At the moment, most of university students are facing final exam. To be idealist, I would say that the score that you get is not important. The most important thing of all is the PROCESS, as I have indicated in the post before it. Yet, we live in REALITY. Unfortunate it is, that we are valued by our SCORES. Listen to everybody around you. What is their first question concerning your study? Well, I will be 90% sure that the answer is “How much is your GPA?” not “Do you enjoy the class?” or “Do you get enough sleep during the semester?”. The phenomenon doesn’t stop on the question from other people. When we want to get scholarships, internships, or job, the first things that they look is, again, our scores.

The genius students could easily get a good mark, without even have to work hard or lack of sleep. For you who have been work very hard for day and night, have not much time even to eat nor sleep, maybe, you’ll find it a little bit unfair. So, what will you do?

If you’re not the genius students, now let me share my way =)

As a beginning, we have to agree that without work, we’ll get nothing, but wasting time with too much work also will bring you NOTHING!! Rather than work hard, we have to re-consider work SMART! What is work smart? Don’t ask me please. I have no good answer related to this matter. Yet, I DO have ways

Time Management

Classic, I know.  However it is the MOST effective method of all. All of us must be aware that we couldn’t buy the time, we couldn’t beg for the time, we couldn’t playback the time! So, all we have is NOW, the present. Make a time-table of what you have to done. It doesn’t have to be very details. You just need to point out what your target is or at least, what are waiting for you. Here is the example.

Maybe, It’s just as simple as that.

It is almost impossible to be done by most of you, including me, who have already infected by M4L35 virus. Every time I read a self-help book that point out time management as the way out, I definitely will throw that book away! Although I already know that time is priceless and what ever they wrote about time, I have no intention to discipline myself! In that case, let’s go to the next step (n_n)

Attending the class regularly

URGHHH!!! Some of you may shout. Let me give you the important line here, if you are not basic science students like chemistry, physics, or (ESPECIALLY) mathematics or social students, do NOT confuse your mind by listening to the proofs or whatever theory that the teacher explain. You may daydream or even sleep at that time! But, wake up and roar your brain to the highest gear when s/he solves EXAMPLES!! or s/he give CLUE for what will be come up as a question!!!! It will work most of the time. One more thing, it is NECESSARY to come to class regularly, at least a week before the exam, to know the last minutes clue and limit to study.

Solving past-exam questions

It IS an extremely valuable resource!! I was only have 3 days left before my exam, but I never attend the class, I don’t understand the topics at all, not to mention that I wasting my time by facebook-ing :p. But, I understand that I have to get a good score in the coming exam, otherwise my score will be an embarrassment. Sorry, but I don’t want to be a failure!

So, I bought a copy of past exams and without opening neither my notes nor the text book, I study through out the past exams. I remember the type of questions and the way to answer it. Not only once, I did repeat them for at least twice. Luckily, it helped me a LOT!! My score wasn’t bad at all (^_^)

Knowing the teachers quite well

If the exam is made by your own teacher, learn from the first exam, how is the type of the questions. It is more likely that the type will not change throughout the semester. Make a mental note of the questions if you can’t bring it home for further analysis.  Also maybe, you can be a nice student to your teacher, pretending that you give full attention or ask as many questions as possible during the lesson, usually, those will lead you to EXTRA points!

Passion to compete

If you have the passion to win at least over someone, it will help to burn your spirit, in case of laziness. Make up your mind and find your RIVAL!!

Analyzing, Compromising and Improvising Ability

Those are the need-most abilities! With analyzing you can take a main stream of class condition, teacher style, and past exam questions. Compromising will bring you back to reality, what you can do from nothing to something in limited time. Improvising, in other word, creativity, will help you solve un-expected conditions based on all the data that you’ve already known. Try to maximize those abilities! It will bring you a lot of damn good things!!!

FEELING AND LUCK

After all, at least for me, these are the most DOMINANT factor. You could increase the probability of having good sense and luck if you are CONFIDENT!! Believe in yourselves! That’s THE key!!

There are many times when I could save myself from tiger’s mouth, steep and dangerous hill, a hole of a needle, or whatever phrases they use to illustrate a condition where you find yourself in trouble. However, there are also many times that I have to suffer from embarrassment, of failure, of LOOSING. Nevertheless, it’s not about how hard you hit, but it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. JIA YOU EVERY BODY!!!

P.S. Again those are process, but maybe a more instant process…

Once upon a time, a student was in a physics class. He had achieved an otherwise perfect score, but the marker had graded him poorly on one question. The question had asked him how he would measure the height of a building using a barometer. The student had written down, “Go to the top of the building. Drop the barometer and count the seconds until it smashes on the sidewalk below. Then use the formula for acceleration by gravity to determine the height of the building.”

Of course, having referenced a barometer, the tester expected the student to use air pressure as a tool for measuring height. Since this answer did not demonstrate that the student knew how to solve questions about air pressure, he couldn’t pass that portion of the test. When the student brought up that his answer did solve the question being asked, the professor made a compromise. He said that he would let the student answer the question again with a different method. And if the student solved the problem again, he would award him the marks for the question.

Immediately the student responded that he would use the barometer to bang on the door of the landlord in the building. When the landlord answered the door, he would ask, “How tall is this building?” At once, the professor saw what the student was doing. He asked him if he knew of any other methods to reach the answer. The student said that he did.

He recommended tying a long string to the barometer and measuring the length of the string. Or swinging the string as a pendulum and inferring the height by the motion it created.

The professor decided to award the student the marks. As the story goes, the student was a young Niels Bohr, later becoming the famous physicist and discovering the nature of electrons inside atoms.

This student didn’t just know how to get the answer. He also understood the entire scope for which the problem existed. Instead of seeing the problem in the same terms he had been taught, he could easily view it a number of ways.

Cited from Learn More Study Less by Scott Young.

P.S. Therefore, the PROCESS of learning is IMPORTANT!