If there is one person who likes to observe how people study, it would definitely be me. It is weird and fascinating to observe how others take notes, understand and memorize certain material.
Weird case one,
I have seen people coming in the lecture hall without lecture notes but they will take out their book and start making notes during the lecture. I am not sure whether it is the same girl but I have seen that at least twice in different lecture. She is jotting down the main point of the slides which is available to everyone if you could just go and download it.
One of my teacher said these,
“When I talk, you listen; I will give you time to copy later.”
“If you are busy copying, you wouldn’t pay attention to what I am telling.”
The concept behind it is simple; you concentrate and jot down only extra points not available in the slides instead of racing against time to copy the exact sentence and fact. Worst of all, you are not paying attention to all those important information. Your aim is to copy before the slide changes.
It only has one advantage if you are making your own notes during lecture – it forces you to do active listening because you need to decide which are the important points but given that, I would rather just print those slides. You can do better active listening by concentrating and trying to make sense of what the lecturer wants if you have the notes in front of you.
Few weeks ago, one of my friends asked me a simple Q. Why is that [almost] everyone is more interested with the “fish” rather than how to catch the “fish” themselves. In simpler words, he is telling me that most people borrowed and copied top student’s notes, asking them what is coming out in exams rather than learning how to make their notes and prepare for exams in their own way.
Weird case two,
Just like pharmaceutics exams last semester, I thought everyone would pass the final exam because we are told exactly which topic is coming out in exams. Seriously, never in my whole life as a student I have been given such detailed breakdown of Qs including those of multiple choices and short answer Q before exam.
For essay Q, we are given the following
Four questions worth 8 marks each (32 marks in total)
Q1: Relates to lectures on Solubility & Distribution
Q2: Relates to lecture on Colouring & Flavouring lectures
Q3: Relates to lectures on Filtration & Clarification
Q4: Relates to X’s lectures (touches on all topics)
Sure, the main intention of lecturers telling us those is to make sure we study each and every topic covered during the semester because every topic is coming out.
To me, that information is to be abused if you are running out of time to cover each and every topic.
I would say I didn’t even skim through Toxicology & Posology lectures notes, not even once after that particular lecture because I ran out of time and I am going to get only seven marks if I managed to answer each and every Q correctly. If I were to do that to Colouring & Flavouring topic, immediately I lose 8 marks just for that long essay Q and 5 marks elsewhere.
Three lectures given by Dr. Benson are the most valuable because the total marks for her topics are more than 40. That is nearly half of the exam paper. Nevertheless, I don’t know any other person abuse that piece of information like I do.
Sure, at the end of the day, someone would argue that string of As doesn’t matter because knowledge is what that counts. It is true but most of the people who said that are trying to justify the fact that they couldn’t score in exams.
Exams are the most common method of evaluating and applying your knowledge. If not, why are we still having exams all over the world?
Amount of knowledge is important after you completed your degree. When you are still trying to get a degree, exams and As are what that counts. When society still place so much emphasize on academic excellence, go with the system and beat the system. There is no point trying to fight it.
Weirder situation I have seen to be exposed later. At the end of the day, it depends on how you study. Sure, there is no best way to study but definitely there are better ways to be more efficient.
What can I do?
8 years ago
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