Test 8 was difficult

[Jay Swanigan]

Hello Professor Mayes and class, 

Text 8 had a lot of material to study which made it extremely difficult to understand which information would be pertinent to the test.  Can I get some advice on how to filter out information that is not testable.  I spent way too many hours studying for a 67 percent.  I wonder if I would have just read the chapters once and listened to the lectures once if I would still have achieved the same grade as opposed to the 22 hours of studying over the past two weeks for this one test.  

I don't think it is that unreasonable as my semester grade is not terrible, I just think I need to go about studying differently to try and finish the last two tests and one makeup test strong.  I want that B!  Thanks for any advice sent my way,

 Jay Swanigan

[G. Randolph Mayes]

Jay, there isn't much information that you're given that isn't pertinent to the test, but the most straightforward indicator of what will be on the test is the quizzes, since all test questions are either quiz questions or slight variations on them.

The material for these last modules is intrinsically more challenging, which is why you get two weeks to complete them. So my best advice is to use those two weeks very efficiently. 

That said, it looks like the average on this test is two points lower than normal, so I will be raising everybody's score on this one by two points. 

[Jay Swanigan]

Professor Mayes,

Thank you for your advice.  I will be working hard to improve my grade in the class.  I really find the content fascinating but have a difficult time interpreting some of the content and then blazing through the test.  I like to go through the test a second time to make sure I have read the questions properly but I usually only have about two to three minutes left on the timer to do so.  Once again thanks for your time.

Jay Swanigan

[Nick Andrews]

Professor Mayes,

In regards to your comment about raising everyone's grade by 2 points, will that translate to the retake as well? 

Thanks!

[G. Randolph Mayes]

Nick, that's an interesting question, but the answer is no because the decision to curve the test is really dependent on data showing that average was low and there won't be that kind of data for retakes. So you should only choose to retake that test if you think you can improve on the score you will have after I add the points. I'll be doing that over the break. The best way to approach the retake is to identify the test you think you can make the largest improvement on. This is fairly obvious advice, but it implies that it is not necessarily the test that you performed most poorly on.