hi I'm dr. Steven Chu I'm a professor of
psychology here at Stanford University
in Birmingham Alabama this is the last
in a series of videos on how to study
effectively in college in this video we
take on a situation that most students
face at one point in their college
careers they take an exam they make a
terrible grade for many students it's
the lowest grade they've ever made
alright so you've blown an exam you want
to do the things that will help you
improve your situation and avoid doing
those things that will make the
situation worse the two worst things you
can do is panic or go into denial in my
general psychology class it isn't
unusual for a quarter to a third of the
class to make DS or FS on the first exam
but that exam is worth less than 20% of
the final grade and I offer ways to
raise the low exam score with over 80%
of the grades still out and with ways to
minimize the low score students have an
excellent chance of raising their grade
in the course as long as they take
positive steps right away denial is not
one of those positive steps I have
students who fail three exams and then
come and talk to me and ask me what they
can do to raise their grade that late in
the semester there are very few options
so it's very important that you take
positive steps right away so what are
the positive steps to take it's critical
that you try to identify what went wrong
with your preparation on the exam first
be honest with yourself how thorough was
your preparation did you commit
sufficient time for both study and
adequate review did you go to class and
pay attention did you do the assigned
work I have students who come and talk
to me and who act as if there is some
magic shortcut which will allow them not
to do all the work and still make a
passing grade they say things like well
I haven't been doing the reading but I
have been coming to class now I know
there are classes where perhaps you can
do read the textbook and not go to class
and still pass or you can come to class
and not read the textbook and still pass
but you're much better off in over
preparing for the first exam and then
streamlining later for the later exams
then you are in under preparing for the
first exam and starting out in a whole
the next thing you should do is review
your exam to see what you missed and
then discuss your situation with your
professor it isn't fun to review an exam
you did poor
but you need to use it to help diagnose
what went wrong and how to change for
the next exam where your mistakes spread
out across topics where they focused on
one particular topic if your mistakes
were spreaded across topics that means
that you need a comprehensive
improvement of your study strategies if
they were focused on one particular
topic then you need to try and
understand why that topic gave you
particular difficulty did you follow
instructions did you misinterpret
questions if you misinterpreted
questions then perhaps you need to
discuss with your instructor how to
follow instructions or how to interpret
the constructions correctly also look at
your errors and see if you had recorded
the information needed to answer the
question correctly in your notes you do
not have the key information to your
notes then you need to improve your
note-taking if you didn't have the
information highlighted in your text
then you need to improve your reading
the key point here is you have to study
take notes and read at the level of
detail and understanding that your
teacher expects after reviewing your
exam go discuss how you prepared and
what you discovered from reviewing your
exam with your teacher most faculty want
to see their students learn to succeed
the key though is that faculty are most
willing to help students who are taking
steps to help themselves like reviewing
their exams and being open to different
ways of studying it's the struggling
students who don't come to see us who
are most likely to fail faculty are not
your enemy next you need to examine your
study strategies to see if they are
effective or not
if you haven't viewed the earlier videos
in this series you should do so poor
study strategies are often appealing
because they're easy and mindless to do
like skimming over your notes without
really thinking about them or reading
over text quickly without really trying
to comprehend it we're studying it with
friends when it really isn't studying
bad study habits can also be effortful
to do but they don't require deep
processing like recopying your notes
without really thinking about them or
organizing them good study strategies
are effortful and they require you to
process information deeply and
meaningfully think about what your study
strategies are making you do and use the
principles of deep processing to
evaluate whether your study strategies
are effective or ineffective note that
ineffective and effective strategies
can be superficially similar so for
example mindlessly recopy your notes is
a bad study strategy but actively
organizing and thinking about the
connections within your notes is an
effective study strategy finally come up
with a plan for better preparation and
study to improve your scores
here are some basic strategies you can
use to help raise your grade commit the
time and effort required to develop and
use effective study strategies minimize
distractions attend class set realistic
study goals spaced out study time avoid
cramming and maximize review time
don't start letting some classes or
assignments slide to try to catch up
with others this is a dangerous practice
students start skipping one class or
letting assignments slide to give
themselves extra time and another you
can easily end up in trouble in both
classes you need to figure out a way to
do the best you can in all your classes
don't give away points a lot of times
I'll see struggling students give away
points by failing to follow directions
or skipping certain assignments on a
writing assignment for example students
may be required to have a cover sheet on
their paper some students fail to have
that cover sheet they lose points
because of failure to follow
instructions or on a writing or on a
discussion assignment students may be
required to post comments to a
discussion board but some students will
fail to do so because it's only worth 5%
of the grade but failing to do so giving
away those points makes it that much
harder for them to make a good grade 5%
is half a letter grade over the course
of my career I work with many students
who have blown the first exam here's a
list of things not to do
don't be the student that keeps studying
the same way and hoping for improvement
or waits until the end of the semester
to seek help or start skipping some
classes or assignments to focus on other
classes and assignments or falls farther
and farther behind waiting to find time
to catch up or cram is the last minute
to read the material or doesn't do
assignments because they are late or
only worth a few points or panics and
gives up okay so you blew an exam put
yourself in the best possible position
to improve your score to diagnose your
problems come up with a workable plan
and set realistic goals if you have poor
study habits take immediate steps to
improve your study skills remember this
will take a sustained effort on your
part because not only you're developing
more effective study skills you have to
overcome entrenched ineffective study
skills this will take multiple attempts
on your part to find the best study
strategies for you and there may be
setbacks along the way and once you
develop effective automatic study
strategies then they will give you an
edge in any learning situation
you