CH301 Random Musings September 29, 2009 1. Quiz 2 results are in and the average was an 87.5 which was pretty great. Do not confuse the difficulty of the exam questions or the amount of time available to complete the exam, with what you have done on quizzes 1 and 2. Exams are a much greater challenge. 2. After a great first quiz effort (with only 12 students messing up their uteids or version numbers) a frightfully large number of you did not fill in your version number or uteid correctly on quiz 2. Please make sure you double check this on the exam. If you do make a mistake, and believe that the score we report for you on Quest is wrong, contact Travis directly with as much info as possible so we can get it fixed. 3. There is a major exam tomorrow night, Wednesday, September 30, from 7:30 till 9:00 pm. Room locations as follows: • Last name: A - K Welch 2.224 • Last name L - S Jester A121A • Last name T - Z W. C. Hogg 1.120 If you go to the wrong room, you will not be allowed to take the exam. The exam is worth 150 points, with 30 5-point multiple choice questions covering material in Chapters 1 and 2. Everything in my course notes from those chapters, as well as the worksheets and practice exams, is fair game. You should use the list of problem types (provided last Tuesday and again today) as your guide for what I will cover. The review on Sunday night produced a question by question description of what I expect—you can find it under my lecture notes link. I believe the video is also available. 4. At the end of the musings you will find specific information about exam procedures and policies. Read it carefully or you may do something unfortunate. 5. Things to think about in preparing for the exam: • Don’t think you have to know everything in Chapters 1 and 2—simply focus on how to do the kinds of question types that are listed. • Know that you know the material. Assume nothing. For example, I will ask you to rank the electromagnetic spectrum, so before the exam, be able to write down the order or say it out loud without assistance. That is how you know that you know this stuff. • Don’t think that if you did well on the quizzes you will do fine on the exam—the quizzes typically have easier questions, and more important, there was really not a time constraint. • Being overconfident is bad. Actually work the problems rather than think you know how to work the problems because you did it once in high school. • Time will definitely be a factor on Wednesday for students who don’t know the material cold. • Don’t stay up all night Tuesday night unless you have done it before and know you can handle it 6. Things to think about when you come take the test: • Showing up with a working calculator, pencils and picture ID. • Use proper hygiene on the day of the exam—many of you will think you don’t have time to shower. Think again, the room will smell pretty ripe if you don’t. • Don’t assume your bus will be on time and that the traffic will be good and you know where the exam will be. Give yourself plenty of time so you are not panicked as you arrive.• Have a time management strategy in mind while you take the exam. You get three minutes per question and cannot afford to labor over the hard questions first—do them at the end only if you have time--all the questions are worth the same amount. 7. Test-taking advice I. As you prepare for this test, keep the following time management idea in mind. There are 30 equally weighted questions and only 90 minutes to finish them. Some questions will take 2 seconds to answer and some will take 5 minutes to answer. As the end of the exam arrives, if you have spent your time working the really long questions (the calculations and complicated Lewis structures, for example) and still have a bunch of quick questions to work, then you are making a big mistake. Get the easy quick questions out of the way first and then struggle at the end with the couple of long calculations questions that you might not finish, but won’t cost you as much in the grading. 8. Test Taking Advice II. Memorize the question types. (I said memorize.) The advantages are numerous. Foremost is that this will automatically program into your head the locations where you can put the material you learn so your brain isn’t a jumbled mess while you take the exam. In addition to an organized brain, you will now be able to figure out what to study and what not to study. It will also make it possible to define, question by question, exactly what you need to learn. 9. Test Taking Advice III. How you every noticed that you study with a million study aids, but you take a test without any exam aids save a calculator, periodic table and some equations? Try spending some time studying the way you take tests—with nothing in your possession but a pencil, a calculator, a periodic table, and what is in your brain. Find a blank chalk board, or a quiet corner of the library, and see, for each memorized question type, exactly how much you have actually put into your head. If you start this process, and realize nothing is coming out, it is because nothing has gone in. At least then you will know that you are about to crash and burn on the exam. 10. Grading and regrades: Grades will be posted as soon as possible on Thursday. Don’t hassle us—if they are not up there is a good reason. Also, please don’t e-mail after the exam to say your don’t have a test score. Those of you with grading issues should contact Travis with your concern. If you give him enough information, (in particular your actual version number) he will fix your grade in no time and e-mail to confirm. Note, this is THE ONLY WAY WE DO REGRADES. 11. Two pet peeves of mine with respect to the test: • Test environments are quiet. From the moment you arrive you should be focusing on preparing to take the test and speaking only to the proctors about test-related issues. • When the test time is over, you will be told to put down your writing implements. That is not the time to start filling in you scantron or bubbling in guesses. If you do so you will be assumed to be cheating and will be treated accordingly. 12. Speaking of cheating, people get caught cheating all the time—happens every year in my class. I have no tolerance for those folks. Sadly, their college careers are going
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