I’m not saying that perfect attendance is mandatory in doing well - but people are giving professors poor ratings on RMP because the tests cover material presented in class which means attendance is expected (as though the professor is being completely unreasonable.)
Got into my school as a transfer!
How do your professors feel about study guides? Most of my professors provide some sort of study guide (usually either a list of main topics which will appear on an assessment or a list of questions that are similar in structure to those which will appear on an assessment) but my International Relations professor is strongly against study guides and says that one of the main responsibilities in college is being able to ascertain what topics are important to study and which aren’t without the professor spoon feeding you…
@preamble1776, I have only had two professors that would actually give a study guide. They listed the main topics that will appear on the quiz or test. It’s not like high school where the study guide was fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, or matching, and the same problems would appear on the test. Most of the time, I actually have to review the material and know each topic thoroughly. The study guide helps, but not as much as in high school, LOL.
I had two other professors that would actually tell us what would be on the tests, which actually surprised me.
I mean, my professors won’t give me extensive study guides - my Calc professor sends us an email that’ll say something like “Friday’s Test: Topics - Product Rule, Quotient Rule, Chain Rule, Implicit Differentiation. See sections 2.1-2.8 in textbook” and my Religious Studies professor gives us lists of main topics but they’re relatively bare bones. I recently took a test in my Bible class and there was quite a few questions on the depiction of Pilate in the different Gospels and the motivations for reducing Roman culpability by the Gospel authors but the study guide itself only said “Pilate” for that part - so there’s still an expectation that we will have to be able to discern the most important parts of the material but I still like study guides. With the example of the Religious Studies guide, even though “Pilate” isn’t very specific, at least I knew I didn’t have to get bogged down memorizing Biblical verses verbatim about the Pharisees if it wasn’t gonna appear on the exam.
My Political Science professor for next semester is supposedly notorious (notorious might be the wrong word - it’s not a negative sort of fame) for giving super extensive study guides of 400+ questions and the exams themselves are only about 20 questions but they’re in the study guide, so, in theory, if you memorized the 400 questions and the answers, you’d get a 100% on the exam since you’d have already seen the 20 questions. I’m not sure how many people actually bother to memorize all 400 questions but apparently it can in fact be done.
With my major, I anticipate that I won’t really have that many more formal exams after next semester - my classes will likely be a lot more essay based.
I hate when professors do that. I thought it was bad when I had to memorize 80 answers on a study guide when the test was only going to have 40 questions. 400 is a lot to retain, but I am obsessed over my grades, so I would spend the time memorizing every answer.
For those of you who have done a presentation, and I’m assuming that’s all or at least most of you - do you worry about the time limit? I always think I’m going to run under the time limit, but when I practice it, I run over. I have to give a five-minute speech tomorrow, and I am afraid I’m going to run over!
On the plus side, I got a nice sports coat, so I’m gonna be on the fleek.
@NewBeginnings3 - I had a presentation last semester (group) - the presentation had to be between 10 to 15 minutes. If we were under 10 minutes or over 15 minutes, we’d have points docked, so we had to worry about staying within the time limit. What I ended up doing was just bringing my phone up with me and starting the stop watch and periodically gauge our time relative to how much of the presentation we had left. The professor was sitting right in front of us in the first row and he had little time cards that said “10 minutes” “13 minutes” and “15 minutes!!!” that he’d lift up to notify us of our time. We ended up smack dab in the middle at 13 minutes, so it was good.
I’d probably memorize the 400 questions too - perhaps not verbatim but definitely key words that appear and the corresponding answer.
@preamble1776, that’s nice that your prof had time cards. My speech professor is very adamant that we won’t always have someone to notify us of our time, so she wants us to be able to gauge how much time we have been speaking and how much time we have left. It’s annoying, but I can understand her reasoning.
I always felt that going over the time limit is better than not reaching it.
I’ve only given one presentation so far. It was supposed to be 10-12 minutes but the professor interrupted us about 2 minutes in. By the time he was done class was over. And we got a bad grade since we didn’t get to finish. (I’m still rather peeved about that…). But the time limit wasn’t very crucial so we didnt have to worry about it much.
My professors generally don’t give study guides, but we almost always have a review day the class prior to an exam. My math professor will basically just spend the class answering questions. My science of materials and chemistry professors just compiled a powerpoint with the more important slides from previous lectures, and sometimes included a few new practice problems. My physics professor gave us a timed practice exam the class before our midterm. My calc 1 professor gave us about 5 of the exams she had given in previous years to practice with. My history professor doesnt give a study guide perse, but drops hints in class quite frequently.
I wish I got study guides…
I’ve discovered that presentations are common in upper-level applied math classes. I have three presentations this semester (cryptology, applied topology, and education reform). The education reform professor doesn’t really care about grades, so we voted that everyone will get an A on the presentation. Supposedly, this system resulted in better presentations when she used it in the past. I’m optimistic about the idea that people can learn without grades, and I wish we didn’t emphasize them so much.
I don’t think I’ve gotten any study guides this year, but professors will sometimes post sample exam questions. It’s common for professors to allow cheat sheets, drop our lowest test score, or have take-home portions in their exams.
Lol what is a study guide?
In all seriousness, study guides are basically non-existent in my STEM classes. My Logics in CS professor says that “Anything we’ve learned this semester is fair game” for every exam he gives. Intro Psych has spoiled me this semester by giving me study guides.
@Jazzii congratulations!! 
My professors usually tell us what chapters of the textbook are going to be on the test–sometimes
I have a quiz tomorrow that I am completely unprepared for (it’s on a week’s worth of reading and I did none of it) - the thing is, the policy for the class is that the two lowest quiz grades are dropped and you get a 70% just for showing up and writing down your name.
If you only miss one quiz (no more than one) and you take all the other quizzes, your quiz average (with the two lowest dropped) is used in place of your final exam and you’re exempt from the final. The quizzes are easier than the final and are usually pretty simple so this is supposed to be to our advantage. Tomorrow is just the quiz (10-15 minutes) so if I don’t show up, I won’t miss any actual content or anything like that.
Options:
Try to do 80 pages of reading tonight and take the quiz.
Show up to the quiz, write down my name, turn it in blank, get a 70. (will likely be dropped)
Don’t show up at all, get a 0. (will likely be dropped)
My average so far is a 100%.
Meh. I hate the idea of skipping even though there’s no formal penalty. I sort of want to save/hoard my skips for another time but there’s probably not gonna be “another time.” (I literally never take advantage of these sorts of things.)
@preamble1776, it seems like you have nothing to lose by missing the quiz. If you don’t have to stress over reading eighty pages of content, then don’t.
My math professor last semester had the same policy in a way. He dropped the lowest quiz and test score. I got 100% on all the quizzes, so I skipped the last quiz. The class was at 8am, and it was a Friday, so I said “screw it.”
By the way, my speech went pretty well today. At the end of class on days we have speeches, we have a peer review, and I got a lot of positive comments. My professor was pretty complimentary as well, so hopefully I got a decent score. I’ll find out on Monday. I have one more speech to give in that class, and then the semester is OVER. I’ll be happy to be done with that class.
For cheat sheets/study guides, my CS exams come with study guides… AND they give us 1 sheet of paper front and back… I struggle to put anything on there. What *would * help is one for the diff eq/linear algebra class I’m in right now… Honestly, the midterm didn’t really test on linear algebra more than it did test how good your memory of previous math was… which was disappointing. But aside from that, there seems to be a lot of things to memorize… or maybe I’m doing it wrong. I will be glad if I pass that class. Oh, how my standards have fallen.
I’ve had 0 presentations in my college career so far. Well, ones that are assigned anyways… Like I’ve done some competition type of stuff where my team and I have to present stuff, but that’s very minimal and it’s not graded.
I have to say that after the bitter cold this winter, I’m happy when I wake up and it’s 65 degrees outside. It feels sooooo good.
Living in a cold place has made it so I can’t tolerate any kind of weather. I never get used to the cold, but 50 degrees seems too hot. :-<