Next level test-taking

You have probably heard of the standard exams strategy. Actively listen. Practice. Get a lot of sleep. And go fast to check your work. A lot of CS majors at Cornell stress about the grade and exams, and what they’ve gone through in order to survive.

GPA is an important number, but I think students often don’t get what professors are trying to convey. Professors give exams to evaluate how well you learn and apply the course material. They use the grade both as a stamp of approval and an incentive for students to crystallize all the knowledge they’ve learned in the course.

It’s this second part that students don’t talk about enough. All we hear on Sidechat, Reddit, and Ed Discussion is about how unfair the homework and exams were. Admittedly, they are super hard. It’s not surprising if the median is 50%. But most professors strive pick grade boundaries that are fair representations of a student’s performance in the course. Once you get exam strategy, the grade becomes a fair representation of your learning. So if you want to take your test taking to the next level, you have to reflect on what you get and what you don’t get, and go from there. And if you’ve tried your hardest asking for help and doing practice problems, you can hold your head high going into that exam. And you’ll probably do fine.

Summary

First, get the exam strategy down. Then focus on learning. And importantly, take classes that you genuinely want to learn from.

Acknowledgements: Shout out to Mac Turner! I was inspired to take this perspective because of him.