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So, I'm studying for a massive end of program exam for my master's
I have to fit this into working from like 9-630 a week and other classes.
I'm in a course for helping me find my weakness, but since dakka has some smart people, I figured I would ask if anyone has study advice, all I'm doing now is rereading relevant chapters while making flash cards.

Sorry, I don't have any advice that you should follow.

But good luck.

If it's a lot of information you have to memorize, I can highly recommend Anki. It's a program where can write your own cards with a question and an answers side of the card. It can also keep track on what cards you already learned and how well you knew something the last round.
Learning lots of stuff means you have to start early and take little steps. Memorizing 50 answers is easier if you learn 5 new ones every day and repeat older ones that learning 10.


Edit: it's important to use as much of your brain as possible! Write down the answer, repeat it out load, repeat it without looking at the text. The more parts of your brain have to interact with a given information the easier it is to learn it.

I don't know if that is 1:1 transferable for you but I had good experience with the following:

As it is a massive amount of information it's more important that you say "something" to most of the topics than it is to know everything of a specific one.
So I did little cards with just some headlines for the topics that I had with me all the time and was regularly looking at, trying to be able to say something meaningfull/answer the most fundamental questions of each line. Whenever I was home or had time to look into my folders I was reading up those headlines I had trouble with, whenever I was underway and had five minutes I pulled out the cards and was checking through.

In the end I could get adequate knowledge of a broad range of topics in relatively short time and the high amount of repeats (at least once any one or two waking hours) helped memorize it.

So what I mean for example for biochemistry there could be stuff like:
citrate cycle
DNA
Amino-Acids
photosynthesis
...

Looking at the first line I should remember things like: what does the citrate cycle do, where does it happen, how does it look like (which molecules are involved), why does it happen?
etc.

Environment.

Me? I can’t study or work in silence. When working from home, the telly or YouTube is on as background noise.

Others need a very quiet environment. You’ll know you best, and what works for you. Take pains to get that right.

Something I do in terms of my job is being aware when I’m just not taking it in. At those points, I change it up. I might go for a walk, or do some laundry, hoovering, washing up etc. Basically something to shake my brain loose from its current thought process, and in doing so let it bubble away without it stressing me.

As it sounds like you’ll be burning the midnight oil due to daytime commitments? Eat Well. Get your 5 a day. Go for nutritious foods, not just empty calories from Handy Snacks. Give your brian and body good fuel.

Remember to sleep! Take a nap if needed, but don’t just nap.

Study with someone and check / challenge each other. Learning something when you feel you shouldn't fail someone else or you want to look good in someone's eyes drastically improves motivation -we're pack animals after all, conditioned to rely on each other.

In addition to the above...

Regular breaks in important. I think 45 minutes has been shown to be about the optimum time for human concentration, but individuals vary.

More of an exam technique point, but understanding the structure of the test is very important. For example, if there is negative marking how you answer the test will be drastically different as guessing will cost you points. If you know some topic areas only account for a small amount of marks in the test, don't invest much time into revising them when your study time is limited. My example was skipping the large, complex topic of embryology because it was only worth 7 marks out of 140. It was just too low yield.

Finally, if there are any question banks available in your field, they can be really useful. Personally I learn best by doing, so question banks are ideal for me to study for written exams. Unfortunately, many fields/exams do not have hundreds of relevant questions with explanations available to churn through. Anki (mentioned above) is basically a way of creating your own personal question bank.

Test-taking is its own skill, so if you know the format and expectation (essay vs multiple choice), you're halfway there since you'll know how best to present what you have.

I recall a history class where I got marked down on an essay because I veered into political theory (my other major) and the prof didn't like that, not at all. I said: "What, do you just want a dry recitations of names, places and dates?" He said, yes, that's history.

The final was an essay format, so as soon as the blue books were handed out - before I even read the questions - I wrote out the line of succession for Holy Roman Empire for the period of the class and then dove into the questions. Turned out, that was EXACTLY the kind of crap he wanted.

So if you need to (and time and materials permit), knocking out a reference at the start can be helpful.

Nutrition, rest, breaks - all good stuff. I'm told it's best to study in a way that mimics the testing environment, so don't be sipping beer and listening to loud music while studying unless you'll be taking the exam in a bar.

Mind mapping can be a very useful way of organising your knowledge and it’s a different kind of visualisation, so, as Brickfix said, uses different parts of your brain.

Also, in addition to having regular breaks, practice some kind of meditation / calming method, so that you can walk into the exam cool and rested and keep your focus.

Finally RTFQ. Read. The. fething. Question.

When you get in the exam thoroughly read through all of the question paper. Make sure you understand what answer they are asking for and, if it’s a multi-question paper, plan the order that you want to answer them. Pick the ones you know first and leave the ones you’re less sure about until last. Better to absolutely nail some questions than waste lots of time trying to figure out a question you can’t remember how to do. Plus, your brain will work on the stuff in the background, so by the time you’ve answered the first questions, your subconscious may have figured out the later ones. But that only works if you’ve read them first.

And make sure you answer the right number of questions. If it’s 3 from 5, you MUST have 3 answers, so put something down, even if it’s only a bunch of random stuff your brain remembers on that topic. You can usually still pick up some marks for relevant bits of method.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Addendum:

You mention that you’re on a course trying to identify your weaknesses, but bear in mind, you can spend a lot of time trying to become average at something you’re weak at, or you can put that effort into becoming amazing at something you’re good at. So long as you don’t have a critical weakness, accept that no-one’s perfect and play to your strengths.

Which also gave me another exam prep thought, do you have past papers available to practice with? Are there certain questions that always come up? Prepare for those (to a degree; you don’t want to be completely reliant on a question that doesn’t come up). Practice answering them under exam conditions and, if possible, get your professor/lecturer/tutor to look over them and give you pointers (as the Commissar explained).

Final, final thought; good luck!

Spread it out in time, do not cram.

Instead, review regularly every night for an hour.

Understand what we need to put in long-term memory and what you will need to brain dump out immediately when you can like acronyms, formulas, etc.

80 / 20.

20 % input = 80 % of the output.

That and as easy E stated do not procrastinate.
Don't.

A lot of it is going to be down to how your brain processes stuff,

personally i need to write the information down as i'm reading it, then re-read the notes and write them down again as brief headlines (flashcards)

if you're more verbally inclined reading out loud when you get to the short notes and headlines can really help too

and i study much better with some background noise (music on the radio work for me as long as there's not too much chat, or songs i actually care about) but i know other folk really do need dead silence

if you can try and separate your revision into blocks that are dissimilar as your less likely to end up mixing things up, harder to so the more specialised you get but you get the general idea (to give an extreme example bit of maths, bit of english, bit of geology rather than bit of maths, bit of statistics, bit of physics)

As for taking exams,

1. Read all the questions briefly before you write anything (stops you putting too much time into the first answer)

2. turn over all the pages just in case there's another question on the back (my Dad spent years marking University exams and it's amazing how often people can miss the last quesition on the back of the final page of an exam paper

3. Answer the question that's been asked, again far too many folk see what the topic of a question is and try and put down everything they know about it rather than just what it asks for (not only does mean fewer marks, it also takes longer)

4 answer all the questions you need to, even if there's one you're not great on, getting 30 or 40% answeing something your not great on is far easier than trying to turn a 90% answer into a 95% one

Hope it goes well

I will say, it is an All multiple choice test meant to emulate the test I will be taking in a year. I will know right away.

Someone mentioned mind mapping, what is the best for that? And how do you do it

If the test is a year from now that will be good to get regular studying in throughout the week. For Engineers we have a P.E. Exam which is 8 hours and covers a wide variety of items. For me my exam was in the summer and I had begun studying in January after work 2 hours a night for 3 days a week. I found that routine studying over a long period of time and never missing a night helped the most.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I will say, it is an All multiple choice test meant to emulate the test I will be taking in a year. I will know right away.

Someone mentioned mind mapping, what is the best for that? And how do you do it

Any negative marking for incorrect answers? If not, multiple choice is good for ensuring you answer every question. I generally found that it was best to try to think of the answer before looking at the options, then choose the closest option. Also, generally trusting my first answer was better than second guessing later, unless I knew I'd made an obvious mistake on re-reading.

Also, look for the two answers which are close to each other. That can help you re-read the question properly.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I will say, it is an All multiple choice test meant to emulate the test I will be taking in a year. I will know right away.

Someone mentioned mind mapping, what is the best for that? And how do you do it

It was originally something you did on paper, but there’s a lot of software that you can get to do it now. (I still use paper)

Essentially you start with a single word in the centre of the page (let’s say “science”) and then you start branches from that going around the word, again one word on each branch (so my first branches might be physics, chemistry, biology) and then you keep adding branches for as long as you can. (So from physics I might have quantum, Newton, astrophysics. Quantum might link to statistics, uncertainty, etc.)

The idea is it allows you to visualise all of the areas of a topic, but with a structure, rather than just a list. It can also reveal links and connections between topics that you didn’t realise were there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map

 Haighus wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I will say, it is an All multiple choice test meant to emulate the test I will be taking in a year. I will know right away.

Someone mentioned mind mapping, what is the best for that? And how do you do it

Any negative marking for incorrect answers? If not, multiple choice is good for ensuring you answer every question. I generally found that it was best to try to think of the answer before looking at the options, then choose the closest option. Also, generally trusting my first answer was better than second guessing later, unless I knew I'd made an obvious mistake on re-reading.

Nope, the test is like 200questions and a simple 0 if you get ir wrong, .5 if right. need 80% to pass.

Is this a standardized Government or Certification test?

If it's multiple choice, keep in mind all of the typical tricks. eliminate wrong answers, understand if the call of the question is "select the correct" or "select the best" answer, and understand if each question is it's own fact pattern or if there are lengthy passages to read with multiple questions.

When studying for this, I would focus on familiarity at first, then try to understand as much as you can, but it takes some strategy to know how deep to go on any given subject. For example, on the bar exam, test prep companies actually advise not even bothering trying to learn certain highly complex rules, like conveyances, because the time spent learning them could be spent learning things that will be on more questions.

But try to be disciplined. Study a little bit most days. Give yourself some breaks, but a little bit nearly every day is better than trying to cram all day saturdays.

I am both an experienced teacher and a lead examiner, so this is an area that I have some expertise in. It's also exam season, so you aren't getting a long answer with the supporting evidence, but I'll recommend some pointers with strategies-

Chunk information down into key points-(highlighting, flash cards, fish bone diagrams etc.)

Prioritise information into levels of importance (mountain to kennel sorts, heirarchies)

Vary how you engage with the material. Re-reading won't do much. Make drawings, songs, quizzes, write the information down and add missing info in red, retest yourself later on the red bits, write things down in strange places like on bananas or oranges etc. Anything different will build more neural pathways to the information, making recall faster and easier.

Retrieval and Recall practice- quizzes, what did you learn last lesson/week/month activities.

Assessment for learning- study the mark scheme, so that you understand how you are being assessed. Read other papers with the mark scheme to understand how it is applied.

Practice skills that you need to develop and get quality feedback. Focus on improving in these areas.

Rest. 15 minutes of revision, 5 minute break. Avoid cognitive overload. Water, sleep, some physical activity and decent food.

Avoid distractions.

To borrow from the Romans; train hard, fight easy. I hope that it goes well for you.

I would recommend not being drunk or under the influence of narcotics at the time of the test.

When I was in medical school and working weekends, for 4th year to prepare for my final exams I studied 3-6 hours per day, every day from January 26th to December 12 when the last exam was on.

I read handwritten summarized notes of all the course notes I had taken over 4 years.
18 years later the vast majority is still imprinted.

Just hard work.


Also 25 mins study, 5 mins off and after 3 cycles take half an hour off. Allows breaks and focus of concentration. After 25 mins the retention just isn't there to make it worthwhile.

I know this is technically necromancy

But I wanted to thank you all, I passed my final program exam with a 94 outta a hundred.
As I talked to others in my program who took it, some with well below passing, I was scared, but all the tips helped, remaining calm, going back and reading. It all just work

Thank you all for the tips and help.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I know this is technically necromancy

But I wanted to thank you all, I passed my final program exam with a 94 outta a hundred.
As I talked to others in my program who took it, some with well below passing, I was scared, but all the tips helped, remaining calm, going back and reading. It all just work

Thank you all for the tips and help.

That's great news! Congrats on passing with flying colours, looks like all your hard work paid off.

Huzzah! Glad we could help

Great work

Well done dude!

Yes, you is allowed a beer!

Congratulations.

Good job! I am proud of you HotSauceMan!