Welcome to the basics of success. And many of you may be tempted to skip this lecture this module. That's fine. But I caution you please don't many of us in our rush to perfection and academic success often overlook the very basic things, very simple strategies that really make the difference between capturing a few extra points on an exam. I've done this myself many times over the year and just you just kick yourself when you get the test back and you realize that you just missed one point shy of getting the grade you wanted. And you look at the question and you read it wrong.

And it's just, it's upsetting, no doubt about that. So let's get started. Mastering the basics. Pay attention to the key words, the key words really are going to guide the direction of your thought and these are found in the stem. Look for words like but except in most likely these often give you clues, and really change the direction of the answer if you miss out on these words are reading The question too fast, you're going to get the question wrong. So pay close attention to that.

The very first step I tell students is to eliminate all the incorrect answers. Once you're done reading the stem and you're ready to move on to answering the question, just cross out the wrong answers. If it's, if it's possible, obviously, sometimes it can potestas, electronic or computerized and it's not possible but at least in your mind, cross it out and don't even look at it. Again, don't even entertain it. If any part of the question is or the answer choices wrong, the entire answer is wrong. Students will often find an answer choice that seems partly right.

And then they'll sort of try and agonize or justify in their mind why the instructor maybe wants you to pick that well. The question is, is partly right and I think that's what the instructor wants me to answer. So I'm going to pick this don't do that. If the if the any part of the answer choice is wrong, the entire answer is wrong. It's never you don't get credit partial credit. For partially right answers.

Guessing is always open. Students sometimes will leave questions blank with the intent of going back and filling them in at the end. And sometimes you run out of time or they're factors out of your control, you end up wasting a bunch of time on a few questions and you just you don't have time. So Mark a choice. And you can triangle back if you have time, but don't leave it blank, you're just leaving money on the table. Be cautious and avoid stumbling over words.

This is a a common ploy of question writers, myself included, is to sometimes create wording that makes it a little challenging for the student to navigate the question. And the rationale for that is basically this. You want to make sure the student actually knows the material. And by changing the wording maybe to a little bit unfamiliar, it really forces them to be concrete in their knowledge and so be cautious with that. If you need to reread the stem. Just take it take it slow because that is the critical first step.

One year Faced with a variety of choices the the gold standard answers are always the best option one available you know if a scientist has created some dogma about a particular theory versus some other obscure theory it's probably the the dogma that's going to be the answer. unfamiliar wording in the answer choices are generally wrong. Just be cautious with that it's sometimes the instructor or the the question writer. We're not infallible sometimes we make mistakes or put down the the wrong modifier. But in reality, it's probably the wrong choice. excessively wordy answers are generally wrong.

There's actually some specific guidelines that exam question writers are given or should be given a particularly at the higher levels and I'll share those with you in a later lecture. But the the idea is that the answer choices for the most part should be of similar length, the ones that are exceedingly Short and exceedingly long, it's sort of unfair playing creates a sort of a disadvantage, when you see when you're faced with choices that are so discrepant, and at that point, at least from test metrics, it tends to, to maybe throw off a little bit about what the test is designed to measure. So just just keep that in mind and be aware of the modifiers. All always, never or none are generally wrong. I mean, there are a few things that are concrete, this is more, you know, likely in the hard sciences. But all always, never, or none are often incorrect choices.

Common errors that we see I see this repetitively, it's ubiquitous in all the students that I've worked with. And the first one is not answering the question asked, make sure that the answer choice that you pick is actually answering the question. And that's common, there may be something that you're excited that you know about it, it's or it's in between fact about the material presented at hand, but make sure the choice is answering the question. Not reading the stem. Students will often see a few keywords in the stem and say, Aha, I know what this question is about. We talked about this in lecture and they jump right to the answers, and didn't finish reading the stem and didn't really actually get to the question.

And you need to read the question very carefully. This is what drives the answer choices. You may know everything else about the stem of the question. But when you get to the actual meat of the question, you may not know what's being asked. And that's where implying some iterative processes can help you get the right choice, not pacing to completion students. Obviously, when you're doing complicated, multi level tests with formulas, and second or third order questions, these take longer to answer should have kind of an idea about how long you can spend on each question.

Don't get hung up if there's a question that you have no idea about, just guess and move on. If you time you can come back and try and iterate and use some of the other techniques that I've taught throughout this course to try and narrow it down and improve your odds of getting it right. second guessing yourself. This is a somewhat of a point of controversy, I still am under the mantra that your first choice, your choice is probably correct. More often than not, although there's some data that shows that students who go back and change and some points, some studies have actually improved the results of getting the question right, but I think it comes down to you gut check is your choice. You know, what's your feeling your gut, your first instinct.

It's probably right versus reality. Do you recall now some facts. Sometimes when you're taking a test, you'll actually discover some facts in subsequent questions that you can go back and utilize to answer previous questions. I'll talk about that in just a second. But if you really know a small fact that that sways your answer in is justifies changing it then that's fine. versus just anxiety students will start to second guess themselves and panic and see that they have, you know, a bunch of C's or DS in a row and just go back and say, Oh, I didn't really know that one, I'm going to change it to B, and I feel better about it.

Because then there's not five C's in a row. Don't do that. Try to keep the anxiety at bay, take a few deep breaths back to the using using the test itself as a sort of a study guide or notes. Obviously, to create questions, a fair amount of material has to be shared and the material has to be valid. For example, I'm just going to pick biology, the test may be on a specific Kingdom or, or group or something like that. And there'll be some data points and subsequent questions, say about invertebrates or mollusks or what have you.

And those those points in the stem of the question are actually facts. And some of those facts may have been tested in previous questions that you didn't know the answer to. And so it's it is a tool that if you if you kind of process the questions as you go along and can remember Some of the questions that you were maybe second guessing yourself, when you read these stems in later questions, you're going to have sort of a lightbulb moment where you say, Aha, I know the answer. Now I can go back and comfortably and reliably change that because I now have this little tiny piece of fact that the instructor provided me in the stem of another question. That's going to allow me to get another point. Now that I can answer the previous question correctly.

Image and visual questions. The answer is often very evident in the image or graph or chart. I think the best strategy is just to go ahead and read the question answer before even looking at the image. Sometimes the images are overwhelming, particularly if your physiology or physics or chemistry, or a complicated or poorly designed graph, and there's certainly an art and science behind developing infographics and creating charts and tables. But if you read the question and the answer before looking at the image, a lot of times you may not even need to look at the image you may know the answer ahead of time, and the image just confirms that you have the right choice. Don't let the image overwhelm you.

If the images is so complicated and so confusing, maybe it's just there to distract you. Maybe it really it's just eye candy or put there as a ploy by the instructor to throw you off course. So, remember to read the question carefully. Answer the question being asked and look at the answer choices before you start looking at evaluating it. valuating the image or picture graph? formulas are often specific for materials, particularly math, science, things like that.

Ask your instructor what he or she expects you to know. There's not a lot of benefit in memorizing a bunch of formulas, if they're provided for you. Make sure to check decimals and unions carefully. This goes without saying but students invariably when you're you're dealing with decimal points. Obviously, one point off is the wrong answer. So check carefully and make sure you understand whether you're gonna be able to use a calculator or some other device or not, don't anticipate that grants are given and memorize commonly used formulas.

I think this is a valid use of your time, particularly if the formulas are used repetitively throughout a subject. And mostly because it increases your speed and your familiarity if you have a formula or a few formulas in your in your bag of tricks that you can work through quickly, you know that you know the decimal points the units you know how to to manipulate the equation that will only increase your speed and allow you to spend more time on other questions that you may be struggle with. Don't know, on guessing, never skip a question. I always put down an answer before you move on. B and D are generally your friends not C. If you had to pick between B and D, I would probably choose B. If you've if you haven't even seen the question.

The reason being is if you're just have a block of say 10 questions that you didn't get time to answer and you're just gonna go back and fill in the the answer choices or fill in the Oval or the.if. You pick C and they're true and false. Questions, you look fairly silly in the eyes of the instructor and you missed out on a 5050 chance of getting a question, right? So, B is probably the best overall choice when you have no clue and haven't seen the question at all. And don't waste your time. If the question is something that you forgot to study, or maybe you intentionally omitted in your study, because you felt it was low yield, then don't waste your time on it, just put down an answer choice put down B or D and move on.

If you want to go back later on and really agonize about it, that's fine. But don't leave the money on the table, just put something down and go forward. When you're faced with a choice of percentages, mid range percentages, they're usually correct, unless there's some unique fact about the particular material being tested. And so if you're going to guess, probably pick the mid range. And on critical test critical tests obviously are a little different than your run of the mill history test at the end of a section or chemistry test. They require a little bit more preparation and forethought.

Don't quit Study the last day or last night when you're dealing with comprehensive exams, it's unlikely that you're going to gain a huge amount of material by cramming the last few hours or staying up late the night before the exam. eat properly. I see students coming into the testing center, you know, drinking a mountain dew and in eating a bunch of candy and maybe that works. If that's been your, your modus operandi throughout the semester, or your your academic career in general. That's fine. I utilize that strategy, mostly just before chemistry tests.

I don't know why. Probably because they were usually early mornings and i and i usually, you know, tired and so I felt that a little bump in sugar and caffeine was maybe helpful, but for exams that lasts several hours or maybe several days, I think that's a bad strategy. to rely on sugar and caffeine, you're going to bonk you may push it too far and be over caffeinated and jittery, or excessively sugared up and feel kind of nauseous. There are some specific physiologic changes that occur. When you rely on a diet like that, I won't go into that here but just know that that's probably not the best way to eat and dress for success. You know you're taking an exam it's not an interview, it's not a fashion show be comfortable, you know, there's, I don't think there's a big benefit in wearing you know, something that you're not comfortable sitting in loose fitting clothing, some extra sweater or sweatshirt or something in case it's cold in there.

I've seen students you know, wearing shorts and freezing and not able to concentrate because they're cold and miserable. If you can the rest or take a nap the the afternoon before an exam and a strategy that I have recommended and use myself is when you're taking a multi day multi day exam like like some of the exams listed above. He may have an hour or an hour and a half for lunch, you know, go ahead and eat and take a little rest, take a little nap, recharge your battery, come back fresh for the afternoon session. Don't use this opportunity to try and cram and stretch yourself out. I see Students you know, frantically flipping through their notes, agonizing about the questions that they missed or the formula they forgot, or the point that they should have known. And it just creates a lot of excess anxiety.

Arrive plenty early because you don't want any unnecessary stress about parking or trying to find the building. If you're taking a test at an unfamiliar familiar location or a different campus. You don't need to add any extra stress to the already stressful situation. You know, arrive early, find your parking get there early. If you have to sit sit in the hallway, or the exam areas not open yet. No big deal you'll be you'll be rested, you won't be rushing into the last minute all harried and freaked out that you're late or maybe miss some valuable exam time.

And honestly, some of the test centers will not admit you if you're late, even if you're five minutes late. Some of the advanced tests, I just retook my board certification and those strictly marked out that you must arrive a half hour ahead of time and after that they actually lock the The external door to the exam center. So even though we're not even seated, taking the exam, if you're not there half hour early, you're locked out and make sure to bring ID I didn't put that on here. But some of the critical tests they require a valid ID though, obviously, you probably know this, but I've seen more students frustrated that they overlooked that part or they forgot that part. And now they have to wait a few more months to take a test and it just results in heartbreak. So that wraps up the basics of success.

I think there's some useful information here many of it, and much of it may be old hat to some of you, but I think it's worth reviewing. Even if it just gives you one or two points of information. That's certainly enough to give you the grade that you desire.