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PREPARING FOR EXAMS 243Step 2: Organize and Separate the Content Into Parts
Many students open their textbooks and notes and proceed sequen-
tially through the content. They focus on dates, facts, formulae, or def-
initions found in textbooks or lecture notes. Often, studying textbooks
and studying lecture notes are viewed as separate activities. The prob-
lem in this approach is that it is easy to lose sight of the important
ideas and issues in the course. An alternative approach is to use the-
matic study, which involves organizing all relevant content, no matter
where it is found, around specific topics or themes. For example, a
unit covering different wars in history might be organized as follows:
causes, major battles, military leaders, and political and economic con-
sequences (repeatable categories in a matrix). All the factual informa-
tion could be studied within each of the repeatable categories.
The advantage of thematic study is that it forces students to determine
which topics are most important and to integrate the information from
lectures and chapters in the textbook. Here are some suggestions for using
this approach (McWhorter, 1996): First, review the course syllabus, intro-
ductory chapter, and lecture notes to determine whether the instructor or
textbook author identified themes or topics for the course. A review of
the table of contents in a textbook can be helpful in identifying themes.
Second, identify how the lectures relate to the material in the textbook.
Finally, try to integrate related material from the textbook and lectures.
As illustrated in the earlier example of the study of wars in history,
one useful way to determine major topics and themes is to use rep-
resentations for as much of the material as possible. Such representa-
tions can be helpful in organizing the material and provide help in
generating possible exam questions.Step 3: Identify Specific Study Strategies
Table 10.1 identifies a list of learning strategies that can be used in
a study plan. You may use one or more of these strategies in the
preparation for exams depending on the difficulty of the material and
your own experience as to which strategies work best for you.Predicting Exam Questions. You will notice that the major study strate-
gies identified in Table 10.1 focus on the prediction of exam questions.
If you follow the procedures for reading texts and taking lectures notes
described in chapters 8 and 9, respectively, you already have been gen-
erating and answering questions related to the content in your courses.
Therefore, you do not have to start from scratch. Your mirror and
summary questions for each lecture will be useful for study. The ques-
tions in your textbook or the self-generated questions from the head-
ings are another useful source. Finally, the representations developed
after reading or note taking can help you generate questions. If you