Apathetic About a Class, Need Advice

baktrax
Fri, 08 Nov 2013 14:47:22 +0000

Unfortunately, something like that usually takes practice with his types of test questions and getting good at predicting the sorts of things that professors might ask. There’s no right way to get at that, and it might not be something you get really good at by the time the class ends. But getting good at predicting what sorts of things your professor might ask is a really good skill to develop, especially as a student.

Having professors test you by making you apply concepts to new situations or in new types of ways is actually fairly common (at least, in my experience it was), and it’s a really good skill to have when you need to use this information in the real world, since not everything is going to be presented in exactly the same way that you’re used to.

You could try predicting types of questions that he might ask (maybe even as a group, so you can get different perspectives and questions), using the type of thinking that the professor demonstrated in the previous exams. I’m assuming he doesn’t give old exams or practice exams (although you could ask him if he would be willing to), but a nice TA might be able to help you brainstorm types of questions he might ask. You could also try using different textbooks on your subject to try out different practice problems they might have or get different explanations of concepts. Perhaps, you could try to find someone who did well in the class before (or is currently doing well on the exams) and ask them for advice on how they approach the test questions.

If it’s just a problem of understanding what he’s asking for, you could try to ask the TAs or professor during the exams to clarify the question. They won’t be able to give you hints or anythings, but if the wording is strange, you could ask them to clarify it by telling them how you’re interpreting the question. It never hurts to ask; the worst they can say is that they can’t answer your question.