How do you know what's on a test?

Published

I have a teacher for anatomy who is very cryptic about what's on our tests. He passes out a study guide to which we follow and fill in the blanks during lecture (even though I take my own notes religiously!).

For our last test, he said, "study the study guide - everything that's on the test will be in there". Well, our very first test everyone bombed because a lot of the stuff in the notes wasn't even on the test! I spent so much time focusing on things that I wasn't even tested on, and got an 88.

Am I doing something wrong, or is this teacher just a bad communicator? He said that for this next test, he will go over specifically what will be on the test, since everyone did so poorly on the first one (lot of 40s and 50s).

In the event that he doesn't communicate specifically what's on the test, how am I to tell what is important and what isn't? He often goes off on tangents, giving too much information that we don't even have to know for the test. How can I figure out what's important and what's not? This is for anatomy, and not a class that I can afford to do poorly in (none of my classes I can afford to do poorly in, but that's beside the point).

Does anyone have any suggestions to help me figure this out? :crying2: Thanks so much!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

hi:

i would not even concentrate on what the instructor says "might" be on the test or what is told to study from the study guide. i would just study the important concepts from each chapter that will be covered for your upcoming exam. you don't want to risk just studying things from the "study guide" your instructor says to study from. as you stated with the previous exam, alot of the topics the instructor stated you needed to study did not help.

since you take your own notes along with the outline, just study from that. if your book has a cd-rom, please use it with the specific chapters that will be covered for your upcoming exam. maybe the info on the cd-rom will help you understand your notes better, thus your studying won't just be focused on the "study guide" but all of the content that you may be tested on....

hth~good luck on your exam!

jadu1106

Up Vote Up Vote ×

My class syllabus includes exam objectives and I use those to guide my reading. If I didn't have those and the professor wasn't clear about the objectives I would use the textbook chapter summaries as an outline and use the practice tests on the publisher's website to make the material sink in. If you do that you should be able to handle whatever your prof throws at you.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

A) Why are you worried? You got an 88 on the first test you obviously know what you're doing.

B) Study everything...you can't go wrong.

C) I'll tell you what's on the test afterwards.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

jadu1106 and sunray12:

Thank you both for the tips! I don't know why I didn't think of that before... it seems so obvious and now I feel kind of silly :p Very good suggestions and I will definitely try them out. I don't have a cd-rom, but my A&P book has a website with practice quizzes, crosswords, etc that I will definitely take advantage of. I kind of just stumbled upon the site today... go fig.

AirforceRN:

I know an 88 is good, especially considering it is the first test, but I guess I'm just having some worry/anxiety because I have to pull (basically) all A's in order to get into the nursing program. It's only the first test, and I shouldn't be so hard on myself, but alas... I want this more than anything, and so I push myself harder than perhaps I should. As long as everything averages out into an A at the end, who cares if I get a couple of B's, right?

Thanks again for the advice and tips! I feel better :)

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I got an 88 on the first lecture test in both 101 and 102. That was my lowest score for both semesters. I always do worst on my first test. It takes a while to learn what the instructor is looking for.

I always did better on my lab tests than on my lecture tests, so that helped keep my grade up.

I'm glad you found the book's website. I used mine all the time and it helped, especially with labs because of the labeling exercises.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Nada.

I don't know, I've always been able to take verbal cues in class about whats on an exam. Like diagrams are ALWAYS on the exam, and whenever she starts talking about a clinical application then there's always a "So and so has these symptoms, what could be wrong? Whats the treatment?" Some how I can also form questions in my head during the lecture (Schwann cells myelinate axons in the PNS; What about the CNS? ->Oligodendrites can myelinate multiple cells in the CNS. How does MS affect motor function? It can inflame myelin and disrupt signals through the axon to muscle nerves. And so on and so forth...)

Pretty much, if it comes out of your professors mouth, it's important enough for him to spend time on it which means probably important enough to test over, which is why I record the lectures.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment