I don’t know about you, but I’m not good under pressure when taking an exam. That usually happens when I feel like I don’t know anything about the subject yet, and my classmates are talking about it like they know it already. My hands get all sweaty, I’m screaming on the inside, and I literally feel my heart beating like it’s in a race. Yesterday my batchmates and I took an exam on a semiconductor course, and it’s a subject that had a really low passing rate in the previous year. I admit that the first quarter of the semester I didn’t know what I’m doing, until we had a long quiz where I realized that I had a lot of things to work on.
Read your course’s main reference. For our semiconductor course, we have a textbook that our professors follow. And as I said at first, I didn’t freaking understand what was happening, because the concept of semiconductors was vague to us. But little by little, through reading the book, I feel like I’ve grasped what the author is trying to say. That alone should give you the boost. Of course, you should read to understand the concepts and not just read for the sake of saying that you’ve read it, without actually understanding anything.
Of course, some courses don’t have a textbook, and in other cases, the textbook used is really bad. The next best thing is to research online or in the school library. You’ll usually find other references there, with reviews from other people, so that you get a second opinion. But in this case, you have to know what you’re looking for. A topic won’t just find itself for you.
Now that you’ve read and researched, and you feel like you know the basic and general concepts of the subject, the next step is to practice solving problems. Well, this is helpful for engineering and natural sciences students, as we are often faced with objective-type problems. If your course focuses more on the research or subjective areas, try making a reviewer of some sort. Don’t look at the answer key before answering it yourself! That defeats the purpose of practicing—that way you’ll know what to work on. Again, there are a lot of practice problems online—just be patient and look for them!
Finally, you’ve mastered your book, you’ve solved problems and you feel like you can take on anything. But do you really? Try studying with friends. That way, if you have some unanswered questions, you can clear them up with each other. It’s a good way of testing the concepts you’ve learned. I feel like it’s definitely working on this course on semiconductors. Plus, you can kind of show off that you actually know something. LOL!
Those are the ways you can be confident for an exam! Note that it might not work for everyone, so try other things or mix it up, and see what kind of style is best suited for you. Just remember that the most important thing in college is to learn and not to pass. Grades will get you a degree, but if you don’t actually know what you’re doing, degrees are just a home decoration.
What are your studying habits? Let me know in the comments!
