Study Skills: Preparing For Final Exams
I gave my students the following suggestions on preparing for final exams. It is similar to my previous post but is more specific towards my 7th and 8th graders. I would love to get your best suggestions.
Use strategies that help you recall rather than recognize information.
Recognition learning is when the goal is to recognize information, such as in a multiple choice test. Recall learning is when you recall information, such as in a simple question or essay format.
Some strategies that facilitate recall are:
- Converting outlines into questions. Scratch out the ones that you recall easily. Concentrate on the ones you don’t know.
- Use of flash cards. Same decision making. Put aside the ones you know and focus on the mysteries.
- Make two copies of study guides. Complete one copy and use the other as a giant flash card. Same decision making; eliminate the material you know and focus on what you don’t know.
- For vocabulary words. List the words on one side of the paper, draw a vertical line next to the list, and write the definitions on the other side of the line. Fold it along the line and knock off the ones you know. Concentrate on the ones you don’t know.
- If you read, take notes in question format. You know the rest by now.
- Notes. As much as possible, turn your notes into questions and engage in the same process.
DO work hard at identifying and focusing on what you DON’T know. The strategies presented above are geared towards this goal. There is absolutely no point in spending time and effort on what you already know.
DO prepare on a daily basis. In math go to www.classzone.com , find your book, go to the @home tutor, and go back over the chapters you have learned over the semester. Watch the demonstration video and make sure it makes sense to you. Do an exercise or two to make sure that you are able to recall the formulas and steps and then move on. If you’re stuck get some help. For the rest of the materials develop some of the strategies presented above.
DO NOT re-read material over and over again. You will only succeed in boring yourself to death and you will be preparing yourself for a recognition style exam when, by rule, at least 40% of your exam will require you to recall information. It’s sort of like showing up for a football game wearing a baseball uniform. You will also be spending a great deal of energy on what you already know and that doesn’t make any sense.
DO NOT believe that you can prepare for an exam the day before the exam. If you play football and you practice two hours per day, five days per week, you would practice a total of ten hours per week. What do you think would happen if your coach were to become creative and change the practice schedule to one 10 hour per week practice?
Good Luck!
Study Skills:Recall vs Recognition
In his book “Your Memory: How it Works and How to Improve it” , Kenneth Higbee talks about recognition vs. recall learning. Recognition learning is when the goal is to recognize information, such as in a multiple choice test. Recall learning is when you recall information, such as in a simple question or essay format.
Most of our students prepare for assessments by engaging in re-reading; an approach that is extremely boring in nature, has been proven to have very short retention, and is counterproductive when used for recall types of assignments. This is where they will read the same material repeatedly until they the zone out, usually by the second reading.
The most practical strategy for engaging in recall learning is to develop a question/answer format. Some of the strategies that our students have developed to facilitate recall through a question/answer format are:
- Converting outlines into questions.
- Use of flash cards.
- When they are given a study guide they make two copies. They complete one copy and they use the other as a giant flash card.
- They will list the vocabulary words in one side of the paper, draw a vertical line next to the list, and write the definition on the other side of the line. They then fold it along the line and knock off the ones they know.
- As they read, they will take their notes in question format.
A huge benefit from using question and answer formats is Improved focus. When students engage in the above strategies they immediately separate what they know from what they don’t, thus allowing them to spend their energy in a more productive and stimulating manner.
Summarily, if your primary way of preparing for an exam is by repeatedly reading your notes and books until death from boredom sets in, you are probably preparing for recognition types of assignments and will be working at at a very low level of efficiency.
Cognitive Behavioral Psychology (CBP)
In a nutshell, these are some of the highlights regarding Cognitive Behavioral Psychology:
- Emotions are not caused by events, they are caused by our interpretation of them.
- Our initial interpretation of events is largely dependent on “self-talk” or “automatic thoughts” rather than on our more conscious thoughts.
- Irrational self-talk leads to irrational emotions, irrational emotions lead to irrational decision-making, and irrational decision-making leads to irrational behaviors.
- Our self-talk is caused by deeper held beliefs about how we, the world, and others are or should be.
- Psychological health has a lot to do with being able to assess events in a rational manner.
Cognitive Behavioral Psychology (CBP) is the theoretical foundation of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). If you would like to learn about CBP in more depth, I recommend the basic literature of Albert Ellis and Aaron and Judy Beck. CBP sees emotions, both negative and positive, as caused by our interpretations of events rather than by events themselves. It proposes that there is an ongoing internal dialogue, commonly labeled self-talk or automatic thinking, that is constantly interpreting our experience and is largely responsible for our emotions. Automatic thoughts are quick, have been a part of our make up since early on in life and are rarely challenged. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the process by which clients are taught to recognize their automatic thoughts, challenge them, and replace them with more rational explanations of events. In essence, it teaches the client to become his/her own psychotherapist.
CBP postulates that automatic thoughts are caused by deeply held beliefs about how we relate to the world. In Beck’s view there are automatic thoughts, intermediate level beliefs and core beliefs. Core beliefs have to do with our sense of helplessness as well as lovability and are the most difficult and resistant to change. A psychologically healthy individual would be one who has rational core beliefs and is able to assess his experience in a rational manner, thus leading to rational emotions and rational decisions. It is important to note that the goal is not to experience only positive feelings. Negative feelings are a part of the human experience. The goal of therapy is to experience these emotions in ways in which they assist decision-making rather than paralyze or inhibit it.
Ellis had a slightly different take, although the similarities outweigh the differences. He believed that the cause of most dysfunctional emotions, decision making, and behaviors has to do with irrational, absolutist, demands that we place on the world, others, and ourselves. It is our insistence that things must be a particular way that leads to irrational emotional functioning. Like Beck, he recognized the role of self-talk in emotional disturbances and encouraged therapists to work at that level but he argued that the “elegant” solution was when the client was able to successfully challenge ”demand beliefs”.
Ellis taught that there were two components to demand beliefs: our assessment of an event and our evaluation of it. When an individual experiences a violation of a demand belief he not only confuses what is a preference for what is an absolute but he evaluates the violation as intolerable as opposed to undesirable. It is the evaluation of the event that ultimately leads to destructive behaviors.
A veces me piden información acerca del diagnostico de TDAH en Español. El Centro para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades tiene un sitio acerca del tema. Explica los síntomas y algunos tratamientos. Para visitar la sección del CDC que tiene que ver con TDAH marque AQUI.
No existe un solo proceso de diagnosticar TDAH. Algunos profesionales toman horas y otros toman meses. En mi experiencia, en la gran mayoría de los casos, el diagnostico suele ser relativamente sencillo.
Those of you familiar with Cognitive Psychology are familiar with the notion that events do not cause emotional disturbance. It is our interpretation of them that create functional vs. dysfunctional emotions and, subsequently, constructive vs. destructive decisions. This morning’s Miami Herald headline was:
“Disrespect leads to shots at Miami-Dade wake”. The implication is that an act of disrespect caused the deaths of 2 people and injuries to 12 others. Actually what caused the shooting had nothing to do with the act itself. It had nothing to do with the conclusion that reaching in to touch the body of the dead young man was disrespectful. Instead, it had to do with an interpretation similar to: no-one must ever disrespect _____. If they do it means that they are horrible and terrible and that they therefore must be punished with death. There were other choices: “It’d be nice if everyone was always respectful but these things sometimes happen. When they do it is unpleasant and undesirable but it is certainly not awful and, much less, unbearable.” This choice would not have had the same outcome. It is not adverse events that lead to destructive emotions and bad decisions. It is our demands that the world, or another, or ourselves, be a certain way and that if it isn’t, it is terrible and unbearable and must be punished.
Parenting: The Achievement Spiral
For a long time the depression cycle has been fairly well described: the belief that something has been lost leads to feelings of sadness, the feelings of sadness lead to passivity, passivity leads to further loss, and further loss feeds the downward spiral. In cognitive therapy, the spiral is broken by helping the patient recover a sense of mastery based on structured activities.
Seligman proposes that there is an upward spiral: Achievement leads to a broadening of the mind and an enhanced sense of possibilities, the enhanced set of possibilities leads to further desire to accomplish, and further desire to accomplish leads to further achievement, thus reinforcing the upward spiral. Seligman suggests that the key to a functional success spiral has to do with developing age appropriate challenges. These include self-discovery through failure when failure is processed using rational self-talk.
I find myself going to these concepts frequently when parents are discussing goals and expectations for their children. Hope you find them useful also.
Parenting: Healthy vs. destructive undesirable feelings
We’re all familiar with the basic undesirable feelings: Anger, Sadness, Anxiety, Envy, and Jealousy. Anger has to do with a sense of unfairness, sadness has to do with sense of loss, anxiety has to do with fear, envy has to do with the desire to posses something, and jealousy with fear of losing a loved one. I like to note that even though these feelings are undesirable, they are part of our make up and have healthy and destructive manifestations;
Annoyance vs. Rage
Concern vs. Fear
Sadness vs. Depression
Healthy Envy vs. Destructive Envy
Healthy Jealousy vs. Destructive jealousy.
The determinant is the self-talk that we engage in:
Annoyance: “it would be nice if no one ever bothered me or teased me but some people don’t act nicely”.
Rage: “No one has the right to bother me. Who does that SOB think he is calling me names? I’m going to teach him a lesson, so that he’ll never do that again”.
Concern: “I didn’t prepare well for the test. I might not do as well as I’d like and my parents aren’t going to be happy. It’s not going to be pleasant but I can handle it”.
Fear: “I didn’t prepare well for the test. I’m going to bomb it. My parents are going to go insane. My life is going to be hell. I couldn’t stand it if they lose it”.
Healthy envy: “It’d be nice to have a car like the one he has. I’m going to get a degree in… and someday I’m going to have one just like it”.
Destructive envy: “I must have a car like that. If I don’t have one, no one will give me the time of day and everyone will think I’m a loser. I’ll do whatever I have to, to get one”.
Healthy Jealousy: “I’ve been really busy with school and my friends over the last few weeks and I haven’t paid much attention to my girlfriend. I need to get more involved. Otherwise, I’m going to lose her to that kid that’s been hanging around her all week”.
Destructive Jealousy: “She’s been hanging around with that kid all week. I hate the SOB. He mustn’t take her away from me. I’m going to show him what it means to mess around with my girlfriend. She needs to learn that my friends are important and that she must be faithful to me no matter what”
