Schools Do the teachers at 4 year colleges usually give study guides for exams?

[land_of_ice]

(For engineering / math classes) at some of the 4 year colleges, (in California or anywhere really,) what is the semester usually like as far as review days before tests, study guides for exams and tests, and quizzes?

Do the teachers provide any of the above? And also, do you usually have projects that are due?

 

[gb7nash]

From my experience in college, if anything I'll get a piece of paper listing possible topics on my exam. I haven't seen a study guide since high school though.

 

[lisab]

(For engineering / math classes) at some of the 4 year colleges, (in California or anywhere really,) what is the semester usually like as far as review days before tests, study guides for exams and tests, and quizzes?

Do the teachers provide any of the above? And also, do you usually have projects that are due?

It's unusual for a study guide to be given, in my experience. Everything that was covered in class, in the homework, in the text/other reading, or anything else the prof wants to put on the test...consider that the study guide.

Projects...depends on the class. Some profs assign them, others don't. Typical lower division math and science classes don't have projects, but that really depends on the prof.

 

[turbo]

If you want a study guide in college, highlight and note the concepts that are stressed in lectures and recitations. Don't take verbatim notes - figure out what your profs and instructors are steering you to, and take the lead. Try to get a little more in-depth in those directions than you would if you were just "coasting" through a course, and be prepared to demonstrate a level of understanding that others in your class don't.

 

[Dembadon]

(For engineering / math classes) at some of the 4 year colleges, (in California or anywhere really,) what is the semester usually like as far as review days before tests, study guides for exams and tests, and quizzes?

Do the teachers provide any of the above? And also, do you usually have projects that are due?

None of my science and mathematics professors have given study guides. They've considered the review questions at the end of the chapter on which you're being tested to be perfectly suited for studying. Although, I'm not sure how you're defining a study guide.

 

[Pengwuino]

Oh man study guides? I haven't seen one of those in years!

Depending on the prof, usually the lecture before the exam will be dedicated to a review session where people can have questions on hand. In my experience, few people have questions and it's usually a waste

 

[turbo]

Oh man study guides? I haven't seen one of those in years!

Depending on the prof, usually the lecture before the exam will be dedicated to a review session where people can have questions on hand. In my experience, few people have questions and it's usually a waste

Things never change, oily burd. Back over 40 years ago, it was the same. The "review" sessions were last-minute desperation ploys, and the students that attended them hadn't gotten the foundation to benefit from them, anyway. Waste of time, all around.

 

[DR13]

Disclaimer: I'm only a first year undergrad, so I can mainly only speak to intro classes.

Though study guides are not given, one can get past exams (some with worked out solutions). Which I think is actually more helpful.

 

[turbo]

Disclaimer: I'm only a first year undergrad, so I can mainly only speak to intro classes.

Though study guides are not given, one can get past exams (some with worked out solutions). Which I think is actually more helpful.

You have access to worked-out solutions to exam questions?. Pleas tell me that I have not understood you. If not, your college intends to suck out tuition money for 4 years, and pass you out as a functional scientist, while you are a low-functioning illiterate. Unless you are willing to put in the work required the master the material that YOU PAID FOR THEM to teach you, you are cheating yourself. The whole point of learning is to learn, not to buy a degree.

 

[Nabeshin]

You have access to worked-out solutions to exam questions?. Pleas tell me that I have not understood you. If not, your college intends to suck out tuition money for 4 years, and pass you out as a functional scientist, while you are a low-functioning illiterate. Unless you are willing to put in the work required the master the material that YOU PAID FOR THEM to teach you, you are cheating yourself. The whole point of learning is to learn, not to buy a degree.

Not entirely sure why you are all up in arms. They are past exams/exam solutions. From what I gather, the practice is actually quite common. If the professor is worth anything, the exam questions are varied enough that the past exams serve only to illustrate the level of difficulty and length of exam more so than any specific exam material.

 

[DR13]

You have access to worked-out solutions to exam questions?. Pleas tell me that I have not understood you. If not, your college intends to suck out tuition money for 4 years, and pass you out as a functional scientist, while you are a low-functioning illiterate. Unless you are willing to put in the work required the master the material that YOU PAID FOR THEM to teach you, you are cheating yourself. The whole point of learning is to learn, not to buy a degree.

Ok... I'll skip the rant and just respond to your points.
They are past exams and there are completely new exams every year. I really do not see the problem. I take a practice exam without looking at the answers, then go over it to see where I went wrong. If there weren't worked out solutions (just the correct letter answer to the question), I could only know if I was right or wrong and not know how I was wrong. I honestly do not see a problem with this. Maybe you misunderstood something.

 

[mathwonk]

when i was a student, no one would dream of doing it, but 20 years later as a teacher, i gradually morphed into providing them. i.e. it is considered extreme hand holding but so many students today are so weak that it has become almost necessary.

 

[DR13]

when i was a student, no one would dream of doing it, but 20 years later as a teacher, i gradually morphed into providing them. i.e. it is considered extreme hand holding but so many students today are so weak that it has become almost necessary.

Yeesh. I don't feel like it's hand holding. It's a learning tool. The more practice you have at something, the better you get at it.

 

[Nabeshin]

when i was a student, no one would dream of doing it, but 20 years later as a teacher, i gradually morphed into providing them. i.e. it is considered extreme hand holding but so many students today are so weak that it has become almost necessary.

It's interesting that you look at this way, would you mind elaborating on exactly why you think it is extreme hand holding? Obviously I don't really agree and here's why:

In my experiences, the practice exams just gauge mostly the length and breadth of the exam, and the contents are not necessarily related to the actual exam contents. Note, this is my experience with physics exams, and I think for upper division physics classes the practice is even more beneficial. I say this because often questions on the problem sets can be quite long and computational, so it is substantially different from a 1.5-2hr sit down exam (For this reason, take-home exams seem to be popular). Of course, the successful student should know how to do everything anyways, but a similar argument could be made against problem sets. At any rate, the only situation where I felt like a practice exam is in any way 'hand holding' or 'cheap' (as some might say), was integral calculus where the real exams mirrored the take home exams with slight variations in parameters. I.e. you had your u substitution question, your question on series convergence, etc. and they were all fundamentally the same on all exams.

 

[G01]

I did my undergrad at a small masters university. I never got an old exam to study from. And very rarely was a lecture before an exam dedicated to review.

 

[Pengwuino]

Yeesh. I don't feel like it's hand holding. It's a learning tool. The more practice you have at something, the better you get at it.

I am on the side of mathwonk here. The problem with "Here are questions, here are their solutions" is that most students will simply fumble around using random equations until their answer = actual answer. What ends up happening is that the instructor will change one little part of the question and the students fall apart on the question. It's especially bad when the solutions are given as a step by step procedure because students memorize those steps and again, instructor changes something and they have no idea what to do.

Of course, I really do mean most and not all.

Hell, it's almost the end of the semester and some of my students still have trouble knowing when and how to use kinematic equations.

 

[jhae2.718]

For the exams in the physics courses I've taken, old exams were available with final answers only. The exams had questions of a similar type, but they differed quite a bit each exam. (The exams were four questions only, and were quite fun...)

 

[mathwonk]

you guys who do not think this is hand holding have apparently been coddled for so long you don't even know what it means to do your own work. some hopeless clown asked my freshman calc professor what was going to be on our exam, and the answer was "the content of the course!" the idea is that it is your job to review the material, outline it, and learn it. the more you do on your own the better you learn. get a clue. the sooner the better, for you.

 

[jhae2.718]

I think it's hand holding. (I just do the physics practice exams for the fun...)

I would not give out study guides. I'd also make exam questions doable, but harder than the material covered in class. If I taught a course, my students would hate me.

 

[Pengwuino]

you guys who do not think this is hand holding have apparently been coddled for so long you don't even know what it means to do your own work. some hopeless clown asked my freshman calc professor what was going to be on our exam, and the answer was "the content of the course!" the idea is that it is your job to review the material, outline it, and learn it. the more you do on your own the better you learn. get a clue. the sooner the better, for you.

I had a prof who taught a lot of my math classes and I thought it was hilarious what she would do. She would have a list right before every exam of what was going to be on the exam.

It was everything she had covered.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Sometimes even hand holding doesn't help. I remember once I passed out a sheet of 20 questions and said, "If you can do all these questions, you'll be well prepared for the exam". The exam was the same sheet, with the instruction, "Answer any 5 questions".

I still had students flunk it.

 

[Pengwuino]

Sometimes even hand holding doesn't help. I remember once I passed out a sheet of 20 questions and said, "If you can do all these questions, you'll be well prepared for the exam". The exam was the same sheet, with the instruction, "Answer any 5 questions".

I still had students flunk it.

Did you say anything? Like "If you failed this class, you're hopeless"?

 

[physics girl phd]

I don't give out study guides, but I release my old exams for classes on my class websites (with keys). Without exams being numbered (and sometimes even if they are) there's a chance that an exam gets taken and stored in a Frat or Sorority file... so I just post them so all students have access to them. With a key, some students use them as study guides.

Sometimes, like Vanadium, I'll use old questions over again (and yes, students will still flunks those)... although I've never used exactly the same test. Often, I just change a word or two, especially on long multiple choice tests -- for example, changing the question from asking about frequency to asking about wavelength completely inverts the correct response. On problem-based tests, I'll often use the same geometry, but change the charge distribution slightly, etc. (With this kind of similarity, it covers my ___, err... it lowers the chances that students complain about tests being "unfair" etc. -- and when my students still fail an EXACT problem, they usually cower in their chairs, improve their work and study habits, or drop the course.)

Maybe it's hand-holding (maybe not). It's better than I got (at a small liberal arts school). I think SOMETIMES professors posted an equation sheet if one was to be given during the exam. But that was in the days before classes had internet sites and ways of easily storing/posting these materials, so who knows what my professors may have chosen to do with those tools available.

 

[DR13]

Sometimes even hand holding doesn't help. I remember once I passed out a sheet of 20 questions and said, "If you can do all these questions, you'll be well prepared for the exam". The exam was the same sheet, with the instruction, "Answer any 5 questions".

I still had students flunk it.

Wow... How could someone not ace that?

 

[turbo]

you guys who do not think this is hand holding have apparently been coddled for so long you don't even know what it means to do your own work. some hopeless clown asked my freshman calc professor what was going to be on our exam, and the answer was "the content of the course!" the idea is that it is your job to review the material, outline it, and learn it. the more you do on your own the better you learn. get a clue. the sooner the better, for you.

So true! I fought hard for my grades in Engineering, and I would have been seriously ticked off if the profs had handed out all kinds of hints and practice sheets to help clueless students bring up their exam scores. After all, I was paying for my education, not for a grade-transcript and a piece of paper to hang on the wall. I had no loans and worked my way through school with a little financial help from my parents. I knew what I was paying for, and I would have been really burnt if the profs had diluted the process by inflating the grades of the clueless.

 

[Dembadon]

Wow... How could someone not ace that?

By doing something other than taking advantage of the opportunity that was given, I'm guessing. I'm amazed by the number of classmates I see/know who choose to do things other than study for exams.

 

[Dembadon]

I had a prof who taught a lot of my math classes and I thought it was hilarious what she would do. She would have a list right before every exam of what was going to be on the exam.

It was everything she had covered.

My Calc I, II, & III professor did basically the same thing; when asked what would be on the test, he always replied, "If you can do all of the review questions at the end of the chapter, then you'll be prepared for the exam. You should also go over your notes from the lectures." When students complained, he suggested that they come to office hours, get tutoring, or drop the class.

 

[G01]

The problem with "Here are questions, here are their solutions" is that most students will simply fumble around using random equations until their answer = actual answer.

I didn't realize how common this was until I started grading in grad school. It's amazing how some students seem to find that answer in the back of the book regardless of whether their logic leading up to it makes sense!

 

[ideasrule]

I've never had study guides in university, but many professors post past exams along with solutions. These are very helpful because they show you how in-depth you're expected to know the material, and how detailed the professor expects your solution to be. Otherwise, test scores would be influenced by the students' assumptions about the test, and I don't find that fair.

I don't see how study guides could be considered hand-holding. It's not as if having a general overview of the course, which is what a study guide should be, magically makes you understand the concepts or know how to apply all the equations. In fact, I think that emphasizing important concepts over minor details should be an essential part of the course, not just something to be put on a study guide.

 

[mathwonk]

I want to apologize for my rather rude and boorish comments, questions of accuracy aside.

Obviously someone who is learning needs a bit of patience until he learns.

Those who stated the value of sample questions etc... are quite right.

What they may not realize, is the value is greatest to that person who prepares the review.

Hence when I prepare a review for my students, or a sample test, it is I who get the most benefit.

That is not the desired outcome, So at a certain point, we wish the student to transition to making this review preparation on his own.

Obviously however one does not achieve this result by insulting the student as I did.

Please forgive me and keep up the struggle to understand.

 

[turbo]

I want to apologize for my rather rude and boorish comments, questions of accuracy aside.

Obviously someone who is learning needs a bit of patience until he learns.

Those who stated the value of sample questions etc... are quite right.

What they may not realize, is the value is greatest to that person who prepares the review.

Hence when I prepare a review for my students, or a sample test, it is I who get the most benefit.

That is not the desired outcome, So at a certain point, we wish the student to transition to making this review preparation on his own.

Obviously however one does not achieve this result by insulting the student as I did.

Please forgive me and keep up the struggle to understand.

Your comments were not out-of-line, IMO. I was the very first person in my extended family (both sides) to ever attend college. I paid for almost all of it by myself with savings, summer jobs, and work during the school years (repairing and restoring tube amps and guitars). My parents helped out when they could. I would have felt extremely insulted and abandoned if the engineering school had allowed the profs and instructors to coach low-performing students to get better scores on exams and finals. Learn the material, learn the procedures for manipulating the variables facing you, and learn how to interpret and present the results. If you can't pull this off, you haven't gotten the education that you paid for.

I can't tell you how disappointing it is as a process chemist to get saddled with a newly-minted chemical engineer. You have to teach the engineer everything related to the processes at your mill, so that he can be your boss, because he is an "engineer".

 

[Pengwuino]

I didn't realize how common this was until I started grading in grad school. It's amazing how some students seem to find that answer in the back of the book regardless of whether their logic leading up to it makes sense!

I KNOW right! "The force is equal to F = ma, the mass is .5kg, the sky is blue and my house is 2400 sq feet, therefore the energy of the rocket is 900J"

 

[turbo]

I KNOW right! "The force is equal to F = ma, the mass is .5kg, the sky is blue and my house is 2400 sq feet, therefore the energy of the rocket is 900J"

And the answer is 42!

 

[Ryker]

I would have felt extremely insulted and abandoned if the engineering school had allowed the profs and instructors to coach low-performing students to get better scores on exams and finals. Learn the material, learn the procedures for manipulating the variables facing you, and learn how to interpret and present the results. If you can't pull this off, you haven't gotten the education that you paid for.

Why go to school then? Isn't lecturing coaching them to do well on finals, as well? An did you ever do any examples in classes or used a textbook that had worked examples? Because I don't see any difference in that and providing past exams with worked solutions. Doing the latter isn't necessarily teaching to test (which, I agree, should never be done), and you can still change tests year to year, so that people can't just memorize the steps without understanding them.

I don't know, perhaps we should just have people studying at home then, paying full tuition fees nonetheless, and being forbidden from ever being told the answers to problems. That way all knowledge gained will be absolutely pure and immaculate.

 

[AlephZero]

Sometimes even hand holding doesn't help. I remember once I passed out a sheet of 20 questions and said, "If you can do all these questions, you'll be well prepared for the exam". The exam was the same sheet, with the instruction, "Answer any 5 questions".

I still had students flunk it.

This is entirely consistent with one of the basic design flaws in homo sapiens: the average member of the species can learn, but can not be taught.

Most other mammals has the same design flaw, but for some reason we don't find it odd when say cats or rats behave like that.

 

[jhae2.718]

I KNOW right! "The force is equal to F = ma, the mass is .5kg, the sky is blue and my house is 2400 sq feet, therefore the energy of the rocket is 900J"

Or the people who list every equation they have ever seen in an attempt for partial credit

 

[gb7nash]

Or the people who list every equation they have ever seen in an attempt for partial credit

There's a term for that in mathematics, the proof by intimidation. Sometimes it works!

 

[ideasrule]

I would have felt extremely insulted and abandoned if the engineering school had allowed the profs and instructors to coach low-performing students to get better scores on exams and finals.

What do you mean by "coaching"? There's a line between hand-holding and the coaching that lectures are meant to be. That line is wide, blurry, and hard to define. I think you should define "coaching" before criticizing it.

 

[jtbell]

I had a prof who taught a lot of my math classes and I thought it was hilarious what she would do. She would have a list right before every exam of what was going to be on the exam.

It was everything she had covered.

Sometimes at the end of the semester I put a "Final Exam Week FAQ" on my office door. One entry reads:

Q2: Will ________ be on the exam?

A2: That's a great idea! Thanks for reminding me about it. :-)

 

[wild999711]

I've had professors give study guides before, but they aren't exactly helpful if your a decent student. They were meant to ensure people passed the test in lower division classes. To prepare for tests I've always found it more useful to study from the homework solutions, and talk to the professor directly about the exam.

 

[turbo]

Why go to school then? Isn't lecturing coaching them to do well on finals, as well? An did you ever do any examples in classes or used a textbook that had worked examples? Because I don't see any difference in that and providing past exams with worked solutions. Doing the latter isn't necessarily teaching to test (which, I agree, should never be done), and you can still change tests year to year, so that people can't just memorize the steps without understanding them.

I don't know, perhaps we should just have people studying at home then, paying full tuition fees nonetheless, and being forbidden from ever being told the answers to problems. That way all knowledge gained will be absolutely pure and immaculate.

I worked very hard and earned the money that allowed me to attend engineering school. I would have been extremely pissed if my instructors had given the slackers in my classes ways to getter scores on their finals.

 

[cdotter]

I didn't realize how common this was until I started grading in grad school. It's amazing how some students seem to find that answer in the back of the book regardless of whether their logic leading up to it makes sense!

Maybe the student doesn't understand how to solve the problem conceptually? Textbook examples aren't always good at this.

 

[Pengwuino]

Maybe the student doesn't understand how to solve the problem conceptually? Textbook examples aren't always good at this.

This is true except those kind of students don't really care. Whenever I helped a student out or tutored students or whatever, they basically just want you to tell them the answer and what equations to use. They don't care what the equations and ideas are.

 

[jhae2.718]

I would automatically flunk those kind of students if I could. The real world doesn't come with an answer key*.*OK, so Erdös had The Book, but...

 

[Sankaku]

I think the hidden problem in this thread is how difficult it really is to assess someone's knowledge of a technical subject. Exams are a flawed but fairly well understood method. I liked the brutally hard take-home exams where you are free to use whatever resources you can think of. Until we come up with something better (tiny classes and individual interaction?), there will always be debate.

My attitude is: If it helps the people who really want to learn, who cares what happens to the slackers?

Sometimes at the end of the semester I put a "Final Exam Week FAQ" on my office door. One entry reads:

Q2: Will ________ be on the exam?

A2: That's a great idea! Thanks for reminding me about it. :-)

ROFL. I had a class where the prof skipped a chapter in the text. It was long and I knew he wouldn't be able to fit everything into the course. I asked to make sure that nothing in that chapter would be expected material. The next class he went back and covered the chapter because I asked the question!

I didn't mind - it was fun material - but hilarious anyway.

 

[ideasrule]

I want to apologize for my rather rude and boorish comments, questions of accuracy aside.

Obviously someone who is learning needs a bit of patience until he learns.

Those who stated the value of sample questions etc... are quite right.

What they may not realize, is the value is greatest to that person who prepares the review.

Hence when I prepare a review for my students, or a sample test, it is I who get the most benefit.

That is not the desired outcome, So at a certain point, we wish the student to transition to making this review preparation on his own.

Obviously however one does not achieve this result by insulting the student as I did.

Please forgive me and keep up the struggle to understand.

I wasn't insulted, but I do find your attitude somewhat patronizing. How would you know whether or not students are benefited by reviews if you refuse to listen to the opinions of actual students? You use phrases like "what they may not realize" and "keep up the struggle to understand" to imply that students know less than you about their own studying preferences, and considering that you're probably not a current student, I'm very skeptical that this is true.

To address your points, I think that all professors have to draw a line between the amount of material he teaches and the amount the student is expected to figure out himself. A largely self-taught course is very demanding on the student, but those who follow through learn the material more thoroughly. In practice there's a limit to the amount of dedication you can/should expect from students, so higher expectations usually lead to lower average grades. I think that the general concepts taught in the course--which is what should be on an exam review--is a fundamental part of the course and so should be covered in class, not self-learnt. I don't think the enlightenment that I (being a student) gain from summarizing a course is worth the significant time and effort required to do it, when that time and effort could be spent on actually reviewing and understanding the important concepts.

 

[Ryker]

I worked very hard and earned the money that allowed me to attend engineering school. I would have been extremely pissed if my instructors had given the slackers in my classes ways to getter scores on their finals.

But they already are giving them ways to get better scores, and they also gave you ways of doing so. I understand you had to go through a lot, and it shows character and perserverance, but I think this has clouded your judgment, and you now seem to think everyone has to go through the same struggles just to get a degree. But I think this is somewhat of an elitist view, to be honest, and as long as people actually learn the material I don't think it matters how they do it. The universities are there to teach them, and if they do, well then good job done. Like I said, putting up past exams is just putting up a couple more worked examples, and, unless the professor is lazy and just gives out the same questions on tests each year, people can't just take those and ace the exam. And I understand what you feel, because, for example, I try and start on homeworks early and put in a lot of work just to later see the professor giving a hint in class or whatever, enabling other students who haven't yet started to have an easier time with it. And it pisses me off, as well, but in the end I realize I shouldn't be pissed off, because it's my fault for expecting something that the professor and the university clearly didn't state they would do. It's they who decide how the course will be taught and administered, and while you may argue that as a paying student you should have a say, in the end I don't really think that's how it works or should work (and if you took a democratic vote, your hardcore view would probably lose out, as well, at least in lower year courses). Again, I understand why you feel that way, and sometimes I do, too, but I think you need to take a step back and realize that those are unreasonable expectations and that you can only impose such standards upon yourself if you so wish. It probably will benefit you in the long run, anyway, and it seems that it has in your case.

Just from personal experience, I never had any professor give out such things when studying for my first degree, even though the exam questions were available if you asked around (they were kind of circulating, because students just put them down after they took the exam and kept adding them year after year). Now, some professors do put up old exams, but honestly I usually prepare the same way in both cases, that is, without really looking at them, because I feel I want to actually learn the material in a way that prepares me for any exam, not just that particular professor's one.

 

[mathwonk]

ideasrule. you are of course correct that i am not a current student. however i am a successful former student. and also an unsuccessful former student. i.e. i have both failed and then later succeeded as a student. so i am pretty confident that i do know more than you about what study habits are fruitful, whether or not they are your preferred ones.

basic rule: when you have nothing to offer and much to gain, do not be too insistent upon setting the rules of the game.

 

[mathwonk]

by them way ideas rule, i like you. anyone with the cojones to speak truth to an old **** like me deserves respect. maybe we can learn to listen to each other.

 

[Skrew]

A couple instructors do, I find it really helpfull.

I think it is unrealiaistic to expect students to retain everything that an instructor has gone over. I think it is both fairer and pedagologically superior to focus on the core results of the class and have the students study them.