How to do well on NON-multiple choice math tests?

bodangles
Wed, 27 Sep 2017 04:30:46 +0000

The nice thing about open-ended exams is partial credit. On a MC test, if you circle the wrong answer, zero points on that question; but if you get partway to an answer with an open-ended question, you might get like half of the points. Better than nothing! If you have to take a lot of classes like this, you will learn to love partial credit.

As I discovered when my organic chemistry 2 class had open-ended exams, though, this format also requires you to know your stuff at least a little bit. For classes like math, this often meant spending a lot of time on practice problems for me. When you do a type of problem so many times, it’s no longer memorization – the path to solving it is just plain ingrained in your memory.

I still do this as a senior with my engineering classes. I had an exam in mass transfer last week, and was feeling very shaky on the concepts until I sat down and worked through the practice problems the prof gave us. I referred to the solutions when I got stuck and noted down those tricky bits for later. I started to see patterns – when a problem asks for pseudo steady state, then you start with a mole balance…

I hope your test is far enough off that you can try studying this way before you have to take it. Here’s something relevant I’ve heard other students quote: “Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong.”

TL;DR:
Do lots of practice problems and map out the steps to solving each type of problem. The more you do it, the better you’ll know it.