20- Minute Test Prep

After failing one of her tests, my roommate decided that she needed to find a new way to study. I introduced to her the 20- minute test prep that had helped me with my MAT 285 class. I told her all the steps starting with what to do after each class.

She needed to start by creating study aids for 20 minutes and make study sheets, flash cards, outlines, or summaries. For my math class, I made sure I had different practice questions using each concept. For my study aids I created each day, I wrote formulas on each concept we learned in class and then made practice questions in order to use the certain formulas.

My roommate took my advice and started to create study aids for 20 minutes after each class she had. In just a week, she realized she knew more information for the class and felt more prepared than she did before. The next step I told her to do was at the end of each week spend 10 minutes reviewing the study aids made for the week and spend the other 10 minutes creating questions on the week’s topics. She asked me why she should create questions and how they should be formatted. In response, I told her that she needed to create questions or problems that the professor would maybe ask on a test. For my sociology of health and illness class these questions at the end of each week helped me in deciphering what types of questions I might see on our test. I sent my teacher an email asking if my questions were the right format and information that would be seen on the test. She responded with corrective criticism on how I could fix my questions to be more effective for my studying purposes.

One to two weeks before the exam, I told my roommate to create a topic outline and review one topic at a time. Because we both take biology, we were able to create a topic outline together and help each other learn concepts that were on the test. The 20- minute test prep not only helped me do well on tests, but also helped my roommate that was struggling with a productive way to study.