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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2016 11:47:18 GMT -5
How did you cope with any... - mental block towards the subject
- apathy towards the text
- time, especially when you had to do a complete course in a fraction of the regular duration
- panic attacks
- failure
I'm tutoring some girls...the exam is in a little over 5 weeks, some have never opened the text and it's about 600 pages.
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Post by codystarbuck on Oct 29, 2016 15:04:51 GMT -5
Worst I ever had was a physics class in college. I had to take the class as part of my Navy ROTC scholarship requirements and had no interest in the class. I had serious problems with electrical problems, relating to resistance and the like, and some other things involving calculus. I was bombing the lab portion of the class, due to a TA who couldn't explain anything and a timed computer quiz component, where I had trouble doing calculations on my solar calculator, in a darkened room. I had one exam that I blew, where I didn't even answer one question, with 7 components. My exam was mis-marked and I was given 7 points out of 0, instead of 0 out of 7. That gave me a passing grade. I memorized every single solution for every question on the previous exams, to prepare for the final. Luckily, that was 2/3 of the final and I got through the rest and got a passing grade for the course. I got As and Bs for all of my college courses, except for calculus and physics, which the Navy required me to take (I was an economics major).
Since that time, I have learned to focus on the key components of the material I need to learn and don't get bogged down in excessive detail. I learned to just drill over and over on those key points, until I could recite them verbatim and spit it out on the exam.
Failure is something you have to learn to accept, over time. The main thing you learn is that failure isn't the end and you can always try again. No exam is the final note on a life; you can always redo it. It's better to prepare for it; but, it doesn't mean death.
Time comes down to structuring things, allowing so much time for each element you need to study, more for things where you are weak, and less for things you understand.
Panic attacks are a different thing. Some people suffer from severe ones, requiring medication to control. others just need to learn to center themselves and just approach things in a calm manner. If you can't solve it, move on, you can always come back. in fact, quite often, the answer is triggered by something else later in the test.
For me, I found it best to break information down into concepts I could understand and explain in basic terms. I could build on that. I tried to do that as I went through the course. then, when it came time for the final exam, I had a good foundation and focused on drilling the basics and working on my weak spots. I also always went to bed at a reasonable hour. i never crammed for an exam, overnight. i always felt a good night's sleep did more for me than caffeine and endless cramming. I could think more clearly and was far calmer in the exam. In college, we usually got 3 hours for a final; I never took more than an hour. Multiple choice didn't require that much pondering, and essays boiled down to "who, what, when, where, why and how." Everything else is padding and the instructor doesn't ant to read it. Give them the meat, not the feast. save that for when you have to state a proposition and defend it; just don't overdo it. defend with facts and clear examples and it will carry you through.
Apathy is harder. If a person doesn't care about the subject, they aren't going to exert the effort for the exam. That's the trick to good teaching, making it relatable to the audience. Too many peopl just present the text, without making it live.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2016 15:33:03 GMT -5
The hardest exam I ever had to take was the final for an undergrad class called Perspectives in Western culture-it was a double credit class (6 credits instead of the normal 3 so they grade counted twice for gpa and grad requirement). It was a combined, philosophy, theology and history course. The final exam was not written, it was a verbal exam administered one-on-one with the professor, and consisted of 3 newspaper articles given to you one at a time during the course of the hour, you had to read the article, then the professor selected 3 philosophers, theologies, or historical figures and asked you to react to, analyze, and comment on each article form the point of view of each of the three philosophers/thought systems/historical figures she had chosen. You didn't get the articles ahead of time, you didn't know which figures she would choose (and she chose 3 different ones for each article, so you had to be able to do 9 overall), and she cross-examined you after your initial statement as each one. You had to know the ins and outs of every thought system we had studied, be able to cite the written works we had read to corroborate the points of view you presented and had no access to any notes, cheat, sheets, etc. while doing so, and had to be able to articulate it all and answer questions and rebuttals form the professor while sitting face to face with her in her office. And it counted 40% of your grade (for 2 courses).
The only way to have prepped for that exam was to have been engaged in the course fully from the first day and have done all the work, attended all the classes, and digested the material over time. There was no cramming, cheating, and no second chance. You either knew the stuff and could articulate it in a high pressure situation, or you couldn't.
Her basic tenet was that you really don't know something unless you can explain it to someone else.
And that is what I would offer to you for your tutoring. Engage the students with each other. Don't just try explaining it all to them, try to have them work cooperative so each one is responsible for explaining parts to the others. If student 1 can focus on one thing and explain it to the others, she will know that part down pat and if the others she her master it, it gives them confidence they can too. Her learning it will help the others and as each one learns and masters their bit it helps the others do so too, the more they master together that way, the less anxiety there is and the less overwhelming it all seems.
If they are not willing to invest in it, if they are not willing to put effort and are not willing to learn, there is absolutely nothing you can do as a tutor. You cannot help someone who is not willing to help themselves or be helped. You cannot give them the knowledge, they must work to acquire it, even if you are helping them. But breaking it down to smaller pieces which each one can focus on can help make it seem more manageable and make up for the short time you have.
-M
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Post by Cei-U! on Oct 29, 2016 15:35:35 GMT -5
My worst was for Introduction to Physiology, a class I took ostensibly to learn anatomy for my cartooning career. Big mistake. The course was designed for Pre-Med majors, hard science with a brain-busting amount of raw memorization. Our grade depended solely on the averages of our test results from three mid-terms and the final. I failed the first mid-term, got a D on the second, and a C on the third. The only reason I got a B- out of the class was the long weekend I spent before the final with my friend and classmate Sue Dorning quizzing each other endlessly. I got an A+ on the final, yet if I'd had to take it 48 hours later, I'd have flunked again. I forgot everything I'd absorbed. Thankfully, it was the last of my four required science classes so this li'l art major didn't have to strain his math-challenged brain anymore.
Cei-U!
I summon the semester from hell!
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Oct 29, 2016 16:24:20 GMT -5
Physical exam for the draft board during the Vietnam War
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2016 19:36:24 GMT -5
Mine would be 2 compulsory papers (foundation & advanced) on the intricacies of UK Tax - Income Tax, Corporation Tax, Capital Gains Tax and Value Added Tax. It's not as though I wanted to do these but were part of what is now a 15 paper course. At least I got away from Inheritance Tax. Had a couple of resits  No way you could fudge this thing, you have to know ALL the rules to answer a question competently. I fudged a couple of other papers. In one I crammed 6 'hot' topics over 2 weeks and 4 of them came...out of a 23 topic textbook. It meant I went into the exam ignoring almost 75% of the syllabus. Passed by a safe margin. *phew* |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2016 20:05:35 GMT -5
Mine was Psychology Exam that my Professor put together in a hurry that tested our memory back in the Fall Quarter - this class was a year around class in my Community College that I attended and he made us to re-read the entire book and try to cram as much information that we possibly can and prepare for. He expected everyone to drop a grade or two on this exam and might even some D and F to show up. I was a borderline C to C+ student and I expected to get a D or D- on this Exam that was a 100 questions - all Multiple Choice on a card sheet that looks similar to this one below.  What even worst, the Professor told all students that we have 30 minutes to answer as many questions that you possibly can and it's was a pressure cooker of a exam. I barely answered 73 questions and got 13 of them incorrect. So, I got 60 out of 73 questions correct. But, he still considered the 27 remaining questions incorrect and add that to the 13 that I answered incorrect gave me a Score of 60 and I got a D for this exam. If I had an extra 15 minutes I would had done better. The Professor did this to test our knowledge, work under pressure, and cause all sorts of anxiety that made me and the rest of the class uneasy and that's what made this EXAM totally hard in the first place. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Oct 30, 2016 20:18:28 GMT -5
Physical exam for the draft board during the Vietnam War What happened? Did you just tell 'em about your history of littering and Alice's Restaurant?  |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Oct 30, 2016 20:53:35 GMT -5
Physical exam for the draft board during the Vietnam War What happened? Did you just tell 'em about your history of littering and Alice's Restaurant? Well, this was 1972 and the first year that they used a lottery system for the draft. It went by your date of birth and on a particular day, they pilled the dates out of a spindle one by one. it was something on the order that if your birthday was among the first 50 or so chosen, you would be immediately inducted. The next hundred dates, you'd go and get your physicals as well because there's a chance you'll be called. The rest,most likely, won't be needed unless circumstances changed. You can imagine how me and my friends gathered around the radio that night to hear the lottery results, broadcast live as the selections were made I was chosen at something like 120, the 2nd group, and got in the mail the date of my physical, about two months hence. There was no way I was going to Vietnam and contemplated methods of avoiding it. Pretending to be outrageously gay, reporting to the physical under the influence of a massive amount of drugs, chopping off some toes or fingers, going to Canada, going undercover or going to jail.I chose the drug route, the other options could be used later. So the night before my morning physical, I took some LSD. By the time of the actual testing, the hallucination period was about over but my system was overloaded with speed. i was a wreck and the details of the test or their reactions remain blurry All praise to Timothy Leary that the Vietnam War was in it's wind-down phase and they never got to call my number for that year. Once 1972 was over, I was safe. The results of my physical and how I was classified remains a mystery. As too, what my next step would have been if I was ordered to report |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
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Post by Confessor on Oct 31, 2016 5:49:00 GMT -5
What happened? Did you just tell 'em about your history of littering and Alice's Restaurant? Well, this was 1972 and the first year that they used a lottery system for the draft. It went by your date of birth and on a particular day, they pilled the dates out of a spindle one by one. it was something on the order that if your birthday was among the first 50 or so chosen, you would be immediately inducted. The next hundred dates, you'd go and get your physicals as well because there's a chance you'll be called. The rest,most likely, won't be needed unless circumstances changed. You can imagine how me and my friends gathered around the radio that night to hear the lottery results, broadcast live as the selections were made I was chosen at something like 120, the 2nd group, and got in the mail the date of my physical, about two months hence. There was no way I was going to Vietnam and contemplated methods of avoiding it. Pretending to be outrageously gay, reporting to the physical under the influence of a massive amount of drugs, chopping off some toes or fingers, going to Canada, going undercover or going to jail.I chose the drug route, the other options could be used later. So the night before my morning physical, I took some LSD. By the time of the actual testing, the hallucination period was about over but my system was overloaded with speed. i was a wreck and the details of the test or their reactions remain blurry All praise to Timothy Leary that the Vietnam War was in it's wind-down phase and they never got to call my number for that year. Once 1972 was over, I was safe. The results of my physical and how I was classified remains a mystery. As too, what my next step would have been if I was ordered to report Fascinating stuff, Ish. Thanks for sharing that with us. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2016 9:19:42 GMT -5
The U.S. Historiography final I took as a history grad student at Arizona State in 5/83 is the stuff of legend. Basically, the only way to prepare was to try to remember everything discussed &/or read that semester. The core of the exam was pretty simple: "Write down everything you know," with the only conditional being that the "everything" applied to, if memory serves, 5 different historiographic periods, which in turn meant writing down authors, works, main theses & dates, all the while tying those together in essay format.
The quickest anyone finished was 6 1/2 hours. I was there, I believe, 10 1/2. One poor sucker was still slaving away after 26 1/2 hours, the prof having relocated him to his office from the classroom at some point. He might still be there today if the prof hadn't decided to tell him to go home, since he needed his office.
I did make one of two A's, at least. The other went to the 6 1/2-hour guy, who'd been teaching history in the public school system for years. Sometimes I wonder if the prof didn't decide to give me the benefit of the doubt because he had trouble reading my handwriting, which is pretty poor under the best of circumstances.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2016 9:30:26 GMT -5
Political Science final exam, sr year of college. At that time, I was a hard partying fraternity member and had to have this course to graduate (it was a requirement for my minor). It was offered as a correspondence course and I had taken a couple before--they were quite easy and did not interfere with my partying (at the time, that was my focus unfortunately). The instructor expected you to treat the course as if you were in class. I bombed the mid-term (you had to attend class physically to take it), and realized this could keep me from graduating. I studied like no tomorrow and passed the class with a D-. I was beyond happy with that D-! The final was 6 or 7 pages long with multiple choice, matching, short answer, and essay. Every now and then, I have a nightmare about this class and in the dream I have failed and will not graduate. I then have to tell my parents. I despise that nightmare.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Oct 31, 2016 14:49:59 GMT -5
Is it bad that I've taken so few exams, and cared about the ones I did take so little, that I couldn't honestly tell you which was the hardest? To be honest, I'm struggling to even recall a time when I was in an exam, although I know I took them at school.
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No way you could fudge this thing, you have to know ALL the rules to answer a question competently. 
