All Posts Tagged With: "exams"
In defense of the good old-fashioned exam
Take-home exams just aren’t the same
Photo by Patrik Axelsson on Flickr
I love almost everything about being a professor. Teaching, research—I even look forward to department meetings.
But I hate grading exams. And just as I become a flat-tax advocate every April when I’m trying to locate receipts and hoping I don’t owe the government money, every December I harbor fantasies of getting rid of exams altogether.
Many of my colleagues in the arts are way ahead of me on this, either giving no exams at all, or giving students an extra, essay-like assignment commonly called a “take-home” exam. But since you take it home and have an extended time to do it, it’s not really an exam in the traditional sense.
Weird ways Canadians are coping with exams
Don’t end up like the angry library girl at California State
Studying at Waterloo. By Colin O'Connor
We all know exams cause stress. That explains the reaction of this student in a noisy library at California State University, Northridge.
Personally, I’m with the angry girl.
But that level of stress is better avoided. Last week, we offered readers 10 ways to study stay sane while studying. It was a pretty traditional list. But students across Canada have found a few more creative ways to procrastinate, ahem, study. I thought I’d share them with you.
At McGill University last week, hundreds of students showed up for pet therapy with animals from Therapeutic Paws of Canada. This may sound bizarre to the uninitiated, but there’s reason to believe it works. Petting dogs releases oxytocin in humans. Oxytocin, the so-called “love drug,” reduces anxiety and engenders calm.
At the University of Windsor, Bernarda “Bernie” Doctor, the 78-year-old director of the Organization of Part-Time University Students, offered peers surprise “cookie therapy,” handing out 360 sugar rushes. It’s not the healthiest snack, but Bernie knows how to study: she’s been doing it 50 years.
Leave it to Canada’s computer science mecca, the University of Waterloo, to offer a virtual snowman building game as a study tool. Students can build and share their own Mr. or Mrs. Frosty while snowflakes fall gently down their computer screens. By the way, try typing “let it snow” into Google.
Finally, the award for the weirdest—and smartest—way to cope with exam stress goes to Uytae Lee, a first-year student at Dalhousie University. Lee turned his boredom while studying for a Sustainability 1000 exam into a stop-motion music video with a soothing soundtrack based on his study notes. That’s more fun than traditional studying—and I bet he did well on the exam too.
Surviving exam season
10 ways to study effectively without falling apart
Photo courtesy of comedy_nose on Flickr
Exams, assignments and anxiety: for university students, the end of classes in December is just the beginning. Fortunately, there are ways to make it through without sacrificing your well-being. Here, in no particular order, are 10 tips for surviving and thriving during exam season.
1. Embrace list making. Jot down your exam schedule, assignment due dates and important reminders on a calendar. Make a study schedule and stick to it, but don’t forget to pencil in breaks.
2. Find the right study space. Whether you prefer a bustling coffee shop or the library’s silent floor, find a proper chair and pick a well-lit space. Steer clear of the ultimate temptations: television and chatty roommates.
3. Triage. Let’s face it: you can’t properly analyze an entire Shakespeare anthology in three days. Time is limited, so study the hard subjects first (when you’re most alert) and prioritize material based on urgency and relevance.
4. Exercise. Regular workouts are shown to improve your mood, boost energy and promote better sleep. If all else fails, go outside. Remember outside? Try skating, tobogganing or a jog around the block for sun and exercise.
5. Put mental health first. Mental health is just as important as its physical counterpart. Familiarize yourself with your school’s counselling service and don’t be afraid to utilize it. The Mental Health Commission of Canada and websites like mindyourmind.ca also offer a number of tools and resources.
6. Eat healthy. It’s a no-brainer: fruits, vegetables, whole grains and protein keep the mind sharp. In a clinch, the perennial granola bar wards off hunger and donut cravings. On that note…
7. Know your late-night snack hubs. Coffee shops with extended hours and 24-hour grocery stores are a godsend during exam season. Bonus: late-night snack runs are great opportunities for people watching.
8. Plan a fun night out. Studying non-stop isn’t healthy, but neither is going on a bender. Keep things low-key and take in a movie, go dancing with friends or organize a night of coffee and board games.
9. Stay off Facebook. Newsflash: All of that wasted time adds up. The siren song of social media is hard to resist, but commit to staying offline during studying hours. You’ll have plenty of time during the holiday season to catch up on your teenage cousin’s thoughts about the weather.
10. Sleep. All-nighters aren’t worth it, according to a study published in the January issue of Behavioral Sleep Medicine. The dazed, caffeine-addled university student stereotype is a cliché for a reason: sleeping six to eight hours a night maximizes brain function, and the study found that students who regularly pulled all-nighters tended to have lower grades than those who didn’t.
Tornado prevents exam on natural disasters
Test was to take place in Goderich, Ont.
Photo courtesy of PhotoJunkie! on Flickr
Zak Ashley, a 19-year-old University of Windsor student, missed his exam on natural disasters due, ironically, to the tornado that tore through Goderich, Ont. on Sunday, reports The Windsor Star.
The resident of nearby Wingham was supposed to take the distance education environmental science exam at a United Church in Goderich on Monday, but he didn’t show up because he believed that the church had been destroyed by the storm. In fact, it was another United Church in town that was damaged. The school will allow him to write the test in the fall instead.
Student has heart attack during exam
Doctors blame exam anxiety, heart condition
Photo courtesy of rileyroxx on Flickr
Jairaj Chandran, 18, was 10 minutes into his high school theology exam in Cambridge, U.K. when he felt his chest getting tight and he started to having trouble breathing. He asked to step outside.
“My legs and fingers were numb. It was terrifying,” he told The Sun. Luckily, he knew about his existing heart condition and asked to be sent to the hospital. It was, as he suspected, a heart attack. Surgeons performed emergency surgery to replace a valve, leaving him with an eight-inch scar.
“The doctors said it was probably stress related and I was nervous because theology was one of my worst subjects,” said Chandran. The university used earlier marks to determine his A-grade in the class. He plans to study politics in Australia.
A+ in procrastination
The art of slacking off during exams
A few weeks ago, when my anatomy and physiology exams were looming on the horizon, I wasn’t able to procrastinate properly. With several more chapters of my textbook to review, I felt too guilty to do anything fun. Like reading anything other than my textbooks, or playing a videogame, or going out with friends.
So instead, I would check my email ten times in a row. Or rearrange the icons on my desktop. Or delete old Word documents.
Now that final exams are over, my methods of procrastination have drastically changed. I can do whatever I want guilt-free. All of my old, ineffective methods of procrastination have been left behind.
Everything you learned suddenly doesn’t matter
Post-exam purge
I’m finally done all my exams. There are more than four months of summer vacation between me and next semester. It seems strange that all of a sudden, the material that used to seem so critically important- the stuff that I’ve been cramming into my head for the past 12 weeks- doesn’t matter anymore.
Since the first week of January, my day-to-day existence has revolved around my textbooks. And now, after weeks of procrastination, followed by a couple days of frantic “I-can’t-believe-I-fell-nine-chapters-behind-since-the-midterm” studying, it’s all over.
The day before my microbiology exam, with three more chapters to read and several weeks of lectures to memorize, I would have preferred trying to circumcise a T-Rex with a plastic spoon instead of writing that exam. The very next day, those three chapters are suddenly irrelevant and I’m selling my textbook on AbeBooks.
Sure, some of the courses I’m taking next semester will build on what I learned in anatomy and physiology. But words like “photophosphorylation” and “polymorphonuclear leukocyte” can be mentally purged forever, joining the ranks of all my other repressed memories.
Like that time in grade nine when I gave a girl a Valentine’s Day card, and then she ceased to acknowledge my existence.
The best kind of exam
The perfect cross between a final and a term project
When a course doesn’t have a final exam, there’s usually some sort of a drawback. Like a gigantic, time-consuming term project that requires lots of research and a half-hour presentation.
Meaning, the kind of thing that’s left until the last second, on the same day your lab report and term paper are also due.
On one hand, anything is better than a final exam. On the other hand, you’re going to have to read a bunch of Wikipedia articles and then find some journal articles to cite in your references.
But there is a middle ground. Something that’s a perfect cross between a final exam and a term project.
Yup, I’m talking about a take home exam.
Unlike a term project, it doesn’t involve weeks of procrastination followed by a single night of stress-filled research. And unlike a final exam, you don’t have to mentally photocopy your textbook and then regurgitate everything within a two-hour time limit.
-Photo courtesy of Alex France
Didn’t pay the fee? No grades for you!
Sask. prof threatens to withhold grades in dispute over additional course fee
Students were informed by professor Gordon Sparks that the $30 fee was mandatory to pay to use materials made available on the course’s Blackboard homepage at the beginning of the class and in their syllabus. However, most students viewed the fee in the same way as paying for an assigned textbook, and that it was not necessarily required to complete the course.
Sparks’ view apparently differed on the fee, as he wrote to students in an email that if they didn’t cough up the $30, “you will be ‘cutoff’ access to Blackboard and therefore will not get a grade in the class!”
In the past, Sparks has simply denied access to the materials on Blackboard until students had paid the fee, which allows students to use course materials from former University of New Brunswick professor Barry Bisson.
Some students felt Sparks was not justified in threatening academic repercussions for students who don’t pay. U of S student Steve Bachiu told The Sheaf that he felt the threat “seems a lot like extortion” since he’s already paid his tuition fees for the course.
“My issue, essentially, is that it’s material that I don’t want. There are a lot of other classes that I’m taking where I haven’t bought the textbook” and have still been given a grade in the class, Bachiu said.
The materials the fee covers include review exercises, quizzes and weekly assignments. According to The Sheaf, Sparks has argued that students were obliged to pay the fee because they had made use of Bisson’s intellectual property by completing the quizzes and assignments.
However, Bachiu said that he felt that instructors shouldn’t be allowed to charge access fees for tests “and that is, essentially, what’s happening.”
Bachiu has brought his concerns to University of Saskatchewan Students Union (USSU) vice-president academic affairs Kelsey Topola, who said she is planning on bringing them before the university’s teaching and learning committee, academic support committee or copyright advisory committee.
‘Learning styles’ are bogus
Researchers say moving around while studying improves retention
Every semester I tell myself that I’ll study more. And every semester I don’t.
Somewhere between vowing to study every single day and the act of actually doing it, there’s an interruption. All the planning is in place. But study schedules, lists of course readings and practice problems, somehow aren’t leading to extra studying.
Part of the problem is how midterms always seem to come from nowhere. In that way they’re even worse than final exams, which might be worth more marks, but at least they’re always looming in the distance.
According to an article in the New York Times, cognitive scientists claim a few simple techniques can actually improve how much a student actually learns from studying. Of course, that only helps those students who actually, well, study.
One surprise from the research is the claim that in order to be the most effective, you should actually move around and study in different locations each time you hit the books. And no, the research wasn’t suggesting moving to Hawaii to study for your biochem final, and then moving back for your French final.
The other studying tips were obvious. Like making sure you space your studying apart so you aren’t forced to try and cram everything at the last second. And if all else fails, praying to the snow gods for the mother of all storms to force the school to shut down on the day of your finals.
The Times’ article pointed out that some of the theories about the best way to study are the result of “sketchy education research that doesn’t offer much clear guidance.”
Lots of studying advice has to do with emphasizing different learning styles- the whole “left brain versus right brain,” and “visual learner versus auditory learner” thing. Some people learn best by reading through their professor’s lecture slides, while others retain more information by listening to podcast lectures. But according to a review of the relevant research published in Psychological Science, that’s all pretty much bogus, stating that “there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice.”
I think the biggest improvement to my studying habits would be constant reminders. Like changing the background of my computer to a message that says “ANATOMY MIDTERM FEBRUARY 14th.” Because midterms are stealth tests- one second I’m happily unaware of their presence, wasting precious study time with things like sleeping and eating.
And the next second a bunch of tests, lab reports, and essays have materialized.
Relieving test stress
Study shows students who write about their worries beforehand overcome exam anxiety
Students suffering from exam anxiety may now have a remedy. Researchers at the University of Chicago found that if students spend 10 minutes writing about their worries before the test, their scores rise by as much as 15 per cent. Psychology professor Sian Beilock and graduate student Gerardo Ramirez, divided 20 university students into three groups. One group wrote about their feelings, another wrote what happened to them the day before, and the third just waited for the exam to start. The students who wrote about their worries saw their grades jump from a B- to a B+. “We essentially got rid of this relationship between test anxiety and performance,” Beilock said. The study is to be published Friday in the journal Science.
I almost failed. Twice.
…but then was spared. Twice.
When I finished my exams last semester, I was convinced that I had failed two of them. Not just one, but two.
It wasn’t the usual post-exam anxiety, where you kick yourself for changing an answer at the last second, or doubt whether you gave quite enough information for the essay-based question. I was seriously worried that I had just bombed those two exams.
It didn’t matter that I had completed the bonus assignments. Midterm marks and quizzes didn’t matter, either. Both classes, like every other class I’ve taken at Waterloo, have a policy along the lines of “If you get less than a 45 on the final exam, you will fail the course.”
In the weeks that followed, I tried to remember the questions and mentally rewrote both exams. Question three was hopeless. Question six was pretty terrible. I drew a complete blank on question nine and pity marks were the most I could hope for.
I decided to stop reliving the past and managed to block out exam week. I erased all memory of Embryology and Molecular Biology. I destroyed the photos of us together. I shredded the Christmas cards they had sent me. They ceased to exist. All that remained was a nervous tic.
In the end I passed both courses. Maybe my exams were marked by an empathetic TA.
Or maybe another Scott Dobson-Mitchell wrote the same two exams and now he’s wondering how the hell he ended up with a 3 per cent and an 11 per cent.
When your course holds you hostage
The first step is acknowledging the problem.
When I finished Organic Chemistry in my second year, I thought I would never have to see chemistry again. I knew I would be taking Biochemistry the following semester, but I deluded myself into thinking that Biochemistry isn’t REALLY chemistry.
I even managed to convince myself that I enjoyed the course. That lipid bilayers are a fascinating cellular structure and that there’s a simple yet elegant beauty to the assembly of proteins.
Throughout last semester I thought I liked Biochemistry. Now I realize it was just Stockholm syndrome.
-Photo courtesy of digitalprimate
New semester’s resolution
Regrets from last semester
Right now is the time of year when I look back and think about all the stupid mistakes I made during first semester. Like not keeping up with the textbook readings in Developmental Biology and falling behind by a whole chapter. And then another. And another. And then one more, to make it a nice even number.
While some people look forward and plan ahead for the next semester, I can’t help but look back. So instead of a “New Year’s Resolution” list of the stuff I plan to do next semester, this is a list of the stuff I plan to never do again.
5) Falling behind on the readings, even by a single page. It’s a slippery slope. One reading quickly becomes two, and then three. You know those harmless domesticated bunny rabbits that a couple of pet owners released into the wild? It’s kind of like that.
4) Underestimating the class with a 100 per cent final is a deadly error. There aren’t any assignments, quizzes or midterms to worry about. But even if I’m completely caught up with my other four courses, procrastination is like an infectious disease: it starts with that one class but spreads quickly, devastating my carefully-planned study schedule for all my other classes and labs.
3) Telling my older sister that she needs to relax and close the textbook every once in a while. And then watching her make the Dean’s list every single semester since she started at Waterloo, from my relaxed-but-non-Dean’s-list chair.
2) Although I still haven’t had the opportunity to test my theory that nobody ever shows up, including the professor, I won’t register for any more early morning classes. The temptation to skip them is much too strong, and oddly enough, professors don’t give any sort of “You actually showed up at 7:00 in the morning” bonus marks.
1) Make a curfew for myself and this time, really stick to it. Operating on less than five hours of sleep actually really is counterproductive. Considering the fact that sleep deprivation is an interrogation strategy, right alongside bright lights and sharp objects, it shouldn’t be part of my study repertoire.
Still waiting for final marks?
My vacation is going AWOL
Between worrying about my marks and catching up on my sleep, more than a third of my Christmas break has managed to disappear without any warning.
The problem is, I haven’t been doing any of the stuff I fantasized about doing when I was studying for exams. Instead, I’ve developed a new hobby over the past couple days.
I turn on my laptop and load up the webpage where final marks are being released. And when I see that my Molecular Biology mark still hasn’t been posted, I press “refresh.”
Then I press it again.
And again.
-Photo courtesy of amboo who?
Anti-studying: the more you read, the less you know
Everything seems unfamiliar and un-memorizable
When I was studying for exams a little over a week ago, Christmas break seemed impossibly far away.
Normally, the more I study for an upcoming exam, the better I feel. As I read over my notes and review the textbook, the material seems familiar and my impending sense of doom diminishes a little.
But for my Embryology exam, the more I studied, the more I realized I didn’t know anything.
Post exam anxiety? You’re not alone.
Christmas vacation isn’t a vacation yet.
My last exam was almost a week ago, on December 15th, but my Christmas vacation hasn’t even started yet.
When I found out that all five of my exams were in a row, right at the beginning of exam period, I couldn’t decide if I was happy, or on the verge of developing a nervous tic.
On the one hand, writing exams sooner means less time to study. Not to mention, when your exams are literally back-to-back, one day after another, it’s harder to divide up your study time properly. How can you study for Biochemistry when Embryology is the day before? And how can you study for Embryology when Molecular biology is the day before that? And how can you study for Molecular biology when… well, you get the point.
On the other hand, all my exams were over in one shot. And my Christmas vacation started a bit earlier than usual.
Except it didn’t. Until my final marks are released tomorrow, I can’t sit back and enjoy my vacation.
I’m stuck in post-exam purgatory.
-Photo courtesy of alancleaver_2000
The exam crazies
I forgot to bring my book. To the open book exam. To the only exam that actually counted.
There are all kinds of scenarios you see frequently where seemingly otherwise-normal people go completely insane: sporting riots, Black Friday, anytime free food is introduced into a newsroom. In the past, upon viewing these events, I would think to myself “Self, in such a situation, you would not succumb to the crazies. You would likely rise above the desire to go nuts about something that doesn’t matter.”
Then I went through first-year law school exams, upon which I learned that I am apparently completely the kind of person who goes batty when faced with things that mostly don’t matter and even more insane when faced with something that does.
At UVic, the 1Ls had six exams in a 12-day period: Each Monday, Wednesday and Friday for two weeks. Here’s the thing: Five of those exams didn’t count. Not technically, anyway. At UVic, the year-long courses all have midterms from which the grade will only count if it’s better than the grade you get on your final. These are dubbed “help, not hurt” exams, a moniker I take issue with having gone through the “help, not hurt” exam period.
I stopped exercising. I stopped eating. I didn’t consciously try to stop sleeping, but I did anyway. For two weeks, no matter what time I went to bed, I would wake up hourly, occasionally actually sitting bolt upright, with my brain a jumble of different law-related thoughts. Not even fully formed thoughts, either, so it’s not like these nocturnal interruptions were helpful. It was only ever just little, unconnected fragments of thoughts from all seven of my classes.
Offer, acceptance, consideration…Multiple Access v. McCutcheon…trespass torts…three doctrinal requirements to complete a gift…Oakes test…
Et cetera. On a loop. Every night for two weeks.
Of course, there was one exam that did count. Our Law, Legislation and Policy course was only half a year, so the December exam was the final, the one that one prof described as “just hurt.” And, of course, it was for that exam that I did the craziest thing I did in all of the two-week exam period, possibly ever.
I forgot to bring my book. To the open book exam. To the only exam that actually counted.
Considering my panic level at any given point in those two weeks was generally situated at around a 7, the discovery that I would have to write a three-hour final that actually counted without my coursebook (which, by the way, is where I made all my notes) almost caused a stroke. Which is a really great physical and mental place to be in, by the way, just before you write an exam.
The only good thing to say about this is that once my blood started flowing again and I emitted a sound not unlike a cat being strangled, literally everyone around me who figured out what had happened to me simultaneously reached with their one hand to their own book and with their other hand to their wallet to get out their copy card so that I could run to the library and copy as much of their book as I could before the exam. Seriously, there were like 8 different people performing the exact same motion, some of whom I don’t even really know. It was a balletic example of the kindness and generosity of UVic law students. It was actually really heartwarming.
Of course, it also didn’t change how screwed I was. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say it did not go well. Try and at least learn from me, anyone who is reading this, to check your backpack twice before leaving for an exam so that some good might come of this. And if you have any tips on how to better survive the next exam period — the one in April that actually all counts — please, for the love of Christmas, pass them on.
All I want for Christmas
A university student’s wish list
5) Free textbooks
It just seems wrong to pay hundreds of dollars for a bunch of books that you’ll want to throw into a bonfire by the end of the semester. And why is my Organic Chemistry textbook almost a hundred bucks more than my biology textbooks? At the very least, a textbook’s price should be proportional to how much you enjoy the course.
So the Organic Chemistry textbook should not only be free, but also come with a $30 gift certificate for EB Games.
4) A hands-on course that explores the advantages and disadvantages of several tactical approaches to team slayer in Halo Reach.
3) A professor whose policy on classroom attendance is… they have no policy on classroom attendance.
2) 10,000 extra med school spots
It could happen.
1) A take home final exam. With multiple choice questions. And bonus points for spelling your name right.
-Photo courtesy of placid casual
Promiscuity on campus
Promiscuity defined
When I was studying for my Evolution exam last week, I noticed something strange in the textbook: it referred to female prairie dogs as “promiscuous.” Seriously.
Apparently, by mating with multiple partners in a short period of time, they increase the chances of pregnancy. It’s an evolutionary adaptation that’s been in the making for millions of years.
The word “promiscuous” just seems like a weird way to describe the behavior. It’s just such a loaded word. Like the textbook is calling these prairie dogs skanks, or something.
-Photo courtesy of cliff1066™
