Anticipating Test Questions

     As I mentioned in my 5th journal, last week was a nightmare. I had four tests to prepare for IST-195, COM-101, PRL-206, and SOC-101. For some reason I felt it was okay to leave all the studying till the week before. Just the thought of the week in itself was a daunting task and I refused to believe it was actually coming up. However, as last saturday rolled around I knew that if there was any chance of me doing well I needed to buckle down.
     When I study for my exams I become very OCD. I must study in the exact place I feel comfortable in and with the exact study materials and methods I use for every exam. Although this could be argued as a negative, these study habits have worked for me in the past and I continue to use them. I put together an entire study guide with a combination of class notes, lectures, readings, and text book notes. I pile in a lot of detail and additionally search online for alternate definitions of specific theories or words. I like having the comfort of knowing multiple options of information for each topic. After I have done this I print out the study guide and go through and highlight all the key words and things that I should pay particular attention to and add notes in the margin that will help me remember the information. It is then that I go through one page at a time and learn the information.
     As I said before I am very stubborn when it comes to my studying habits and I'm usually not willing to alternate them. However, when I started reading through the CLS-105 text book something struck my eye, anticipating test questions. I never really thought about the positive effect this could have on one's ability to study for an exam. I never thought that trying to guess a question on an exam could be in any way accurate. Yet, when reading, I realized its more then just a guess its an educated prediction.
     I applied this method to my PRL-206 study guide. I went through my syllabus and identified that it's a facts based course which means that the questions are going to be more facts based then on specific terminology. She had given us over the weekend a study guide with a list of the test format. She said there was going to be 10-15 multiple choice questions, 5-10 true or false, 5-10 fill in the blank, and 8-10 short answers. This information also helped when trying to anticipate some of the exam questions. So, after I went through my study guide and started learning the information I made stars next to information I thought were really emphasized throughout the semester so far and created questions. The following night my professor held a review session where we reviewed everything on the review sheet. After I was able to go up to her and show her some of my questions. Although she wasn't allowed to tell me, I had a feeling I was headed in the right direction. Later that night as I was reviewing the information I really made a point to concentrate on the questions I made up. It was a useful tool because I was able to anticipate what the questions were going to be like and it gave me an idea of how I was going to have to think on this specific test. Ultimately, I walked out of the test feeling great. A lot of the questions I anticipated were either almost identical to the test questions or contained the same information. I would be very surprised if I walked away with less then an A on that exam.
     I am very excited that I have a new skill to add to my OCD ways and I am definitely going to be more open now when it comes to studying skills. The only objection I have to this method that some people might agree with is if you don't get the professors approval of these questions it might be a total waste of time to study questions that could have no relation to the actual exam. Although this is a good concern, I highly encourage students to talk to there professors and use this method in the future!
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