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.