MIST 4600: Computer Programming in Business JE Aronson
Test Taking Preparation, Approaches and
Strategies
Here are a few ideas that have proved helpful in preparing, approaching
and developing strategies for test taking in MIST 4600. The first set
involves good practices for mastering the material. Like for sports
practice, musical instrument practice and acting rehearsals, they
prepare you for the big event: the game, recital, or performance! You
have to practice so you can perform well when it counts! Some of these
are fairly recent in
terms of real psychological research.
Continuous Preparation:
Long before you approach a test, you
should already have done the following:
Determine the best approach for your learning and practice it
continuously. Generally in this class, there is a lot of hands-on work:
experiential learning.
Plan on spending extra preparation and homework time on this
class. It is oftentimes more difficult than most that you have probably
taken so far.
Come to every class, pay attention and participate (unless you
are ill).
Pay attention to seemingly tangential material.
Try the examples we developed in class on your own, from scratch.
Keep up with the class (don't fall behind) and put in the amount
of effort it takes for you to master and apply the concepts.
Come to the help/review sessions with interesting questions. If
you are not sure what to ask, chances are good that others will ask
questions that will invoke your learning.
Read the chapters in advance and try out the various programs in
each chapter as you go.
Do as many of the end of chapter exercises and programming
problems that you can.
Practice peer learning with the above. Go over each class with
your course buddies and try out material with them.
Plan on spending extra time on the following, specific difficult
programming concepts: selection (if then else), loops (do while for),
arrays (multidimensional data structures), error trapping (Throw and
Catch), object/modular code design (Java in general), and database
access (to an mdb file).
Do not plan on doing all of your exam studying the night before.
It will not work.
If you had planned to coast through this course and do minimal
work (i.e., little or none of the above), right before the first exam
is a good time to withdraw so you won't flunk.
When you are stuck in understanding something, contact your
buddies to get over conceptual humps.
Don't start studying for an exam the night before it.
Specific Preparation:
Now that you have an exam coming up
in about a week, you can be thankful that you have done all of the
above (except for the last one). You can now focus on the following:
Focus on the latest material since the previous test. Even though
new material almost always builds from the previous material, the focus
on each exam is primarily weighted on the new material.
Review as much relevant material as you can from the texts,
lectures, and help/review sessions.
Reread the chapters and review the end of chapter exercises:
implement them alone and with your course buddies. There is no
substitution for hands-on implementation.
Retry the examples that we did in class and that appear in the
text.
Peer Learning: Discuss
difficult conceptual and implementation ideas/concepts/issues/etc. with
your couse buddies. Chances are good that most of you share the same
difficulties.
Peer Learning: Work
with your course buddies to dream up sample exam questions. Then solve
them.
Plan ahead: Start
studying a week before the exam and make up a study plan. Then follow
it.
Some additional things to do: These last few may seem weird, but have been proven
empirically to boost exam scores and creativity in problem solving:
Get a good night's sleep before the exam.
Eat a high protein meal (in our case, lunch) before the exam
(we're talking meat, chicken, fish, beans, soy, etc.).
Watch or read something funny right before the exam
(scientifically speaking and empirically proven, this opens up the
creative processes in your brain.).
As you are about to start the exam, smell some peppermint, eat a
peppermint mint, or chew some peppermint gum (again, scientifially
speaking and empirically proven, peppermint also opens up the creative
processes in your brain).
Do not wear revealing or provocative clothing.
Give up alchohol and illegal drugs.
Adopt a healthy life style including healthy eating and regular
exercise.
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maintained by JE
Aronson
Last Modified: December 30, 2008
