and write them down so that I could use those key words in my paper. In order to succeed in ANT273, you must attend every class because Dr. Arnold's class is very a very lecture based class. By this I mean going to his class you learn information needed to also put in papers. The readings and lecture notes help with the information that is need for each paper. Next, clarifying each of the notes and readings is extremely important because just reading the texts once and going over your notes once will not help you in achieving to write a paper. I had to clarify my readings at least twice and I have ad to go see my T.A. for the class at least three times in order to help me fully understand what is need to put in the paper. The last thing I did for my paper after understand the text and gathering all my material and evidence together was to begin my outline.

I am definitely using these two strategies for my next paper. They were extremely helpful to me because I was really able to stay organized throughout this whole procedure.

Plug in Notes and 1 Plus 3 Notes

My Bio 121 exam is on October 24th, so I decided that I would use both the Plug in Notes and the 1 Plus 3 Notes to prepare for this exam. I wanted to test out which strategy would be most helpful out of the two, and on top of that I wanted to do everything I could to do learn the material in the most efficient way possible.

Plug In Notes

For this strategy I went to my BIO 121 lecture, and took down many key concepts and terms. Right after class ended I used these notes, and the information that I remembered the professor spoke of in class, and I wrote down some possible test questions. What I noticed during that lecture was that, for every term we h

ad to know the building blocks, functions, and its purpose. So, for my questions that is exactly what I did. I made questions for myself that made me reinforce these terms, and beyond. As a a student, this was a method that allowed me to look back at my notes, and it was almost as if I sat through a lecture twice. Furthermore, this allowed me to memorize the information, and

I felt as if I made the most out of the lecture. One p

roblem I had was that sometimes I

would have another class right after my lecture, so I would have to do these questions around nighttime.

1 Plus 3 Notes

For this strategy I immediately noticed that this forced me to organize my notes, and focus on the key/basic topics. In the given space I noticed that I could not go too much in depth with anything, however, from experience, I know that if I knew the basics I was in a great position to tackle the details. So for example, in section A i listed some of the key basic topics of the unit that was covered during lecture. This may have not been all the terms, however, it were key concepts that would eventually lead me to to the more complex concepts.

In Section B, I put diagrams of a Eukaryotic cell, th

e cell division, and the process of meiosis because these diagrams alone would serve me better than a paragraph for each of those terms. Also due to the lack of space I was only able to explain each term very briefly.

For section C, I listed some of the possible test questions that I thought my Professor would ask. Since, he likes to ask specific questions, and not just the definitions of the terms, I took a very detail oriented approach when making t

hese questions. I noticed that it was a effective way to close out my notes because after finishing sections a and b, making up these questions made me look back at those terms for one last time. I had to really think, and look back at my textbook to make these questions.

NOTES(I use my laptop to take notes)

1 Plus 3 Notes

I found the 1 plus 3 notes to be more effective in a class like BIO 121. There is a lot of information to be learned, and furthermore, the questions on the tests are very detailed. Also, in the 1 plus 3 notes it forced me to make test questions, and on top of that reorganize my notes, so it obviously is a better strategy then the plug in notes. One problem I had with 1 plus 3 notes was that I could not fit as much information as I would have liked. It may be because I just started using this strategy, but I think I study more efficiently by just making a study sheet that has all the details written out for me.

Note Taking

This week I used two note taking strategies. I used Plug-In Notes, and 1 Plus 3 notes in PHI 192. I used these strategies in Philosophy because I thought they would help me learn the different theories the best. I'm a visual learner so I really like 1 Plus 3 notes because of the chart, and I also really liked Plug-In Notes since its so similar to 20 Min Test Prep. For plug in notes what I did was I would take my regular notes in class and after each main topic the professor would talk about I would create a chart. One half of the chart is for questions and the other half is for the answers. Its similar to 20 Min Test prep the only difference is you are doing this during class while you are taking notes. At the end of the week you should go through the plug in notes and answer the questions to make sure you know the material. I think this strategy will really help me out because it forces me to really pay attention to some of the questions the professor asks when giving the notes. I take a lot of the questions he asks and use them as the plug in notes. For 1 plus 3 notes what I did was at the end of each class I would go through all of the notes just to review. Then I would take all the important main topics and write it down on the left hand side of the chart. I would then take some of the more detailed information and write it down on the right hand side of the chart. After I was done writing the notes I would make about 5 questions and put them on the bottom of the chart. At the end of the week I would go through and answer the questions. This strategy really helped me because it forces me to be engaged with the notes even after the class is over. It gives me good review and helps me anticipate test questions.

Plug In Notes

MIDTERMS are here....... I don't know about anyone else, but just the word alone stresses me out!!! This week was difficult for me to stay on track, but I somehow managed to make it through the week. So good thing we learned a couple new strategies in class this week. In class we also talked about the two different types of note taking. They are:

• Comprehensive- which are more Lecture based
• Skeletal- which is Powerpoint based

*These two course are Skeletal based, because during class I jot down the most important facts and then add some examples. They use Powerpoint rather than just lecturing.

The two strategies were 1 plus 3 and Plug it in. Both of these strategies worked good for most of my classes, but the one that I really enjoyed doing was Plug It In. I chose to do this strategy for my Oceanography and Biology classes. Both of these classes are Powerpoint based because there is a lot of remembering.

To get started we should refresh our memories of L.A.M.E

Learner- What details are shared in the assignment so we understand them as a learner?

Action- What strategy was used and why?

Materials- What was the work product? Why was the strategy taken in that particular course?

Evaluation- How did this person evaluate what worked well? What could be changed and adapted to make learning this material more relevant and memorable?

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, lets get started with this weeks task. So I decided to use the Plug It In notes for my Bio and Oceanography class since there are a lot of diagrams and definitions. These notes helped me because I am Kinesthetic learner, so I learn better when I write or draw things out. So to start, I took notes only on specific things that the Professor put emphasis on. Then you just leave 5-6 spaces in between each thing so that when you come back after class you can fill it in with either a drawing or graphic organizer of some sort. After that you would make 5-10 possible question that you feel would be asked on the next exam. Then at the end you just answer those questions and you have a perfect study aid. This strategy is so simple and definitely worth doing. Now when you go and look over your notes, they will be organized and it will be more efficient for you. Since I have an exam in Biology on the 24th this will be a very good study aid for me.

Here is how my strategy for this week turned out:

And it's as simple as that.

Exam Project

For this weeks Blog we are working on our Exam Projects. For this project I decided to do the Exam Experiment for my Biology 121 class. I chose this particular one, because I am struggling in this course and I want to make sure that I do good on my exams. Part 1 is due next Friday, so to start it I wrote down the Exam date, the format and the material that was going to be covered. Next I wrote down the way I study for the exam and how effective it was. Then I made the source, topic and study schedule. You could either make them separately or put them all together, I chose to put them all together. For the source you would put whether it came from your notes, the lecture, lab, movie,etc For the topic, you had to write down what chapter or specific topic you had to study and finally for the study schedule you would just simply put down the exact date and time you would be studying that certain topic. Next you had to create a study sheet and it had to be in the form of a graphic organizer. The 3 options that I chose was the chart, “T” chart and the cause and effect. For the normal chart, you would make 3 boxes, in the first on you had to write down a term, in the middle you put the definition and then the last box you would draw or write and example. For the “T” chart you would make a “T” shape and on the left side you would write the term and on the right side the definition. My last chart was cause and effect, this chart looks exactly like the “T” chart except on the left you would write a cause and on the right would be when it was effected. The reason why all these charts help me, is because I am a kinesthetic and visual learner. So me drawing and looking over the charts helps me, for the simple fact that while I am “doing” something I am also learning the information. This Exam Experiment is going to be very helpful to me and I am really excited to see my results on my exam.

For this weeks tech assignment on Exam Prep, I used Anticipating Test Questions in my ECN 203class and my PHI 192 class. I didn't find this method as effective as 2o Min Test prep since I'm not as familiar with it. Although it wasn't as helpful it is helping meprepare for my test. I still recommend 20 Min Test prep first. For Anticipating Test Questionswhat I did was went through all of my notes and found some examples of questions the teacher asked. I would analyze the questions to see what patterns the teacher used when writing them. I would also see if the teacher wanted us to have an understanding of the information asked in the question or if the teacher wanted us to analyze the information. I would use this technique because as soon as I know the patterns I am able to anticipate future questions. This technique is real good for anticipating questions because you can come up with questions the teacher will actually ask. In my economics class I go through my notes after class and look for practice questions the teacher gives us. Then based on the practice question, i anticipate more. Its similar to 20 min test prep but different at the same time. For philosophy the teacher doesn't ask many questions so of the questions he does ask I take a look at them and find the patterns so I will know how to answer them on tests. Usually the teacher wants to know our understanding of different theories, thats why there aren't many questions to anticipate.The reason I didn't like this method compared to 20 min test prep was because with 20 min test prep I thought it was easier for me to just write down possible questions during class while taking notes. I found that more effective.

Kevin Kim's Source Outline, Topic Outline, and test questions

This week I made both a source outline and topic outline. However, my study sheet differs from the traditional way of a outline because I combined both outlines into one. Not only did I label by the title, and topic, but also by source. I decided to combine them both because personally for me I know that I learn better when my notes are just in one format. This helped me be organized, furthermore whenever I wanted to go more in depth in a topic I had the chapter and sometimes the actual page next to my notes. This proved to be one of my best study outlines ever because it was very easy on the eyes, and very helpful in information. Also, writing this outline helped me because I had the read and study while putting all the information together. It was a great way to make connections to different terms, and studies to psychologists. Here is my Study outline for my PSY 205 class.

Next strategy I used was making test questions. I noticed that making test questions was a great study method as well as guessing possible test questions. When doing this strategy it made me look back at my notes, and it forced me to think critically about what the Professor is most likely to put on the test. I think this method fits my learning strategy because I know that I can not just read a lot and expect to do well on a test. I have to apply the information that I learned either my retelling what I know to a friend or in this case write out my own questions based on my notes. These test questions are from my HST 101 class as I used the lecture, discussion, and notes to come up with these questions.

Anticipating Test Questions

For this weeks tech assignment on Exam Prep, I used Anticipating Test Questions in my ECN 203 class and my PHI 192 class. I didn't find this method as effective as 2o Min Test prep since I'm not as familiar with it. Although it wasn't as helpful it is helping me prepare for my test. I still recommend 20 Min Test prep first. For Anticipating Test Questions what I did was went through all of my notes and found some examples of questions the teacher asked. I would analyze the questions to see what patterns the teacher used when writing them. I would also see if the teacher wanted us to have an understanding of the information asked in the question or if the teacher wanted us to analyze the information. I would use this technique because as soon as I know the patterns I am able to anticipate future questions. This technique is real good for anticipating questions because you can anticipate questions the teacher will actually ask. In my economics class I go through my notes after class and look for practice questions the teacher gives us. Then based on the practice question, i anticipate more. Its similar to 20 min test prep but different at the same time. For philosophy the teacher does ask many questions so of the questions he does ask I take a look at them and find the patterns so I will know how to answer them on tests. Usually the teacher wants to know our understanding of different theories, thats why there aren't many questions to anticipate.The reason I didn't like this method compared to 20 min test prep was because with 20 min test prep I thought it was easier for me to just write down possible questions during class while taking notes. I found that more effective.

procrastination

This week in Dr. Blumin’s course I learned the effect of procrastination. Tips I have learned throughout this course are to first, stop thinking about the task you must complete and to start actually doing the task. Planning out what you need to achieve can definitely help you achieve the task. Although, when planning out what tasks you must do to get done, over planning and thinking can always have an opposite effect. Look at what needs to get done and take it one step at a time instead of trying to overloading yourself. Going off from what I said we go into step two which is to just take the first step. When us as students start to look too far into the future of all our assignments, projects and studying we always seem to think it is impossible to complete and eventually give up or shut down. This is why you plan out by priorities and have to say to yourself, “what needs to get done first?” Having priorities and knowing what is important and less important can help you finishing your task a lot more efficiently. This goes into my next step which is, start with your hardest task first. Having completed a subject that is difficult for you or is time consuming can make you feel more relieved and good about yourself when you get something challenging and long out of your way first. To conclude on these steps, the last one to try and achieve would be to face your fears. For me, this is probably the biggest challenge because I hate the feeling of being overloaded with work and knowing that you have such little time to complete it. Not taking your first step in accomplishing your work is probably the worst feeling to have. Go over everything you have to do and organize it out by what needs to get done first to what is not so important. Just don’t make excuses for yourself into why you can’t finish something that you started. Procrastination is big with every student but by following these steps and taking control of your emotions can help you finish all of your work effectively :).

COST Problem Solving

This week the Problem Solving task that I used was COST. I used COST for my WRT class and for CLS. I chose COST because sometimes when I'm in my study tables at manly I have trouble focusing. I seem to get distracted when there are a lot of people in the study rooms. COST allows me to analyze the current situation (the problem) and come up with a desired situation (what I want to be fixed). Once you know your desired situation you come up with a plan to help you fix the problem at hand. At the end of the week you can evaluate yourself to make sure the technique is working. If it hasn't been working the way you want it to you can make changes until it solves your problem. Me not being able to focus in study tables when there are other people around was my problem. I came up with a pretty good desired situation that I wanted to happen so I wouldn't get distracted and actually got my work done. I would even reward myself if I stuck to what my plan was. Because I couldn't do my work when other people were around I decided to go to my own private tutor room. This helped get away from all the noise and distractions. I decided I would set a timer on my phone and do 30 minutes of work straight. After the 30 minutes was up I would reward myself with a 5 to 10 minute break to socialize. This technique helped me because it allowed me to get a lot of work done in that 30 minutes but then it also had scheduled breaks for me. That way I wasn't taking a break every 5 minutes because I was getting distracted. The reason I used this technique in CLS and WRT was because I think the technique works best for writing assignments. It helps a lot with essays because I can actually sit down and have time to write with out getting distracted. The work that used to take me 2 1/2 hrs now only takes me about an hr to an hr and a half because I'm more focused and on task.