I am a bad student

[trinityvixen]

I have many bad-student issues. I'm a procrastinator. I never learned to skim textbooks, I always have to plod through them, reading everything start-to-finish. I make lousy review notes. I never really cottoned on to writing papers with an outline; except for the odd research paper, everything was sort of free form following from a thesis. I always have to work/study/do homework to music or I start to freak myself out with quiet. (I barely went to libraries in college, and never without music when I did.) I usually do all my work on my bed, which leads me to fall asleep more often than not.

Today's bad-student issue is the inability to study on the day I have a test. Review, maybe. Look over problems, sure. But not with half-so-much attention as I had last night when I did TONS of review problems, or Sunday/Saturday when I did just about every odd-numbered problem in the textbook. Now that it's actually game day, I find myself barely able to LOOK at the textbook, much less prep. I barely remembered to make up my equations cheat-sheet that I'm allowed to bring to the test.

I'm really bad on test days. I would take every test first thing in the day, given the option, because having the day available to study does me no good and only makes me nervous--mostly about how much extra study time I'm not using...

Aiyah. Is it 6 yet?

Comments

[viridian.livejournal.com]

I've heard it's actually better not to study on the day of the test - just look over your notes. Something about the brain needing time to process the material it's learned - you don't want to be processing mid-test.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's a good thought. I worry, mostly, about psyching myself out. I think "needs time to process" is a better understanding of it.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

That sounds like an excuse to be lazy! My brain doesn't need to process, it just needs to store the information in temporary memory for a couple of hours...

[viridian.livejournal.com]

idk, it makes sense to me. If you're thinking about the stuff you just looked over, you're inevitably going to have less focus for the stuff you reviewed earlier.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Oh, I just review everything at the last minute!

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

Uh, no. I've been told the same thing. It means prepare before the day of the test.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Obviously I did that, but I would also review right up until the test began. Seemed to work fine for me.

[oblvndrgn.livejournal.com]

I don't even buy textbooks for my classes anymore, I just figure I can keep up with what's going on based on the lectures. Bad student, but money savings!

Various profs have always said that you're not really going to learn anything in the hours before an exam that you don't already know. Statistically, you do better if you sleep more the night before and rest up before an exam than panic. So maybe you're being a better student than you think!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I did manage to go to bed a little early and sleep in a bit this morning, so, who knows? Maybe that will help. For certain, I'll be more likely to stay awake in class tonight, thanks to the test, than I am on most other nights.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

I have most of those "bad" habits--people just work differently. Good luck on the exam!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Cheers. I will do my best. Then I will resume living like a normal person. Going to the store, playing video games, sleeping....

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Is that what normal people do?

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I learned to skim textbooks. But I also learned that doing so meant close to zero retention rate.

I always have to work/study/do homework to music or I start to freak myself out with quiet.
I am also like this. For quantitative tasks, I usually need NPR or an audiobook on, and lately this has extended to needing a TV on to read. Don't ask me way. Sometimes it helps me to have something to concentrate against, otherwise I get too distracted by my own thoughts.

I'm really bad on test days. I would take every test first thing in the day, given the option, because having the day available to study does me no good and only makes me nervous--mostly about how much extra study time I'm not using...
Totally with you there, too. At my high school, all the exams were in the gym, and they would make you wait outside the main room until test time. So there was always five-ten minutes when I've already stowed my backpack, cannot possibly study anymore, but don't have the test yet so don't know if I did enough. Worst. Ever. Kinda makes me glad I'm no longer in school! :)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I with you. I just want to put my stuff away and get to it. I don't want to sit there furiously going through stuff, and it makes me incredibly unnerved to sit around people who are doing that. Ugh.

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you've done a lot already. Sometimes you just reach study saturation point and need to stop
. :)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I understand that, yet I never feel like I'm studied out. I don't feel totally in command of everything now, either. Stress! I don't handle stress well any more!

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

You'll be fine! If you've reached the point where you can't take in any more information, you've probably done as much study as you could ever do. And trying to study more will just stress you out! Maybe skim the outlines?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Probably a good idea. Mostly, the problem I have is not knowing whether or not I've gotten all I need to out of what I know. I mean, I'll have equations to take with me, so will the application of those be hard? Or will it be as easy as it seems to have been in doing rote problem sets? I won't know until later!

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

That's only a problem if you were counting on that study time and then can't use it. If you didn't study last week, figuring you'd study today, problem. But if you always do this and did your studying early, then studying today wouldn't help anyway.

And reading all of the textbook is slower, but probably teaches you more than the people who just skim for the test.

It sounds like you're a lousy bad student - you actually do all the reading and prepare ahead!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I never feel I've studied enough. More, it feels like I've run out of things to study with--problem sets, powerpoint lectures--but haven't retained some magical "enough" that will make me feel less worried about this. I'm comparing what time I spent studying for this to what I did for my previous class, and it seems like nothing. But maybe the last class was just nuts? I dunno...

[six-demon-bag.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I was a terrible student in high school, particularly my senior year. Did all of my studying and homework in the library on lunch or in the few minutes I had before class started. Anything I couldn't get done in that time, just didn't get done. And I skipped a LOT of school that year. I nearly failed out of English, but my teacher let me make up the missing work siting that, despite my bad grade, I was probably her best student as far as knowing the material goes. I was very lucky that I had a quick memory and could often ace a test after cramming for it in just five minutes at the beginning of class.

ANYWAY, don't be too hard on yourself. Are your grades suffering due to these things?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

So far, no, I'm doing okay. So maybe I'm not doing everything terribly wrong?

[six-demon-bag.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd say that's the main thing. I mean maybe you could use improvement in certain parts of your habits, but results are results.