Time management question

[malcolmk14]

In one of my courses the instructor is taking six essay questions from a question bank of ten, of which we have to answer four of our choice on the midterm.

How can I figure out how many of the ten I should study for most efficient time management? Is it 6, 7, 8?

[IliketoPuck]

[JustAnotherGuy]

I figure eight is enough.

[calgaryrocks]

haha it depends how well you want to do. 8 would be the best answer. 6 questions could be any of the 10, so that doesn't narrow it down. however you get to skip any 2 of the 6 that are picked, therefore you only really need to know 8 of them

[Travis Munroe]

I would spend the same time studying 8 of them as I would 10.
At least you can write about the concept if you understand all 10.

[MarchHare]

From an optimal time management perspective, eight is the best answer. Even if the two you didn't prepare for are chosen for the exam, you can ignore them and answer four that you studied.

If you prepare for anything less than eight, then there will be three questions selected that you're not ready for and will be forced to fumble your way through one of them.

Also, back in my day, the profs didn't tell us the exam questions in advance -- we had to study everything covered during the year/term. Kids these days...

[Slava]

^ true, but one of the hardest exams I had in university was a take home exam....

[ken0042]

I think IliketoPuck may be right. I remember being given that kind of warning in a Poly Sci course; and as it turned out the essay questions had little to do with the subjects we had been told about.

[IliketoPuck]

My advice is to bite the bullet, and know all the information you need.

In my vast worldly experience, the last thing you expect to happen is generally the first thing that does happen.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by IliketoPuck

My advice is to bite the bullet, and know all the information you need.

In my vast worldly experience, the last thing you expect to happen is generally the first thing that does happen.

Awesome! So the OP just needs to get slammed the night before, wake and bake the morning of, and it's an A+ for sure!

[IliketoPuck]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

Awesome! So the OP just needs to get slammed the night before, wake and bake the morning of, and it's an A+ for sure!

[Pinner]

Focus on the questions you're least comfortable answering.

[ma-skis.com]

How about the general ideas and concepts covered in the course? use the questions as a guide and look for overlapping themes or topics. Maybe mapping out supporting ideas for each question and then looking at all of them again and finding potential links can help simplify the amount of studying, so you are focusing on set topics rather than discrete items for each question.

Just a different way of approaching it. Might work for some, maybe not for others.

[GGG]

Has the professor guarenteed that the questions he gave you to study will be verbatem on the exams? If not it is a scam of giving you 10 general topics and each question will relate to 2 or 3 of the practice questions and require knowledge from all three.

So I would study them all at least briefly so you understand the concepts and focus on the 8 you like. I would also further narrow done the scope to your favourite 4 or 5 that are likely the main focus of the course.

I was quite successful at guessing exam questions in advance just based on ephasis in the class. Usually I could predict 80% of the exams. If you have been successful at this in the past then just continue to guess well.

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by GGG

Has the professor guarenteed that the questions he gave you to study will be verbatem on the exams? If not it is a scam of giving you 10 general topics and each question will relate to 2 or 3 of the practice questions and require knowledge from all three.

Yes he has given us 10 questions, six of them will appear verbatim on the exam. We can choose four of those six to answer.

Thanks for the responses everyone. I knew that studying 8 would give me 100% coverage for the exam, I guess what I was wondering is if I only studied 7, what the odds are that three of the six on the exam will be the three I didn't study. And if I only studied 6, what are the odds that 3 or 4 of the 4 I didn't study would be on the exam?

For example, if studying 7 gives me a 99% chance of full coverage for the exam, is studying that 8th question really worth it?

At what point does the increase in potential exam coverage from studying one more question become less than the increase in time invested?

[D to the iddy]

As mentioned above, I would try to see if there are overlapping topics that you can study and get enough knowledge in your brain to answer two of the questions. Having 10 different topics for a University course makes me think that some of them should overlap even just a little. Finding these areas of overlap can help eliminate some study time.

As for whether studying 7 questions is worth it, that's a personal choice. It's a gamble that you're either willing or not willing to take. If you're doing good in the course and don't really care, then only study 6 or 7 and take the risk. If you need to do good on the test to get a good mark in the course, then study all 10.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by D to the iddy

If you're doing good in the course and don't really care, then only study 6 or 7 and take the risk. If you need to do good on the test to get a good mark in the course, then study all 10.

[freedogger]

What kind of a score do you want to get on this exam, studying for an A is a lot different than studying for a B, especially in this kind of an exam.

[Sainters7]

Originally Posted by Slava

^ true, but one of the hardest exams I had in university was a take home exam....

Agreed, same with open book exams. You hear about it on the first day and think it's gonna be a joke, but they expect so much more out of you when you're allowed to have everything right in front of you. Only times I ever had take-home exams (once) and open book exams (once) in uni were both senior level English classes, and I did pretty poorly on both. Suprisingly very difficult.

As for OP, agreed, study 8 (but knowing me as a student I would've studied 6-7).

[IliketoPuck]

I had a final in a 500 level finance course that was open book.

People leaving the exam were all so shell shocked that all we could do was laugh. That was my last exam of university, I failed it with a 46%. But with the curve I got a A- on the test. Open book exams are the devil.