Nevertheless, despite your resolve, best intentions, and firm con- viction that cramming is a losing proposition, you may well find yourself—though hopefully not too often— in the position of need- ing to do something the night before a test you haven’t studied for at all. If so, here’s some advice that will make your night of cramming at least marginally successful:
Be realistic about what you can do. You absolutely cannot master an entire semester’s worth of work in a single night, especially if your class attendance has been sporadic (or nonexistent) and you’ve skimmed two books out of a syllabus of two dozen. The more information you try to cram in, the less effective you will be.
Being realistic means soberly assessing your situation— you’re hang- ing by your thumbs and are just trying to avoid falling into the boiling oil. Avoiding the oil, saving the damsel in distress, and inheriting the kingdom (“acing” the test) is a bit too much to ask for, no matter whom your Fairy Godmother is.
Be selective and study in depth. The more classes you’ve managed to miss, the more selective you need to be in organizing your cram session. You can’t study it all. So you must identify—as best you can—what topics you are sure will be on the test. Then study only those. It’s better in this case to know a lot about a little rather than a little about a lot. You may get lucky and pick the three topics the three essays cover!
Massage your memory. Use every memory technique you’ve learned (and the additional ones in ImproveYour Memory) to maximize what you’re able to retain in your short-term memory.
Know when to give up. When you can’t remember your name or focus on the book in front of you, give up and get some sleep.
Consider an early morning rather than a late-night cram, espe- cially if you’re a “morning” person. I’ve found it more effective to go to bed and get up early rather than go to bed late and get up exhausted.
Spend the first few minutes of the test writing down whatever you remember but are afraid you’ll forget.
When in Doubt, Ask
Yes, there are teachers who test you on the most mundane details of their course, requiring you to review every book, every note, every scribble.
I don’t think most teachers work that way. You will more than likely be tested on some subset of the course— those particular topics or problems or facts or figures the teacher believes most important.
How do you know what those are? To put it bluntly, how do you know what’s going to be on the test?
Teachers give many clues. In general, the more often you see or hear the same material, the more important it probably is and the more likely it is that it will show up on a test.
A fact or topic need not be repeated in order to scream “Learn me!” Just as you learned to watch a teacher’s body language and listen for verbal clues to identify noteworthy topics, you’ll learn to identify topics the teacher indicates— nonverbally—are the most important. Your teacher’s attitude toward note taking may tip you off, as well. If he or she requires you to take detailed notes—even wants them turned in (sometimes in high school, rarely in college)—I’d figure that your class notes are far and away more important than the textbook(s). Study accordingly.
Have you saved earlier tests and quizzes from that class? Returned exams, especially if they contain a lot of comments from your teacher, should give you an excellent indication of where to concentrate your study time.
Is it wrong to ask the teacher what kind of test to expect? Absolutely not. Will he or she always tell you? Absolutely not. If you have access to old exams written by the same teacher, especially if they cover the same material you’re going to be tested on, use them for review.
Don’t expect the same questions to appear again. No teacher is that accommodating. But the way the test is prepared, the kinds of questions employed, and the mix of questions (100 true/false, 50 multiple-choice, and one—count ’em—one essay) will give a much better idea of what to expect on your test.
And see if you can find anyone who had this teacher last year or last semester. Can they give you any advice, tips, hints, or warnings?
Some teachers love one type of question. Some are true/false freaks; others push the multiple-choice/short answer combo. If old tests, former students, the teacher’s own comments on the test coming up, and your own experience tell you this is true, you might as well study for that kind of test. You still have to know the material, of course. It’s just that you may need to remind yourself that you’re going to have to deal with it in a particular fashion.
CBSE Question Papers for Class 11 English
Download Worksheets, Sample Papers, Previous Year Question Papers, Important Questions Chapter wise, Revision Notes, Test Papers of Class 1, Class 2, Class 3, Class 4, Class 5, Class 6, Class 7, Class 8, Class 9, Class 10, Class 11, Class 12 to get more practice & good marks in your school exams. These papers and worksheets are of various schools and prescribed by CBSE as per NCERT syllabus. One can easily download the papers and worksheets and practice them.All the available CBSE practice material are of various subjects which includes Maths, Science, Social Science, English and Hindi, Physics, chemistry, economics, biology, computer Science, Business Studies, Accounts, etc etc.. These questions will help students get an idea of important questions and topics to prepare for the new examination scheme introduced from the current academic session.
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