How I Aced First Year University Science – Part 4: Studying for Tests
In science, you’re generally going to come across tests that require either the knowledge of facts/material or the understanding of concepts/problem types (and sometimes a combination of both). Biology tests tend to be based more on facts, while chemistry/physics tests tend to be based more on concepts/problem types.
Facts/Material – Memorization
For knowledge-based tests like those in biology, it doesn’t matter how great of a critical thinking, problem-solver, or test-taker you are – if you don’t know the material, then you won’t be able to answer a single question.
One of the differences between high school and university science is that your university courses require the consumption of more material. In addition, as the years go by, you will be focusing on more and more specialized courses, and therefore, more and more detailed material. The detail you end up having to study, with a slew of specific facts, names, and definitions, can make the material seem quite dense. But you have to know this material, and you have to know it all. You have to know it by heart.
Some students make the mistake of thinking that they just need to do their readings and they’ll be fine for the test. This might have worked in high school, when all you needed to know (even for subjects like biology) were key themes and ideas. Unfortunately, in university, professors love to ask you very specific questions that sometimes require knowledge of the most obscure detail. And think about it – can you really read through a dense biology passage once and remember all of the names and details? The vast majority of us, myself included, don’t have photographic memories – so we need to put in the time to memorize as much content as possible.
How I Memorize
Everyone studies and memorizes facts differently, and not one strategy works best for everyone. All I can do is share with you how I approach it – I can’t say whether this will work for you or not, but feel free to try it if you want.
When I am trying to study dense material, I will read each paragraph actively, as if giving it my full attention and making sure I am understanding what I am reading – it’s very different say from when I am reading a novel or story, where I just skim through everything. If I don’t understand something, I make sure I stop and figure it out. I will often look up terms on Wikipedia as I read if I don’t understand the book’s explanation.
In terms of memorization, every time I come across a key point or sentence that I need to memorize, I will first read it. Then I will repeat it to myself (without looking at the book) out loud or in my ahead a few times until I feel it sticks. Then I go to the next point. I do this fairly quickly, as I only do this with things I know I must memorize – i.e. I am not memorizing every sentence in a biology textbook. When it comes to things like steps in a process or the axioms of a theory where I must memorize phrases in groups and sometimes in an order, I do the same memorization procedure, but I go back to the beginning after memorizing each step.
For example I first repeat Step 1 out loud until I have internalized it, then I repeat Step 2 out loud, and then go back and make sure I can say Steps 1 and 2 without referring to the book. Then I move on to Step 3, memorize and internalize it, and then go back and repeat Steps 1,2,3, etc. If at any point I can’t completely repeat it in order, I’ll stop and check, and make sure I can get those 3 steps right before going on to Step 4, and so on.
I’m sure if you do an Internet search or talk to your peers you can learn about many other memorization techniques and ultimately find one that works for you. The most important idea I want you to take away from this section is that however you do it, the fact is that you need to know the material by heart. You need to be able to regurgitate it at will for the test. For the most part, it will not be enough to just read your textbook because the details won’t stick.
One of the reasons that some students do worse in university science is because they aren’t adjusting their studying habits, particularly in consuming material. They keep thinking that they can apply old, less intensive studying methods that worked in high school. Unfortunately university is harder than high school, and you do need to memorize more and drier pieces of information. It’s just something you need to deal with.
It’s for these reasons that I suggest you do most of your memorization in the few days leading up to your test. You want the details and names in your short term memory, because if you try memorizing obscure facts any earlier, you’re going to forget them. It’s the concepts or pieces of understanding that you should be working on regularly throughout the semester.
Concepts/Problem Types – Practice, Practice, Practice!
When it comes to understanding concepts and solving problem types for most chemistry and physics courses (and a few biology courses like genetics), your best bet is to do as many practice problems from your professor and textbook as possible. Similarly with memorization, while I suggest you do some practice problems throughout the semester to build your understanding of the concepts, I suggest you do many of your practice problems in the week or two leading up to the test so that the problem types are fresher in your head.
One benefit of doing as many practice problems as possible is that the more you do, the more quickly you are able to do them – this is because a lot of certain thought processes that you would normally have to actively go through become more subconscious (since you’ve seen the same situation many times already). Reducing the time it takes you to solve problems is crucial since you have a limited amount of time on tests.
I can remember some students in my first year chemistry class complaining at some points that they were unable to even finish some of their tests! Some of these students might have known how to answer these questions, but because they could not work quickly enough, they had no chance to prove it. Don’t let that happen to you! If I can’t solve a problem on a test, I want that to happen because I couldn’t figure it out, not because I ran out of time.
Talk to Older Students
Older students can be one of your greatest resources for doing well in your courses. Whether it be through a mutual friend, school club, or even a random event, you’re going to end up meeting and making friends with some older students who have taken the same classes with the same professors you have now. These older students can often provide great advice on what types of questions your professor likes to ask, which material you should focus on, help with understanding course material, etc. They are also a great resource for recommendations for future courses, buying used textbooks, and obtaining past tests.
Obtain and Actively Attempt Past Tests
Most professors teach the same courses every year, and in general it is pretty easy to obtain copies of that professor’s tests for you to practice on. In some rare cases, professors offer access to some of their past tests. But in general, you should be able to get past tests for your science courses from your school’s science clubs/associations (e.g. the Biology Society, the Chemistry Students Association, etc.) or older students, usually for a small fee (or sometimes for free if your friends are nice!).
Doing past tests is extremely important because it allows you to understand what types of questions your professor is probably going to ask, and therefore, what aspects of the material you need to understand the most. For example, my first year chemistry professor only asked us to solve problems on his tests, while I know of another chemistry professor for a different section that asked for definitions. By working through my own professor’s past tests, I knew I didn’t need to waste my time memorizing obscure facts or definitions.
In my opinion, doing the practice test under real test conditions (e.g. timed, by yourself, etc.) is not that important – I don’t do it, and I don’t suggest that you do. What you want to focus on at this point is dissecting the past test and your professor’s problem types. You want to understand how your professor thinks about the material, and therefore, what types of concepts you need to know. Being able to perform under test conditions is a psychological aspect (which I will explore in the next article of this series), separate from understanding the actual preparatory material for the test. If you do practice tests under real conditions, you might use your score as a gauge for what you will achieve on the actual test, which can sometimes create overconfidence or anxiety. When dealing with practice tests, I think your focus should be entirely on preparation.
Should you do the practice tests individually or with a group? I don’t think it matters too much, as long as you involve a group in some way. Sometimes I like to go through the test question by question with friends from my study group, so that we can hammer out our thought processes and come to a consensus before moving on. Other times we will just do the tests individually, then go over our answers as a group, and figure out if and why there are any discrepancies in our answers. The important thing is that you do (in some way or another) talk to your friends or study group about your answers to the practice tests, to make sure you are most likely on the right track with your approach to the questions.
Finally, I suggest that the practice tests be the last thing that you do in your studying process. There’s really no point attempting the practice tests before you’ve assimilated all of the material you need, and doing the practice tests later than earlier allows the important concepts and problem types to be fresh in your head.
Of course, it doesn’t matter how much you’ve studied and prepared if you can’t perform under pressure on the actual test. So that’s what we are going to explore in the next article of this series.
Part 5 – The Art of Test-Taking >>
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Read the other parts of the How I Aced First Year University Science series here:
- Part 1: The Jump from High School to University
- Part 2: How to Think
- Part 3: Lectures, Readings, Note Taking, and Forming Study Groups
- Part 4: Studying for Tests
- Part 5: The Art of Test-Taking
Related Posts:
- So This is What It’s Like to be “Below Average”
- Clarification of My Last Post
- Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 4: How Your Premedical Studies have Prepared You for Medicine
- May to May – a year in the pursuit of happiness
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MedHopeful @ Premed101
True – doing practice tests under simulated conditions doesn’t help much. In a test, you have a different objective: to show competence in order to receive marks and grades. Before the test, your objective should be to prepare by understanding what the test will be about, and then how to do well in it.