<p>Something really bad happened. I had a midterm today, but it was longer than I expected. She gave us 1.5 hours to finish it. It was five 1-paragraph identifications and two full-length essays. The questions were basically questions within a question, which I had to answer in each essay. When I have exams like this, it takes me longer than average to finish (literally a 2-hour final exam period) because the essays consume up a lot of my time. She wouldn’t give me more time (I never did any conclusions for my essays) because she had to leave to attend another meeting.</p>
<p>I needed more than 1.5 hours. I needed 2 hours!!!</p>
<p>Sighs, now I feel I got a C. I really needed extra time.</p>
<p>Does your college-student ever have problems with test pacing?</p>
<p>My high school student sure has trouble with knowing what to spend her time on- and what to leave .
I have trouble with extended tests. I have had tests that I was given all the time in the world- over two hours- but it wouldn’t have mattered- the material required, took over two hours to write down what I knew and I was only 3/4 of way done. But after two- three hours of intense concentration, my brain takes off for the beach and there is no bringing it back.</p>
<p>If you had a 504 plan in high that stated that you needed extended time- then they have to give you that time in college.
If you didn’t, it may be worth getting assesed to see if you have an undiagnosed learning disability, however it could just be that you are gonna get a C on that test and nothing could have changed it.
I think that we often think that- I could have done better if… but when really, the only thing that would have made a difference is if we got more sleep the night before, that we studied so hard we knew the material cold, and that the questions on the test challenged us to show how well we understood the topic</p>
<p>Emerald, I knew the material. This has happened to me before when professors want to cram material into a test in 1.5 hours when it’s really a 2-hour exam. I like to make sure everything I knew was written the essays. The more detail, the better. These were QUESTIONS within a question. Two essays. That exam was really a final, not something you can do in one hour or less.</p>
<p>A general suggestion: Time yourself. If you have 90 minutes, 5 short essays and 2 long one, you should spend only 6 mns. on each of the short ones (30 minutes). Another possibility: If the essays count for a lot more, write the essays first. There is always the temptation to write more than enough on the short 1-paragraph answers, and go overtime.</p>
<p>Here are a few test taking techniques I was taught:
– read the whole exam first and, as marite suggests, figure out roughly how much time you can afford to spend on each section or question. then pace yourself, even stopping work on one question you hope to get back to by speeding up on the next.
– answer the questions you know first, so that you don’t run out of time for them while struggling with the ones you don’t know.
– jot down a short outline of major points you want to make in an essay in the margin. even if you run out of time for a conclusion, the grader might see you knew a point that you didn’t get to make in a full sentence or paragraph, and give you some credit.</p>
<p>It’s frustrating not to do as well as you could on a test when you actually know the material. My son called unhappy with himself about a midterm because he knew everything, but misread a word in one question and didn’t notice a part B in another. Which led me to trot out these techniques for him:</p>
<p>– while reading through the exam, underline the key words in a problem or question, and circle all the parts (a, b, etc)
– always read a question carefully twice before starting to answer.</p>
<p>I agree with everyone else, and I’d like to add some thing else–if it felt like a 2 hr exam in 1.5 hours to you, then chances are it did for everyone else, too. All the students had to figure out how to think that fast and get it down, and it was probably hard for all of them. So don’t make yourself nuts thinking about it. Just think forward to the next challenge, and be as ready as possible, utilizing all the good advice above.</p>
<p>Great suggestions from Sac. A couple more: Don’t overdo the outline. A short one will do. If you are about to run out of time, you can write outline-style but try to write a conclusion: it will help the reader flesh out the outline for you.</p>
<p>I asked the professor. She said that she wished I had told her if I needed more time. However, usually I don’t know when I will run out of time (it depends on the test format). I just feel now that I will get a really bad grade because my essays do not have conclusions…</p>
<p>Well, if you started out with a strong thesis statement and the prof gets a sense of where you are headed with your argument, she can give you credit for what you’ve written. The tips are for next time. There’s not much you can do about the essays you’ve just turned in. But it was a good idea to go and talk to the prof. She knows you knew the answers but just ran out of time. She may well take that into account (and perhaps design a less time-consuming exam for next time).</p>