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

[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.