About a year and a half ago, I wrote an article on my thoughts about what to keep in mind when applying to university, using my personal experience as an example.

In that article, I focused mostly on figuring out which university fits you best based on program, location, opportunities, etc. However, there is one more important question you need to ask yourself when thinking about your education that I completely failed to mention.

In short, that question is: what do I want out of my education?

At first glance it may seem like an odd question to ask, but it’s really not. It seems odd because many of us have our own ideas about what the purpose of your educational experience is or should be – but the truth is that your educational experience is whatever you want it to be. There is no one right way to view your education, and it’s important to always realize that, despite what people may argue.

Some people just want to learn. Very often they are genuinely and strongly interested in the topics at hand, and want to sponge up as much as possible.

On the other hand, some people go to university purely for the degree. Usually this in terms of job prospects or further education requirements (e.g. professional schools, graduate schools, etc.).

Of course, if you’re applying to professional school (such as medical school), marks matter. So some people go to university primarily to get the grades required to move on to something else.

In my opinion, these are all legitimate. It bothers me when people try to act as if there is some universal agreement as to what we should want out of our education (e.g. “You shouldn’t be picking your school just for the sake of getting good marks!” There are reasons why doing so is often not a good idea, but it has nothing to do with a right or wrong way of looking at education). Quite often, what we want out of our education will be some combination of 2 or 3 of these views, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

When you are thinking of where you want to go to university, you need to reflect on all of these issues, because different undergraduate programs will be more conducive to one of these aspects than the others.

So take the time to figure out what you want out of your university education – it’ll save you a lot of head ache down the road!

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In undergrad, I usually only spent one or two days studying for a test or exam. Here, I had to start like 3-4days in advance. So basically, the amount of material I needed to know for my medical school exam was 2-3 times as much as for an undergrad exam. All that said, the exam questions weren’t any harder than any undergrad exam.

If you ask any medical student about whether medical school is challenging, I’m sure they’ll say yes, but I’m sure they will also tell you that it’s not intellectually harder (though I guess it depends on what their undergrad major was. But I would say this is probably true for any student with a science background). Rather, the reason why academics in medical school is more challenging is simply because you have to learn a significantly greater volume of information in a shorter period of time.

Why is Your GPA Important to Admissions Committees?

Most medical schools use GPA as a huge screening tool when assessing applicants. The reason for this should be obvious: GPA has a strong correlation with intelligence. While it is true that there are always exceptions (e.g. someone smart might not apply themselves, someone might have personal issues that affect their school work, etc.), on average and in general, this correlation will stand (remember, we have to play averages because it’s impractical to work on a very specific level). While anyone can get a bad GPA if they want to, not everyone can get a good GPA. You want someone smart helping you make decisions about your health, right? Well, we need some sort of tool for that, and GPA is one of the only ones we have.

A strong GPA also says a lot about your long term work ethic. Anyone can do well in one course, but doing well over many courses suggests your success isn’t a fluke. To maintain a good GPA over many courses demonstrates that you not only have a strong work ethic, but importantly, you have a strong work ethic when it comes to academics. A lot of medical school is simply learning a ton of information – it is school after all. Considering how much information you get thrown on you in medical school, the admissions committees need to know you are capable of handling a heavy work load. The learning is going to extend beyond medical school and for life – doctors are constantly learning and acquiring new information. Good doctors are good students.

If I had to choose only one criteria to admit applicants into medical school, it would be GPA. While I acknowledge a lot of other skills are important, the ability to learn and remember as much as a physician needs to is probably most important. You can’t treat if you don’t know anything. Most applicants have pretty good soft and people skills, and if not yet, those can be worked on and developed through the clinical skills programs here. But it’s way more difficult to teach someone how to learn and how to think than it is to teach someone how to work with and for others.

Learn the Way You Learn Best

When I started medical school here, I kept hearing that you just needed to get past the hump of first semester and things would get a lot better in terms of stress and intensity. They were right. First semester was full of anatomy and anatomy labs, which is what made it so time consuming. I guess it didn’t help that I wasn’t used to that kind of material, but it’s not really a big deal.

The difference with second semester is that there are no mandatory labs, and subsequently, there is more time off (for example, I keep getting quite a few Tuesday and Thursday afternoons off, which is awesome).

Also, by now, you start understanding the way you learn and what works for you. Not everyone will gain value in going to lecture as opposed to watching it online later. Not everyone will gain the same value out of seminars for various reasons. Because most things don’t have mandatory attendance, there is more flexibility in choosing how to learn the material and when you want to.

Yesterday our clinical skills session was delivered by a second year medical resident. As a side note, from my limited experience, medical residents are extremely knowledgeable, approachable, and helpful. I think it might be because they have recently gone through what you have and understand your perspective. Whatever the case, they are a great resource for information, and every time I’ve met one they’ve been more than happy to answer any of my questions and in both a kind and frank manner.

Anyways, one of the things he brought up was how if he could go back and do medical school all over again, he probably would have skipped half of the lectures because he realized he just wasn’t an auditory learner and got so much more out of learning the material more on his own (self-directed learning: a skill you will need as a physician for life, as no one is going to be telling you what and how to learn for your entire career). This is coming from a guy who was clearly ridiculously knowledgeable.

I know some people believe that as future practicing physicians we have the moral obligation to attend every lecture, seminar, etc – and so there is some guilt felt when lectures or seminars are skipped. I disagree with that completely. The only moral obligation I feel we could possibly have is to do what is necessary to graduate as competent physicians, capable of serving the population. How we get from point A (beginning of medical school) to point B (graduating as a competent physician) is up to us.

Simply going to lecture or seminar is not going to make you a better physician. If you’re going to lecture and end up just sleeping, listening but not absorbing, or whatever, perhaps that time could have better been spent doing something else. Some people can’t learn at 9 am. Some people just can’t sit still in a lecture hall. That’s fine. Do what works for you.

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I am not saying altruism is a bad thing. Being unselfish and serving others is something I highly respect and value, and is an important quality we all need to have at one point or another, particularly in the medical profession. It does become problematic, however, when you start taking it to the extreme and believing that only altruism is good and selfishness is bad in everything.

We all need to be selfish at some point, and anyone who denies ever being selfish needs a reality check. If you’re reading my blog right now (and I’m assuming because you want to and find enjoyment/value in it), I dare you to ask yourself whether this isn’t a selfish act considering that you could be out volunteering or cleaning up the park or something more altruistic. If you agree with me that we can’t be altruistic all the time (or that even if we could, it’s unhealthy), then let’s keep going forward. Clearly, there are times when altruism isn’t in our best interests and it has nothing to do with being a good or bad person – sometimes it’s just a choice.

Altruism can be good and all, but how altruistic we are and when we are is going to be situation dependent. Even doctors need to be selfish and take care of themselves – they need to go home, see their families, rest, etc. A stressed out, tired, unhappy doctor is not going to be good for his or her patients. Balance is important.

Premed Altruism

I feel like in many instances premed students (i.e. students interested in applying to medical school) are overly altruistic and over apply the principle in situations that don’t warrant it. I’m not generalizing and saying all of them do this (because don’t), but I see it often enough that I feel it’s important to address. Basically, because of a combination of the idealism taught in our education system and how many young people think about the ideal, altruistic, selfless, noble physician (again, this is just my theory on why this happens), it seems as if a number of premeds place altruism above all else, to the point where the concept is irrationally misapplied. It might help to use an example.

Application Advice/Consulting: To Charge or Not to Charge?

I remember reading a thread on a well-known Canadian premed online forum about a new consulting company started by medical students for medical school applicants. The thread turned into a massive train wreck with a bunch of posters attacking the thread starter, basically crying that it was selfish to charge applicants for application advice/consulting, especially when there are “free help services” available. Well of course it’s selfish – then again, depending on your views, everything we do can be classified as selfish, but I don’t want to go down that philosophical path. Nevertheless, some people believe that as future, “altruistic”, physicians we should also have the altruism to not charge for providing consulting/admissions help – I hope you can see why that’s sort of a ridiculous claim.

It seems to me that it all comes back to money (oops, I thought I could get away from it). It seems as if some premeds believe that wanting money in exchange for a service is somehow wrong (what?) and that everyone should be offering help for free, especially people who are going to be future physicians (it’s not like physicians get paid, right?). But sarcasm aside, I hope you can see what’s wrong with this picture.

There’s nothing wrong with giving free help with medical school applications, but there’s also nothing wrong with charging for it. If people want to go ahead and pay for a service that they think will help them, what’s the big deal? Also, just because some services (e.g. interview help at your university’s support centre or something) are free, does not mean they are necessarily equal in quality to what might be provided by those charging (and in the same way, it doesn’t mean they aren’t better either – but there’s no reason to be narrow minded about any of your options). Again, it seems like there’s some sort of taboo with money, which is very weird considering that it seems holding down any job other than something to do with medical school admissions is somehow fine.

I mean, these are often times the same people who payed more than a thousand dollars for a MCAT preparation course – why is it okay for that to be a business but not medical school admissions consulting? This type of inconsistency in thought boggles my mind.

I mean, if I decided to charge people to read the articles on my blog, would that make me a bad person? I really don’t see how anyone could argue that. If I am providing some sort of value (which I think I am), and people are willing to pay for it, what’s wrong with that? Granted, people who cant’ afford to or don’t want to pay would be upset, but that has nothing to do with me being a good or bad person. I mean, I don’t hate Porsche because I can’t afford to buy their cars – I don’t think they are bad people because they make cars I can’t afford.

Picking Courses to Get Good Marks

There always seems to be a hot debate about premeds about how to go about picking your undergrad courses, and it’s often quite the dichotomy: do we pick courses that we think we’ll get good marks in, or should we be picking courses that interest us regardless of their difficulty?

Despite all the bickering that often goes on, and the argument of nobility that people should be studying in undergrad to learn and not for marks, the fact is that your education is whatever you want it to be. There’s nothing wrong with studying to learn or studying for marks. It’s your choice.

Yet for some reason, there is a prevalent feeling that those who who pick courses to get good marks are “bad” people undeserving of going to medical school and who will have a “rude awakening” when they realize they can’t handle the workload of medicine because they had an easy time in undergrad – that undergrad is about a time for challenging yourself. I mean, if that’s your philosophy that’s fine, but realize that’s no more correct than the philosophy that undergrad is about getting marks – because it’s your education and no one else’s.

It’s not like there is some absolute, universal truths about what postsecondary education is for, so it makes no sense for people to claim there is a right or wrong way to go about getting one.

Do what you want, but realize the consequences, that’s all. If you’re willing to sacrifice your marks for interest, that’s your choice. Ditto for sacrificing interest for marks. Both are fine, do what you want.

So what?

All I’m saying is we got to be rational about things and not project opinions on other people as if they are facts or universal truths.

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The other day, someone asked me if I could write an article on shadowing. While I don’t have any real advice for finding mentors to shadow besides “just asking”, I remembered an article I wrote a few years ago about my experience shadowing a physician, and why I thought job shadowing as a whole is important and something every student should take the time to explore. I dug up the article, and I hope you guys find it helpful…

I observed intently as Dr. Rutka took a deep breath before sharing the grave news with the mother. Her son, who has had epilepsy for years, requires brain surgery to remove a tumour that the doctor believes to be causing his seizures. However, there are huge risks involved, especially if the boy has a seizure during surgery. I felt a lump in my throat as the mother hammered the doctor with questions in a hysterical manner, clearly concerned over the health of her son. My eyes gazed in admiration at the powerful calm in Dr. Rutka’s voice as he consoled the mother. His compassion for the boy and his family resonated throughout the room. I began to wonder if I could keep the same poise and composure if I were in Dr. Rutka’s position. I was sure it was situations like these that make a career in medicine difficult, stressful and often heart wrenching.

A few patients later, I watched attentively as Amro, a neurosurgery resident, performed a routine check up on a young girl who had brain surgery just a few months before. Although he was still in training, Amro showed obvious passion for the long career in neurosurgery that lay ahead. The girl’s mother watched Amro in awe, saying, “when I think about how many lives you’re going to save one day, I can’t help but feel inspired”. I couldn’t help but smile and share in the special moment. It was then that I realized in spite of the blood, sweat and tears of a career in medicine, moments like these made everything worth it.

The opportunity to shadow a world class pediatric neurosurgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children doesn’t come along everyday. In the last few years, my interest in medicine – particularly in pediatrics and neuroscience – have grown. Still, I wanted to make sure that the health care environment was right for me. The privilege to learn from Dr. Rutka over the current school year comes from a career mentorship program run by Youth in Motion, a Canadian organization striving to help shape the futures of our youth. Youth in Motion develops and implements career mentoring programs that connect youth with adults in their choice of career.

“Career mentoring is a highly valuable and worthwhile experience for youth. It enables them to explore a career field in a unique and personalized format,” says Akela Peoples, President and CEO of Youth in Motion. “Dialoguing with someone in the workforce enables students to get important and relevant questions answered, provides an opportunity to learn directly from someone who has travelled a particular path before them and, most importantly, facilitates the transfer of unfiltered information.”

Observing Dr. Rutka’s work has only enhanced my aspirations to enter a career of medicine, and I now hope to work at the Hospital for Sick Children someday. It is fortunate that this “shadowing” experience reinforced my aspirations; indeed, I could just as easily have detested the hospital environment. If that were the case, imagine how dreadful it would be if I had gone through the endless years of education and training to become a doctor, only to realize it wasn’t the career for me!

For aspiring entrepreneurs like David Wen of Surrey, British Columbia, connecting with the CEO of a company created a life changing relationship. “Mentors are people who truly care for your well being, since their success is not dependant on yours,” says Wen, whose mentor has allowed him to witness many aspects of business, including sales pitches. “They are like honest and determined salespeople who do not work on commission.”

James Valitchka, already an 11 year old best-selling author hailing from Ottawa, Ontario, believes that you can never be too young to seek out a mentor for advice. “It’s really important to have a mentor to talk to about life and the future,” claims Valitchka, who has been paired up by Youth in Motion with a businessperson and one-time author. “They keep you encouraged and their advice can stop you from making mistakes. They share their experiences with you and make you a better and smarter person.”

As students, you are in the midst of a journey of discovery and reflection, trying to determine your direction in life. Like many before you, you might feel absolutely sure that you will become a lawyer, surgeon, web designer or teacher. At the same time, how can you be so sure that defending criminals in court, performing brain surgery, designing websites or teaching high school is something you would be happy doing? The fact is you won’t know until you try. And while shadowing won’t let you experience the job directly, you will better understand the field.

Having career mentors becomes ever so important for those of us about to embark on a brand new journey – the transition into adulthood. For some of us, the distance ahead is as clear as the sky; for others, it is a blurry mixture. There are those who have planned their entire lives out for the next fifty years, and for the rest of us, every thought, action and decision is perhaps spontaneous. Yet no matter how prepared you are for the future, you need to step in the shoes of those careers yourselves – and there is no better way to do so than by actually learning from individuals in the field.

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The following is a guest post from my good friend over at Medaholic.com. He is currently a first year medical student and is involved in his school’s admissions process. His blog is fantastic, so check it out!

Why do grades matter so much when it comes to getting into medical school? We’ve all seen people obsessed with getting a good GPA, arguing with professors for extra an extra mark here and there, and studying not to learn, but as a means to a better grade. The hard fact is if you want to get into medical school, you need solid academic performance. As a result, many students become mark-mongering paranoid GPA calculators.

But we all know that a high GPA does not necessarily correlate with being a good physician. Intangible factors like compassion, empathy and bedside manner cannot be recorded on a transcript. So why should grades play such an important role, if not the most essential, when it comes to medical school admissions?

There are three reasons why medical schools, and why you too, should put such a big emphasis on grades. (1) Convenience, (2) Objectivity, (3) Indication of future performance

Convenience

Every year, tens of thousands of applications are submitted to medical schools around the country. Each package contains a wealth of information: personal information, a transcript, MCAT score, personal essay, list of extracurricular activities, references and supplementary documents. In order to be fair and thorough, each application is carefully evaluated and reviewed. As a result, the process is time consuming.

In order to streamline the admissions process, each application is broken into its individual parts and evaluated apart from each other. Your grades and MCAT would be evaluated by a computer, your essay read by an adcom who has not seen your grades, your reference letter by another adcom, etc.

Unfortunately, the fastest way to screen out applicants and reduce the workload is by cold hard numbers. That is why your GPA is the first step of the entire process. If you do not have a good GPA, the rest of your application is irrelevant because it may not even be looked at or if so, you are already disadvantaged. A good GPA gets your foot in the door and gets the rest of your application to be considered seriously.

I find it uncomfortable to know that we can judge and “know” a person’s capabilities through a single number. But regrettably, this is the way things are currently done and without screening out applicants, the admissions process would be horribly ineffective.

Objectivity

Another problem, we adcoms face is how to accurately compare students with diverse backgrounds and from different schools. How can you compare the value of a Bachelor in Arts with one from Engineering? It’s comparing apples to oranges.

Grades solve this performance because it evaluates you on your performance in your field of study. Although we may not know if a top student in history would perform just as well in biochemistry, we know at least that he was the best of his peer group. Anything that helps quantitatively assess your achievement makes the admissions process easier.

Now many of you may know that some programs are inherently harder to get good grades in. Furthermore, some universities are more relaxed with giving out grades. How can that be objective? And that is one of the problems we face, and that is why I am a strong proponent of the MCAT, a standardized measure of all applicants. But your grades will still reveal to us your class ranking and how well you did comparatively to students in your program. You cannot fake and present a false a mark like you can with your extracurriculars. Transcripts are the gold standard and that’s why there is such an importance to them.

Furthermore, your grades are one of the few factors that you do have control over and that you can improve in if you put in the effort. Your referee may write you a bad letter, you might not be able to land a research position, you might get a terrible interviewer, but your grades are something you can control. In fact, I would go to say that grades are not so much a reflection of a student’s mental abilities as it is of their work ethic and enthusiasm. It is an area where there are few excuses.

Indication of future performance

Studies have shown that the best indicator and correlation of medical school performance has been undergraduate grades. Students who have performed well before medical school tend to continue doing so in medical school and have a high success rate of graduating. Because of the enormous resources and time invested in medical students, all med schools want to avoid drop outs.

Furthermore, a consistently strong GPA demonstrates dedication and hard work over a long period of time. Whereas the MCAT is a single day event that may indicate your intelligence, even the smartest of students will find it difficult to obtain good grades without committed effort constantly. Adcoms will always choose a committed and determined student with good work ethics over a bright but lazy student.

Why this matters to you

If you are considering a career in medicine, good grades are of absolute importance to you. They are the single most vital part of your application. They will increase your chances of acceptance the most, more than any job position, volunteering, or scholarship. Even if you are a Rhodes scholar, if you have dismal grades, it will be extremely difficult for you to be accepted – although the scenario of a Rhodes scholar with poor academic performance is certainly unlikely.

However, I would like to end with a different message and that is grades shouldn’t be your first priority. A better title to this post should have been “Why Grades Matter First to Medical School Admissions.” The GPA is the crucial part to getting you into medical school, but I encourage you to not make it the most important part of your life. Understand its important and leave it at that. There are more important things in life than getting into medical school and being a doctor. Family, faith, service, community, helping others, improving yourself, learning, pursuing your passions. If you can understand the context of grades and set apart appropriate but enough time for it, you will be a much better person and candidate in the end.

I’ve attached a diagram for you. Think of your GPA and MCAT as the foundation to your application. You cannot create a solid application without an adequate base. Each layer at the bottom supports the areas above it. Work on building a solid foundation and after you have that down, then work on the other aspects that will put your application on top.

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I have always done well in school my whole life. Throughout both elementary and high school, I had rarely gotten close to a failing grade in anything. And even the few times I did, the weight of those assignments or tests was not that significant, and as you eventually learn, high school marks don’t matter that much once you reach a certain point.

When I got to university, I had planned on taking school a bit more seriously. Unlike high school where you have numerous tests, assignments and exams per course (and thus, failing a single test probably does not affect your final mark too much), university courses tend to be composed of fewer components that are worth more. As a result, messing up even one test could now significantly hurt your final mark. For example, the microeconomics course I took last year had two tests (25% each) and one final exam (50%). The final exam itself had just 40 multiple choice questions, meaning that each question was worth 1.25% of my final mark!

However, the bigger reason why I wanted to take my university academics more seriously is because I was interested in eventually applying to medical school. While medical schools differ on how much they value GPA, the fact of the matter is that given the competitive nature of the process, it makes sense to do your best. You will never know when that extra point might just be the difference between an acceptance and a rejection.

Nonetheless, the reality is that university is more difficult than high school. And while I wasn’t expecting it, I did hit a rough patch during the fall of my first year. There was a particular week where, back to back, I got the two worst marks I have ever received in university so far – 60′s on both a physics and chemistry test. I was partly upset because of how it could affect my final marks in the course, but I think I was even more hurt because I expected to do better than that.

However, did this mean I was now a C-student in my physics and chemistry courses?

Expectation and the Long Run

The short answer is no, not necessarily. What you achieve on a single test is not a perfect indicator of your ability – that’s why you normally have more than one evaluated component to a course. The idea is that the more times you need to be marked, the greater the probability that your scores will converge on your long-term expected mark. So while it may be possible for you to fail or ace a single test due to unforeseen circumstances or random luck, it is way more difficult to do so over many tests.

For example, say you and I decide to flip a single coin. You pick heads, and as it turns out, the coin lands heads. Does this mean you are way better at flipping coins than I am? Not necessarily. Something working out once or a few times doesn’t mean that it is always going to turn out that way.

Why do you think major sports leagues tend to have multi-game playoffs? For example, in both the NHL (hockey) and the NBA (basketball), the playoffs involve teams playing a best of 7 series (i.e. the first time to win four games moves on to the next round). The idea here is to reduce variance by having teams play more than once.

Although it is possible that a technically worse team could defeat a better one in a best of 7 series, that is less likely to occur than in a best of 1 series. The fact that one team loses a single game does not mean it is a worse team than the other – so many factors could have affected the result (e.g. injuries, mental lapses, etc.). Even if one team is so much better than the other that it should win 90% of the time, that still means the better team should also lose 10% of the time. It is nearly impossible for a team to have a 100% success rate against any other team in competitive sports.

In the same way, just because I got 60% on my two tests, does not necessarily mean that I am a long-term 60% student in first year chemistry and physics. However, in the same way, achieving 90% on those two tests isn’t enough proof to suggest that I am not a long-term 60% student either. In either case, the sample size just isn’t large enough.

As it turned out, thanks to some luck and hard work, I was able to pull off A+’s in both those courses. Although those results are by no means definitive of my abilities, I think it is pretty safe to say that my long term expectation in first year physics and chemistry courses is closer to an A than to a C. While analyzing a random test result during the year might say otherwise, one of the things you must constantly remember is that the long-term is always more important. That’s why your final mark, which takes into account an entire year or semester’s worth of evaluated components, is what you find on your transcript and some random single test is not.

If you studied hard and fell sick the morning of one of your exams, what more could you have really done? Imagine a hypothetical scenario where you had to take the same type of exam everyday for a year. Perhaps when healthy, you would average 90% on the exam. However, when sick, you would average 20%. And let’s say that you always get sick 10 days a year (out of 365 days). In that case, if this exam occurred on any random day, your long term expected value for this specific exam would be [355(0.90) + 10(0.20)]/365 = 0.88 = 88%. So while your expected mark for this exam is 88%, it is very possible to have a bad, sick day where you actually achieve ~20% and there was nothing you could have done about it.

If you do fall sick on the day of your exam and do poorly, it helps to ignore the short-term result and realize the fact that over time your hard work will pay off, and that if you had to do this exam again, you do extremely well it most of the time. Your university years will be full of tests and exams, and understanding your long term expectation in the process will go a long way to keeping your self-confidence stable no matter what unfortunate circumstances are thrown your way.

Problems with Being Results-Oriented

Sometimes you are going to fail miserably in the short term; on the other hand, sometimes you will do absolutely fantastic. Realize that whether you succeeded or failed is not as important as understanding why that result happened – this is an important concept that results-oriented individuals have trouble understanding.

Being results-oriented refers to basing one’s understanding of events primarily on the specific results. The major problem with being results-oriented is that it relies on the false assumption that results are constants. People who are results-oriented tend to think only in terms of absolutes, with ideas such as “events will or won’t happen” instead of “events are more likely or less likely to happen”.

For example, say you are travelling by passenger plane and it almost crashes. A results-oriented person on that flight would immediately say flying is too dangerous and never fly again. Instead of trying to figure out exactly why that specific flight had problems, a results-oriented person just takes that single horrifying event and assumes all other flights will be like it.

While that example might seem absurd to some of you, I would bet that many of you are results-oriented in every day aspects of your life.

Say you are taking a course with a final exam that involves writing an essay. You are given four topics beforehand, and are told one of them will be used on the exam. Obviously, the smart thing to do is prepare for all four topics. However, maybe you were lazy or low on time, so you decide to only prepare for Topic 1. As it turns out, Topic 2 is used on the exam. More often than not, you will leave the exam saying: “I knew I should have studied Topic 2!” Yet the fact of the matter was that Topic 1 was equally likely to have shown up on the exam as Topic 2.

Imagine if you were results oriented with everything in your life. If you failed one test, you would just go ahead and quit school – if you can’t pass one test, then maybe you can’t pass any of them. Or if you didn’t get into medical school your first try you would just give up and think you weren’t capable. Or, worse, if you survived jumping off a building once you would think you are immortal and try it again – okay that was a bit extreme, but I just wanted to illustrate the problems with results-oriented thinking.

Results-oriented thinking is illogical. It’s like thinking that because you rolled a six with a die once, you will keep rolling six for the rest of your life.

It’s important to not let the results of events affect your decisions. Just because you over studied one time for a test does not necessarily mean you should start under-studying now. Or just because you do poorly on one test does not mean you can’t do better on the next.

Once you realize this, it becomes much easier to deal with failure and frustration.

If you work hard, in the long-term, the results will come.

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I love multiple choice tests more than any other type of tests. They’re great because you don’t even have to know the answer to have a shot at getting a question right!

Especially when it comes to courses where you are expected to know a lot of information (e.g. biology), it helps when you only need to recognize details instead of having to come up with them yourself. When you’re cramming so much information in your head the night before, it’s really useful to have possible answers right in front of you to jog your memory.

When all you have is a question and blank space, it is really easy to sometimes blank out. For example, I would find it much easier to identify the three tenets of cell theory than to write them out myself (and also have to make sure you write them in an acceptable way). Moreover, with multiple choice tests, you can’t lose marks due spelling, grammar, subjectivity, etc.

That being said, multiple choice tests can often be tricky and difficult. At the core of it, multiple choice tests rely on logic and deduction. There must always be reasons why a certain answer should be singled out among the available choices.

If you want to ace multiple choice tests, there are some things you need to know.

Understand the Question

It is crucial that you know exactly what you’re being asked. If you don’t know what the question is even asking, how will you know what type of answer to look for?

Keep in mind that even a single word can change the entire meaning of a question. You have no idea how many multiple choice questions I’ve gotten wrong simply because I didn’t see the word “not”. If you tend to forget important words like that, it often helps to underline them every time you see such a word in a question.

So take your time when reading the question. Make sure you understand it right the first time, so you don’t have to worry about making silly mistakes just because you misread something.

Realize that the answer choice you pick must answer the question. Just because an answer “sounds” good, isn’t enough of a reason to pick it. Sometimes professors like to trick students by making the correct answer the least sophisticated sounding – don’t fall into this trap! Above all else, whatever you choose must clearly answer the question being asked.

Read Every Single Answer Choice and Use Process of Elimination

It is imperative that you read every single answer choice before making your final decision. A common mistake students make is when they select the first good answer that they see – the problem is that there might be more than one possible answer, and unless you consider all of the available choices, you won’t know if there is a better answer. There is only one “best” answer (see next section), and if you don’t read all of the possible answer choices, you are often going to end up missing it.

So here’s what I personally do, and what I suggest you do. As you read each answer choice, immediately cross out any answer you know cannot be 100% true. That is, only cross out choices you are completely sure to be wrong. If you are unsure about an answer choice, leave it for now. Then go back, and consider those answer choices left remaining.

By doing this, you don’t make the mistake of overlooking the correct answer. If there is one answer choice left, then obviously select that one. But if there is more than one answer choice left after your first pass, then you will need to analyze the answer choices left over, and come up with reasons why one of those answers is better than the rest.

If after a decent amount of time, you still aren’t sure about the correct answer, then just pick any of them for the time being, mark-up that question, and move on with the intention of coming back later if time permits. The good news is that if you’re able to narrow the question down to two or three possible choices, you always have a decent shot at getting it right. Knowing this, it makes sense to just move on and work on increasing your probability of getting another question correct, instead of spending all of your time on one question where you already know you’re going to get correct 50% or so of the time.

Coin Flipping

A lot of times I narrow a question down to two or so equally good choices, and I end up just picking any of them – I’m essentially coin flipping for this question, since I have a 50/50 shot at getting it right.

Sometimes I get lucky and “coin flip” really well on tests, other times I don’t get so lucky and “coin flip” badly. Remember that your luck will even out in the long term. Realize that even the best students have to “coin flip” sometimes on tests.

Select the Best Possible Answer

Some professors or teachers will write on their test to “select the best possible answer” and some won’t, but in general, that is the motto you should follow. You’re often going to come across more than one answer that is technically true, but for some reason, one answer should be more correct than any of the other ones. When this happens, you will need to do a bit of thinking and investigating, to figure out what the difference between those few answers are and to eventually find the necessary reasons one why one is a better answer than the other.

For example, sometimes the best possible answer is the one that is more detailed. For example, an early high school chemistry quiz might ask: “What are atoms composed of?” You might get the answer choices “Atoms are composed of subatomic particles” and “Atoms are composed of subatomic particles: protons, neutrons, and electrons”. While both of these answers are technically correct, the second answer is a “better answer” because it provides more detail.

In any case, the important idea is to remember that simply because a certain answer is true does not make it the answer you should immediately select. This is a mistake students often make when they do multiple choice tests – they just look for any answer that is true, and select it. This strategy is sure to fall apart when you have tricky professors or teachers who require you to compare and contrast possible true answer choices.

Circle Your Answer on the Question Sheet

Whenever I choose an answer for a question, I make sure to not only bubble my answer on the answer sheet (e.g. a Scantron card), but I also make sure to circle the correct answer on my question sheet. There are a few important reasons why I do this.

First, it lets me quickly check at the end of the test if I bubbled my answers correctly. All I do is compare the answers I circled to answers I bubbled in, just to make sure that I didn’t accidentally bubble in the wrong answer – this happens to everyone at some point, and if you don’t circle the answer on your question sheet, it’s hard to catch these silly mistakes.

Secondly, when I am double checking my answers, it helps that I can double check my answers right on the question sheet without having to go back and forth with the answer sheet. When it comes to tests, it’s important to spend your time wisely.

Thirdly, professors let you take the question sheets with you after the test. Having my answers circled lets me know what mark I should expect, and therefore, whether or not I need to make an appointment to see my answer sheet when I get an unexpected mark back.

Finally, when you are using your previous test to prepare for your exam, it helps to not have to do all the grunt work again when reviewing the questions and answers. Seeing your old test notes and even just the correct answer can help jog your memory of how you solved the question. Moreover, some professors actually re-use similar questions on the test, and it can sometimes help to have an easy way to memorize some of them in advance.

What About Tests that Penalize me for a Wrong Answer?

The only time I’ve ever gotten penalized for a wrong answer on a multiple choice test has been on those high school mathematics or science contests. This has never happened to me on a university test (and I doubt it ever happens), but I figure I might as well comment on this issue just in case it happens to anyone.

In these types of tests, what normally happens is that you get say 1 mark for a correct answer, 0 marks for leaving it blank, and -0.5 marks for getting it wrong. The idea here is to prevent students from getting rewarded for outright guesses. Clearly then, if you are very sure of your answer, you should obviously select it and not worry about getting it wrong.

The only time when you should consider leaving an answer blank is if you’re not sure. At this point, it is important to look at the mathematics of the situation, and see what your neutral point is in terms of when it’s worth taking a guess at the question. Let me show you with an example.

Let’s use my above mentioned test format where you get 1 mark for a correct answer, 0 marks for a blank answer, and -0.5 marks for a wrong answer. Also, let’s assume there are four possible answer choices (e.g. A, B, C, D).

If we completely guess for a question, we have a ¼ chance of getting it right and a ¾ chance of getting it wrong. Therefore, for a complete guess, our expectation in the long term for a single question is: (1/4)(1 mark) + (3/4)(-0. 5 marks) = (0.25 marks) + (-0.375) marks = -0.125 marks. That is, whenever you randomly guess on this test, you lose on average -0.125 marks. So in this specific test format, it is always better to leave a question blank if you have no idea what the answer could be.

But what if we were able to narrow it down to 3 choices and then guess? In that case, we have a 1/3 chance of getting it right and a 2/3 chance of getting it wrong – much better odds. Let’s look at what our expectation would be: (1/3)(1 mark) + (2/3)(-0. 5 marks) = 0 marks. This is our neutral point. What I mean by this is that when we have narrowed it down to 3 choices, it doesn’t matter whether we guess or leave it blank, since our long term expectation for both cases is getting a 0 on the question.

What this does mean is that we should always guess when we’ve narrowed it down to 2 choices, since our expectation would be positive (you can try the math to prove it yourself).

So whenever you are in this situation, make sure you figure out the neutral point for your test, and then decide whether a question is worth guessing on.

Don’t Get Stuck on a Question

I mentioned this briefly before, but as my final word on this topic, I feel it is important to say it again. Each question is worth the same, so getting a hard question right is just as important as getting an easy question right.

Particularly for multiple choice tests, never forget that your goal should be to get as many questions right as possible.

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Some students may think that you just study and go in and do the test. I don’t think it’s that simple.

While I have said that preparation is the hard part and taking the test is the relatively easy part, I would say that is true, but only if you have already mastered what I like to call the “art of test-taking”. For that reason, many students actually find taking tests harder than studying for it, even though it shouldn’t be that way.

Test-taking is as much psychological as it is mental and physical. The habits, mindset and attitudes of a successful test-taker are significantly different than students who have trouble with tests.

In this article, I explore those differences, and will try to show you some of the subtle yet important things myself and other successful test-takers do to maximize our test performance.

NOTE: I plan on writing in the future about tackling specific types of tests, such as Multiple Choice Tests, Short-Answer Tests, Essay Tests, etc. For now, this article focuses on general test habits and attitudes.

Getting a Good Night’s Rest

This one should be pretty obvious, and admittedly because of late night cramming, I don’t follow this as much as I should. Some of you may be able to get away with not sleeping enough, but for most students, getting enough sleep so that you are wide awake during a test is crucial. Take this from someone who has personally pulled all nighters and fallen asleep during exams (luckily during high school, and not university!). If you don’t have enough sleep, you won’t be able to focus, and you won’t be able to do your best. It’s that simple.

If you’re like me, and you just can’t follow this good habit, then you’re going to have to find a way to keep yourself awake and stimulated for your tests. For me, if I’ve had a late night, my most important activity the morning of the test is to get a nice cup of coffee for the caffeine. I hate suggesting stuff like this, but do whatever works for you to make sure you’re awake.

When You’re Writing a Test, Be in the “Zone”

When I say you need to be “in the zone”, I mean that while writing a test, you need to be completely focused on the task at hand. Don’t think about how well or how badly you’re going to do, don’t panic, don’t stress out – just focus on the test. Clear your mind of anything else.

Thinking about things other than the question on the paper is a waste of mental energy. You don’t want to mentally exhaust yourself by thinking cynical, negative, or stressful thoughts – you need that mental energy to do your best on the test. Learn to just focus on the task at hand, and you won’t feel anxiety or stress anymore because your mind will be completely distracted by the test itself.

Successful test-takers do worry about tests and how they did, but they are successful because they leave those worries behind while they’re in the test. Sure those feelings can come back after the test, but that’s okay – as long as you don’t let those worries affect you during the test, it’s fine to be a little nervous or anxious when it’s over.

Always Do the Questions You Know You Can Answer First

On my very first university chemistry test, our professor decided to put arguably the most difficult problem on the first page. I decided to be stubborn, and waste the first 15 minutes just trying to figure that one problem out. Fortunately, I came to my senses and decided to give up and tackle the other problems first, but having realized this late, I still had to rush all of the other questions, increasing the chances of me making mistakes.

You have to realize that every question you do has a number of marks associated with it, and your goal is to maximize the number of marks on your test – not to answer the hardest questions just to prove you can. Imagine a multiple choice test out of 10 where 9 are really easy and 1 is super hard, and it takes the average person the same amount of time to solve the hard one as it does to solve the other nine easy ones. The fact of the matter is that you should make sure you get the 9 easy ones first, to guarantee that 90% before attempting the hard one – especially if it’s a multiple choice test and you have a ¼ or something chance to get the hard one right anyways.

If there’s a question you’re stuck on, and you know you’re likely going to be stuck on it for a while, skip it. There will probably be other questions, worth the same number of marks, that are easier to do. If you have time leftover, come back to it and try it again. But at least this way you don’t waste your entire test period trying to figure out one or two questions you may or may not even get – it’s just not worth it in terms of risk versus reward.

Have an ego? Get rid of it!

Some students can be perfectionists and have ego problems. They come from a high school where they aced or came close to acing every test. So they panic when they come across a question they just can’t figure out. They go berserk and spend all their time trying to figure it out because they know if they don’t, they can’t get that “perfect mark” on the test.

Trust me, I’ve been there – that’s what happened to me on my first chemistry test. But realize this: you can’t let your pride or ego get in the way of doing your best on the test. You have to understand the concept of maximizing your expectation – that is, obtaining the your best score possible on the test, regardless of what that actual number is. Sometimes that number is going to be 100, sometimes it’s going to be 90, sometimes it’s going to be 80, etc. Face it: university isn’t easy.

I have skipped questions I didn’t know, came back to them at the end, and just guessed or made something up if I couldn’t figure it out – and my GPA has turned out just fine. Having humility and being cognizant and realistic of your limits goes a long way to bringing you peace during school, reducing stress and anxiety, and therefore improving overall test performance.

Pace Yourself, but Work Quickly

When it comes to tests, time is a factor. It’s not like assignments or essays where you ultimately decide how much time you’re willing to spend on them. A common rule of thumb, and one that I support, is to briefly look over the test to figure out how long it is, and how much time you think you should spend on each question (or page). Doing this allows you to properly pace yourself, and recognize how quickly you need to work to complete the test on time. Some of you will want time leftover to double check your answers, which is something I definitely endorse. In addition, by figuring out this pace, you will realize during the test whether you’re spending too much time on a difficult question and just need to move on.

In general though, the important idea is that you want to work as quickly as possible without compromising your accuracy on the test. Working quickly is good because often you will finish your test on time (and therefore don’t have to worry about not finishing), and thus have time to check your work over. Even if you have a ridiculous amount of time to write the test and can work pretty slow, it’s not worth the rare times you misjudge your timing and have to rush at the end (trust me, I’ve been there).

Never Leave a Question Unanswered

It blows my mind when students do this, and not in a good way. You’d be surprised how lenient some professors or teaching assistants can be with marking if you just attempt a question. On one of my first year chemistry tests, there was a question that I wrote out a whole page of solution for and got it wrong, with a 2/6 for that question. My friend, who had no idea what to do, wrote one line containing one of the formulas required to answer the question – he also got a 2/6. True story. Of course, there are a few cases where leaving a question blank is fine (e.g. some multiple choice tests where you get penalized for a wrong answer), but those situations are pretty rare.

Use Up All of the Available Time

A test isn’t a race. You don’t get extra marks for being the first one to finish. I mean if you don’t really care about getting your best mark possible, then sure, work as fast as you want and immediately hand your test in without checking it over. But it boggles my mind when I see students who write a test as if it’s a race, and then get all upset when they realize they made a bunch of silly mistakes.

There’s no shame in being the last one writing a test. I almost always use up the entire test block just because I can. Call me obsessive or paranoid if you want, but if I have time left over, I’m going to double and even triple check my work just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. It’s great if you don’t need to do that, but just keep in mind that the entire test period is there for you to use it, and there’s no shame in doing so.

The Correct Answer is the One the Professor Thinks is Correct

I don’t care what the world’s foremost expert on a topic says, when it comes to a test, I’m writing down whatever my professor said in class.

This is a really important concept that I feel many students don’t spend enough time thinking about. Your professor is the one teaching the course and the one writing the tests. It is very important to realize that despite what you or anyone else may think, in terms of the course material, your professor is always right. Therefore, in general (and particularly whenever there is possible ambiguity on the test), you should always ask yourself: “How would my professor answer this question?”

Your Professor’s Psychological Profile: Tricky or Not Tricky?

On my first biochemistry test last year, there was a multiple choice question with a structure like this:

Question: Dogs and crocodiles are…

A: Reptiles and mammals
B: Mammals and birds
C: Mammals and fish
D: None of the above

Now, dogs are mammals and crocodiles are reptiles, but if you look carefully at Choice A, the items in the answer are not in the same order with their respective items in the question – so is it Choice A or is it Choice D (none of the above)?

For some professors it would be Choice A and for some it would be Choice D. Professors who would say Choice A is correct are professors who are pretty relaxed and wouldn’t care much for order and things like that. Professors who would say Choice D tend to be the ones who intentionally try to trick you and care very much about technicalities. You will probably come across both types of professors at some point or another.

Fortunately, my professor was willing to clear up the situation because many students kept asking him about it – but some professors won’t do this. Even if he hadn’t revealed the answer, I would have correctly picked Choice A because I felt that he wasn’t the type to be intentionally tricky.

This is one example, but just keep in mind that occasionally, it is helpful to take your professor’s psychological profile and personality into account when determining the “right” answer on your test.

Post-Test Reflection and Analysis

Okay seriously though, the first thing you should do after a test or exam is take a nice fun break. Well, I know some of you will immediately talk to your friends about what the answers were, but after that, take a break. You deserve it, and your brain needs it.

Once you take that break, feel free to reflect a bit about the test: What was easy about it? What gave you trouble or difficulty? Mentally and emotionally, were you fine?

If you felt anxious or nervous during the test, I want you to imagine exactly what those emotions felt like. By being conscious of those emotions, you will recognize them if they come up again during the next test. Then you will realize that they can’t help you, and that you need to forget about them to do better. Once you take control of your emotions, they will eventually go away.

This was the last article of the series, I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions or comments about doing well in your undergraduate courses, please leave a comment and I will do my best to answer!

* * * * * * * * * *

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

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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 >>

* * * * * * * * * *

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

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I have been a fan of mixed martial arts for the past two years. I think it’s because I am competitive by nature, and nothing can compare to the raw physical competition between two individuals just duking it out in a ring.

There is one quote from mixed martial artist Tito Ortiz that I have always remembered, which went something like this: “It’s the training that’s hard. The actual fight is the easy part.”

I look at tests the same way. A test takes only an hour, but you might spend hours, days or weeks preparing to write it.

All of the hard work happens in the preparation and studying – the test is the easy part If you are completely prepared for a test, then there is nothing to worry about. You just go in and do your best. In general, tests only become hard if you aren’t sufficiently prepared, both physically (the actual studying/test-taking preparation) and mentally (the psychological aspect).

In this article and the next, I focus on this preparation that I believe has made me successful in my university courses.

Approaching Lectures

Every professor has a different approach for lectures. Some professors don’t use textbooks, so everything they say or show you in class is everything you need to know for the course. Some professors like using textbooks, and their lecture is just a way to help you better understand the material in the textbook. Other professors are in between, using parts of the textbook while also coming up with their own original course material. In my opinion, how you approach the lectures should be a function of how the professor approaches it.

If your professor is lecture-based, then you should try to never miss a lecture. Your should also try to write down any notes that the he puts up, and in addition, anything important that he says that is not written down in his notes. There are some professors who put a few notes up, but add many new pieces of information when they speak. Some students make the mistake of thinking that only the information on the black board or the PowerPoint slides is important – don’t fall into this trap! If you’re not sure, write down anything important the professor says. There are some lectures where I will write down almost every single word the professor says.

Personally, I always bring my laptop and type up my notes for lecture-based professors. I type much faster than I write (which can also get quite messy), so unlike some other students I often see struggling to keep up with professor, I almost always get all the important information down. So if you enjoy typing more than writing, and you have a laptop you can use, I would definitely suggesting typing your notes during lecture.

What if there are diagrams to take down? Well, that’s harder to do on a laptop, so a friend and I have devised a system for our classes that involve diagrams. I type up any notes or things that the professor says, and my friend draws all of the diagrams. After, we just scan/photocopy the diagrams so that we both have all the information necessary for the test.

If your professor is text-book based, then you can probably be more liberal with your lecture habits. I had one professor who essentially just followed the textbook, and because of her strong accent, I could not understand a word she was saying in class anyways – so I did not go to a lot of those classes. I also had another professor who spent most of his class telling random stories, making jokes, and occasionally picking out random things from the textbook to talk about – I didn’t see much value in this class, so if I didn’t feel like it, I just didn’t go. Conversely, my philosophy professor this year does a wonderful job of explaining our textbook readings, so even though his class is textbook-based, I still never miss a class.

Some people might say, “well since you paid for the course, you’re doing yourself a disservice and wasting money by not attending every single lecture”. I don’t agree with this viewpoint, because that’s like saying if you go to a restaurant and order something, and it turns out that the chef just served you something from the trash, you should eat it because you paid for it. The fact of the matter is that you are adults in university now, and it is up to you to figure out whether there is value in anything that you do, from whether you should go to lecture to how much you should be studying for a test.

If your professor is somewhere in between, then you should probably go to class because something he says might be important. And in general, in those types of lectures, you probably won’t have to take too many notes anyways.

Do Your Assigned Readings on Time

Now I don’t actually follow this, but I suggest that you do. I think my life would be a lot easier if I at least kept up with my readings instead of trying to learn everything for the first time, last minute.

For professors that do use a textbook, the point of doing your assigned readings is so that you will be able to understand the lectures better. In addition, by keeping on top of your readings, you will quickly figure out which concepts you need to spend more time on. Imagine not doing your readings, and finding out the day before a test that you don’t understand something! Moreover, you will probably retain many of the key concepts or ideas you have read throughout the year, and therefore, there is less you will need to learn or study the days leading up to a test.

So if you have the time, doing your readings on time can only help.

Should I Take Notes from the Textbook?

I really don’t think there is a right or wrong answer to this, and the best answer is to do what works for you.

In general, I just study straight from the textbook, so I rarely if ever take notes from the textbook. However, some students find it helpful to take notes while going through their readings, so that they can just study their notes (and forget the textbook) when preparing for tests. In addition, some students find that taking notes while reading helps them retain the information because they need to put the material into their own words. Other students highlight the key points in their textbook, so that they know what key concepts or facts to memorize when studying.

You just need to figure out if taking notes makes sense for your learning and studying style. One thing you’re going to learn in university is that there is often no one right way to do something, and different techniques have their merits.

Form a Study Group

One of my close friends at York University was the only student in my class to achieve a perfect GPA after two years of undergraduate science. One night during second year, our study group was working through one of our professor’s past tests before a biochemistry midterm. Together, our study group went through each question and tried to come to a consensus for the answers. This way, we could see many different perspectives to the problem, and hopefully converge on the line of thinking that was probably correct.

However, for some reason, my friend could not make the study session and went through the practice test on his own. My friend got an 80-something on this midterm, while the rest of the our study group got high-90′s. My friend has always attributed his mark on that midterm to not being at that study session, and has always wanted to go through practice tests as a group since that moment.

The point I’m trying to make is that even for students acing courses, group discussion, practice, and studying is imperative to their success. Every successful student needs to have a group of friends he or she can rely on for support and advice.

When I say study group, I don’t necessarily mean that you need to have a group of students always studying together, many times a week. How you organize your studying, whether in a group or not, and how often you do so, is up to you and a separate issue on its own.

When I suggest that you form a study group, I just mean that you should find a small group of close friends that you can rely on for asking questions about course material, working through practice problems or past tests, or even meeting up to study in a group if that works for you.

No one is perfect, and you’ll rarely find a student who never has problems with the course material and never has to ask a question. I get confused all the time, but I’m never worried because I have a close group of friends who I can always go to for help.

Part 4 –Studying for Tests >>

* * * * * * * * * *

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

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