Hi, I’m Dr. Stephen Chew.
I’m a professor of psychology here at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.
This is the last in a series of videos on how to study effectively in college.
In this video, we take on a situation that most students face at one point in their college
careers.
They take an exam and make a terrible grade.
For many students, it is the lowest grade they’ve ever made.
Alright, so you’ve blown an exam.
You want to do things that will help you improve your situation and avoid doing things that
will make the situation worse.
The two worst things you can do is panic or go into denial.
In my general psychology class, it isn’t unusual for a quarter to a third of the class
to make D’s and F’s on the first exam.
But, that exam is worth less than 20% of the final grade, and I offer ways to raise a low
exam score.
With over 80% of the grade still out and with ways to minimize the low score, students have
an excellent chance of raising their grade in the course as long as they take positive
steps right away.
Denial is not one of those positive steps.
I have students who fail three exams and they come and talk to me and ask me what they can
do to raise their grade.
That late in the semester there are very few options.
So it is very important that you take positive steps right way.
So what are the positive steps to take?
It is critical that you try to identify what went wrong with your preparation on the exam.
First, be honest with yourself.
How thorough was your preparation?
Did you commit sufficient time for both study and adequate review?
Did you go to class and pay attention?
Did you do the assigned work?
I have students who come and talk to me and who act as if there is some magic shortcut
which will allow them not to do all the work but still make a passing grade.
They say things like, “Well, I haven’t been doing the reading, but I have been coming
to class.”
Now, I know there are classes where, perhaps, you can read the textbook and not go to class
and still pass, or you can come to class and not read the textbook and still pass.
But you are much better off in over-preparing for the first exam and then streamlining later
for the later exam than you are in under-preparing for the first exam and starting out in a hole.
The next thing you should do is review your exam to see what you missed, and then discuss
your situation with your professor.
It isn’t fun to review an exam you did poorly on, but you need to use it to help diagnose
what went wrong and how to change for the next exam.
Were your mistakes spread out across topics or were they focused on one particular topic?
If your mistakes were spread out across topics, that means that you need a comprehensive improvement
of your study strategies.
If they are focused on one particular topic, then you need to try and understand why that
topic gave you particular difficulty.
Did you follow instructions?
Did you misinterpret questions?
If you misinterpreted questions, then perhaps you need to discuss with your instructor how
to follow the instructions or how to interpret the instructions correctly.
Also, look at your errors, and see if you had recorded the information needed to answer
the question correctly in your notes.
If you did not have the key information in your notes, then you need to improve your
note-taking.
If you didn’t have the information highlighted in your text, you need to improve your reading.
The key point here is that you have to study, take notes, and read at the level of detail
and understanding that your teacher expects.
After reviewing your exam, go discuss how you prepared and what you discovered from
reviewing your exam with your teacher.
Most faculty want to see their students learn and succeed.
The key, though, is that faculty are most willing to help students who are taking steps
to help themselves, like reviewing their exams and being open to different ways of studying.
It’s the struggling students who don’t come to see us who are most likely to fail.
Faculty are not your enemy.
Next, you need to examine your study strategies to see if they are effective or not.
If you haven’t viewed the earlier videos in this series, you should do so.
Poor study strategies are often appealing because they are easy and mindless to do,
like skimming over your notes without really thinking about them.
Or reading over a text quickly without really trying to comprehend it, or studying with
friends when it really isn’t studying.
Bad study habits can also be effortful to do, but they don’t require deep processing,
like recopying your notes without really thinking about them or organizing them.
Good study strategies are effortful and they require you to process information deeply
and meaningfully.
Think about what your study strategies are making you do and use the principles of deep
processing to evaluate whether your study strategies are effective or ineffective.
Note that ineffective and effective strategies can be superficially similar.
So for example, mindlessly recopying your notes is a bad study strategy, but actively
organizing and thinking about the connections within your notes is an effective study strategy.
Finally, come up with a plan for better preparation and study to improve your scores.
Here are some basic strategies you can use to help raise your grade.
Commit the time and effort required to develop and use effective study strategies, Minimize
distractions, Attend class, Set realistic study goals.
Space out study time; avoid cramming, and maximize review time Don’t start letting
some classes or assignments slide to try to catch up with others.
This is a dangerous practice.
Students start skipping one class or letting assignments slide to give themselves extra
time on another.
You can easily end up in trouble in both classes.
You need to figure out a way to do the best you can in all your classes.
Don’t give away points.
A lot of times I will see struggling students give away points by failing to follow directions
or skipping certain assignments.
On a writing assignment, for example, students may be required to have a cover sheet on their
paper.
Some students fail to have that cover sheet and they lose points because of failure to
follow instructions.
Or on a discussion assignment, students may be required to post comments to a discussion
board, but some students will fail to do so because it is only 5% of their grade.
But failing to do so, giving away those points, makes it that much harder for them to make
a good grade.
5% is half a letter grade.
Over the course of my career, I’ve worked with many students who have blown the first
exam.
Here is a list of things NOT to do.
Don’t be the students that…Keep studying the same way and hoping for improvement, or
Waits until the end of the semester to seek help, Starts skipping some classes or assignments
to focus on other classes or assignments, Falls farther and farther behind waiting to
find time to catch up, Crams at the last minute to read the material, Doesn’t do assignments
because they are late or only worth a few points, Panics and gives up.
Ok, so you blew an exam.
Put yourself in the best possible position to improve our score.
Diagnose your problems, come up with a workable plan, and set realistic goals.
If you have poor study habits, take immediate steps to improve your study skills.
Remember, this will take a sustained effort on your part, because not only are you developing
more effective study skills, you have to overcome entrenched, ineffective study skills.
This will take multiple attempts on your part to find the best study strategies for you
and there may be setbacks along the way.
But, once you develop effective, automatic study strategies, then they will give you
an edge in any learning situation.