<p>Did your professor provide any kind of study guide prior to your test? If not, you may want to ask for one next time, either in class or during office hours. If he/she doesn’t do “study guides” ask what specifically you should be prepared to be tested on (the worst kind of profs are the ones that say “everything” in answer to this). </p>
<p>I find it’s helpful too to study with a partner who can help quiz you on the material. One technique that was successful for me in college was to have a partner ask a question or ask me to describe something and then I had to give a complete answer out loud without looking at my notes (you can do this alone too). I found that the test of whether I really knew the material was if I could talk about it out loud, covering all the points in my text or ntoes. If I couldn’t talk for a couple of minutes about the thing, or if I didn’t cover everything in my notes, then I didn’t really know it yet.</p>