Please have in mind that in-class exams don’t just test your ability to do math, but also your abilities as a test taker. Some general hints:
1. When preparing for the exam, make sure you do the following:
• Solve many problems to increase your speed and gain experience. Some things you just learn by experience. For example, if you are looking at limits problems and they don’t tell you if it the limit exists or not, what will help you to decide what to try first is your experience with them.
• Solve problems in random order, don’t just go through each section separately. If you know what section or chapter a problem comes from, it’s easier to figure out what techniques to use. For example, look at limit problems (again). The book problems won’t help you much, since the problems there are sorted according to method of solution. What will help is to find problems from old exams and try to guess if a limit exists or not (before actually solving it!), and what method to use. Then solve the problem and see if you were right or wrong.
• Solve more problems than the ones in the homework. If you just look at those, then you’re no better than all the other 200 students in the lecture, since everyone solves at least those.
• Study continuously. I think a lot of you just solve the problems the day before they are due, and then don’t think about the class for a week. It’s much more effective if you solve a couple of problems every day than all of them at once. Of course, the ideal situation would be to solve them immediately after the relevant sections are covered in the lecture, while everything is fresh in your mind!
• Try not only to understand the specific problems you have for homework, but also the ideas behind them.
Also, try to think of how the examiner could make the problems a bit more difficult, and if you know how to deal with that when it happens (looking at old exams from the Library website might help with this!). Feel free to ask me questions about any problem, not just the homework problems). It is good to have a list of all the formulas and recipies for some possible kinds of problems you might encounter, but when students depend on those completely, they get carried away and solve the problems mechanically, without thinking. And in that case there’s always the danger that if they give you a slightly modified problem that’s not on the list, you might freak out and not know what to do. So always try to THINK and KNOW what you are doing.
1 • Make sure that apart from knowing how to solve a problem, you also know exactly what to write down in order for the grader to give you all the points! Its unbelievable how many people lose points because they don’t know how to express themselves mathematically and show enough work to make the grader happy!
• Use all the available resources! If you have questions, come to me or to the professor’s office hours. One-on-one tutoring is usually more helpful for students than being 1 out of the many students in the discussion or lecture, since you can get more attention! Also, going to mathlab to get answers from some of the TAs there is a good idea. Also peer-to-peer learning does miracles! Another student in the class knows exactly what difficulties you are facing, and might even show you some new tricks! If you explain the theory to a friend (or have it explained to you), you learn it better, and it’s also (more) fun!
2. During the actual exam:
• You shouldn’t start from the first problem necessarily and solve them in order. Start from a problem you can solve, and you can solve it quickly. You also feel less stressed when you know you have some eggs in the basket.
• Read the statement of each problem carefully. It’s a pity (and really frustrating) if you lose points even though you know how to solve a problem, just because you thought it was asking for something different.
• Don’t spend too much time in a single problem. If you have 50 minutes to do 5 problems, that’s 10 minutes per problem. If you’ve already spent 15 minutes in a problem and you still don’t think you can solve it, maybe it’s time to move on.
• After you solve all the problems, take advantage of the remaining time to check your work.
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I’m Chandrajeet, an in-house writer for iCoachMath. iCoachMath is an effective, convenient, easy-to-use online Math Program which has been used by thousands of students, teachers, and parents. iCoachMath strives to lead K-12 students to excellence in math by offering quality web-based educational solutions. iCoachMath’s instructional and lesson materials are aligned to State Curriculum Standards in all 50 states (USA). Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/k-12-education-articles/how-to-prepare-for-math-examinations-1155605.html
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