I know the material inside and out, but then make dumb mistakes on tests

[leright]

I know the material inside and out, but then make dumb mistakes on tests...

I learn the material backwards and forwards, understand all of the concepts, but then when I take tests I make little slip ups that cost lots of points, like units conversions or I screw up obvious simple little formulas. To show that I truly know the material, I rework the problems in my head after taking the test as I walk home and realize all of the mistakes I made, and I realize why certain answers didn't work out right...

For instance, I made a really really dumb mistake on today's optoelectronics test...I calculated wavelength by taking the reciprocal of frequency...since I am a bad test taker I overlooked this mistake...I did not realize I made the mistake until after the test was over and I was walking down the hallway...

And don't tell me it's because I didn't work enough problems or did not read the assigned readings or because I didn't understand the material...this is not the case. I am going to talk to the prof about it tomorrow...maybe he can go easy on me...I dunno.

You might ask, "how the hell can you think wavelength = 1/frequency, under ANY circumstance??" Well, I am a bad test taker...under other circulstances I would not make that error.

Honestly, grades are useless methods for benchmarking a person's understanding and mastery of a subject.

Does anyone have any advice?

 

[chroot]

It sounds like you're just nervous, but I unfortunately really don't have any advice on how to help you be less nervous.

The good news is that many graders don't kill you for making a single small mistake, even if that mistake carries on to ruin the rest of the problem.

- Warren

 

[leright]

It sounds like you're just nervous, but I unfortunately really don't have any advice on how to help you be less nervous.

The good news is that many graders don't kill you for making a single small mistake, even if that mistake carries on to ruin the rest of the problem.

- Warren

Well, in this particular problem, I ended up with a phase shift as my answer, which was around 10^8 radians...lol...it should have been on the order of 0.4 radians or so. That is a BIG error...

The answer is much more reasonable if I found the wavelength by saying c/f, and not 1/f...

And the thing is...I usually feel rather calm while taking tests.

 

[moose]

Check your answers until you become more comfortable, if time permits. Think if the answer is even in the right ballpark, I suppose.

 

[leright]

Check your answers until you become more comfortable, if time permits. Think if the answer is even in the right ballpark, I suppose.

well, yeah, my answer was obviously not in the right ballpark, and I looked over my work a couple times but stupidly did not notice the error I made...which would be obvious under normal circumstances.

I dunno...this kind of thing is just really starting to frustrate me...I study hard, and it often seems like it is for nothing, because people don't look past grades, and if they wanted to look past grades there's not much else to look at...

And many of the professors think you're incompetent because of the grades you get on tests...this is very depressing.

 

[unit_circle]

Sometimes I have this problem as well, so I made a little notecard of "rules" that I must follow when I take a test.

1. Read each question carefully, underlining key words and ideas. That way you answer the question that is being asked, instead of misreading the question and making up your own.

2. Identify the "core concept" of the question. By this I mean try to get in the professor's head. They don't ask exam questions to see you calcuate things, they ask exam questions to see if you understand the underlying concepts.

3. Make sure that the professor can see that you understand the "core concept" in your answer to the question. If the professor sees that you understand, he/she is much more likely to be forgiving for little mistakes.

4. Check your equations for the proper units and limiting behavior. Your mistake of thinking that the wavelength was the inverse of frequency would be caught here, because you would notice that your units were seconds instead of meters.

5. Apply physical intuition to your final results. Do they make sense physically? This saved me on my last exam. I had an answer of around 500 MV for an accelerating voltage, and this was two orders of magnitude higher than anything we had been dealing with. My intuition told me the number was too high, and I went back and found that I had made a mistake in my calculation.

Since I started doing these things I have made far fewer dumb mistakes on tests. Granted, you don't always have time to do all these things, especially in an hour exam, but you should try your best to analyze all your answers in this way.

 

[leright]

Sometimes I have this problem as well, so I made a little notecard of "rules" that I must follow when I take a test.

1. Read each question carefully, underlining key words and ideas. That way you answer the question that is being asked, instead of misreading the question and making up your own.

2. Identify the "core concept" of the question. By this I mean try to get in the professor's head. They don't ask exam questions to see you calcuate things, they ask exam questions to see if you understand the underlying concepts.

3. Make sure that the professor can see that you understand the "core concept" in your answer to the question. If the professor sees that you understand, he/she is much more likely to be forgiving for little mistakes.

4. Check your equations for the proper units and limiting behavior. Your mistake of thinking that the wavelength was the inverse of frequency would be caught here, because you would notice that your units were seconds instead of meters.

5. Apply physical intuition to your final results. Do they make sense physically? This saved me on my last exam. I had an answer of around 500 MV for an accelerating voltage, and this was two orders of magnitude higher than anything we had been dealing with. My intuition told me the number was too high, and I went back and found that I had made a mistake in my calculation.

Since I started doing these things I have made far fewer dumb mistakes on tests. Granted, you don't always have time to do all these things, especially in an hour exam, but you should try your best to analyze all your answers in this way.

excellent advice. Thanks a lot unit circle.

 

[Checkfate]

I would say that if your answer is obviously wrong, such as was supposedly the case here, and you can't see your error right away. Wait until you finish all other questions and then redo the question from scratch. Thats what I'd do. Although I don't know how hard your questions are (how long they take) :P.

Perhaps even try to do it using a different method?

 

[Maxwell]

leright,

You could also write an explanation about your wrong answer on your exam. I do this a lot. If I know an answer is wrong, I'll write out why I think it is wrong and what I think the real answer should look like. This may not save you all of your points, but sometimes it will let your professor know that you are thinking about a problem, or at least capable of doing so, and they will grade that problem easier.

Also, always right what you are doing for each step. That way they will give you more extra credit for the smaller steps, and focus less on the final answer. This has saved me numerous amounts of time.

Basically, the more you give your grader to deal with, to look over and realize you are capable of thinking reasonably about a problem, the less emphasis there will be on a perfect solution. This assumes, of course, that you are doing some of the problem correct and just making small formulaic mistakes.

 

[leright]

leright,

You could also write an explanation about your wrong answer on your exam. I do this a lot. If I know an answer is wrong, I'll write out why I think it is wrong and what I think the real answer should look like. This may not save you all of your points, but sometimes it will let your professor know that you are thinking about a problem, or at least capable of doing so, and they will grade that problem easier.

Also, always right what you are doing for each step. That way they will give you more extra credit for the smaller steps, and focus less on the final answer. This has saved me numerous amounts of time.

Basically, the more you give your grader to deal with, to look over and realize you are capable of thinking reasonably about a problem, the less emphasis there will be on a perfect solution. This assumes, of course, that you are doing some of the problem correct and just making small formulaic mistakes.

well, I put a couple question marks next to the answer...maybe this will indicate that I knew the answer was obviously wrong...lol, I got a phase angle of on the order of 10^8. lol

 

[Mattara]

You probably do not know it all perfectly. If you did, you wouldn't overlook anything. It is imperative that you do not rush it on tests. That is the largest source of errors for most people.

 

[silverdiesel]

excellent topic. I am 27 and in the middle of a second bachelors on physics. I flunked out of the physics program the first time, and had to choose a different major. The reason I flunked out was due to test anxiety, so I am very familiar with making stupid mistakes. However, the second time around I am having a completely different experience. I have a 4.0 in my second year of the degree. I was very happy to see unit_circle's advice, becuase that is EXACTLY what made the difference. I apply those same rules to taking tests, with dramaticly better results. The main thing to keep in mind is that the professors are not out to get you, usually, test questions are quite simple and straigtforward (something you can do easily in an hour or two without a calculator). You just have to pinpoint the concept of the question, which you know. Once you understand the concpet, you will have plenty of confidence on how to proceed and usually avoid making stupid errors. Ask yourself, why is the professor asking this? And assume that the professor is being as straightforward as possible, there are almost never any trick questions.

Interestly, I have also struggled with mild dislexia, and I think a lot of physics/math majors have similar issues. This can often lead to severe test anxiety. And I think this anxiety among many students can be one factor for why averages on physics tests are so low. I know two other students in my program who are very smart and from converstions over coffee, I have gathered that they might even have a better grasp of the material than I do, but their grades are miserable because they are always assuming the test questions are much more complicated, or because they get nervous, etc.

 

[Princess Ana]

I have a simillar problem - I may know the material well, but my ability to do arthimetic/rearrange equations/do simple calculus always deserts me in exams. Coupled with my usual problems with copying accurately (either from my head, or from paper), I'm a bit of an exam disaster.

I suspect it's just down to bad exam technique, because it means I have to take so much more care that what I'm putting doesn't get away from me, and is exactly the same as what I wanted to write. As others have said, the following things help me:

*If you suffer from exam nerves, spend the time while they're distributing papers/yattering on about how much time you've got to pray/mediate/take deep breaths/do calming exercises, or whatever else you normally do to get a grip of yourself

*Remember that, whatever's riding on it, it is ONLY a exam, and your life will still go on if you fail.

*Look through the paper for 5 minutes beforehand. As you do so, jot down the equations/concepts you think you'll need on the question paper (if allowed) or on the provided area for rough work if you can't.

*Start on the easiest question, for a beginning-of-exam confidence boost

*Then do the hardest - you'll be freshest at the start, and less likely to make dumb mistakes, and work down to the easier ones.

*Check everything twice, including calculator sums. If you don't have a calc in the exam, don't rely on your mental arithmetic - do it with pen and paper the way you were taught in primary school. Double check your equations for the correct dimensions, and your answers for the correct units.

*if you think something is wrong, and your institution/marker encourages this, note it down beside the answer - you may get a mark for knowing you'd messed up, but not having the time to correct it.

*follow unit_circle's advice as well (they summed it up pretty well)

 

[unit_circle]

*Start on the easiest question, for a beginning-of-exam confidence boost

*Then do the hardest - you'll be freshest at the start, and less likely to make dumb mistakes, and work down to the easier ones.

This is matter of personal preference and everyone is different, but I generally work the from the easiest to the hardest problem. I start on the first problem, if I don't know how to attack it immediately I move on to the second, and so on. My philosophy is to get the "for sure" points first.

Also, if the exam lists the point value of the questions, you should take that into account as well. Don't waste a lot of time working on problems with few points.

 

[Manchot]

I know that units have been mentioned already, but when you finally reach the end of a problem and plug in values, write down your units in your formula (as opposed to the numbers alone). That little tidbit has saved me so many times it's not even funny. That way, when you see that you're calculating sin(1.37 mm), it's obvious that you've made an error. In your case, seeing that your unit of wavelength is seconds might be a problem.

 

[leright]

I know that units have been mentioned already, but when you finally reach the end of a problem and plug in values, write down your units in your formula (as opposed to the numbers alone). That little tidbit has saved me so many times it's not even funny. That way, when you see that you're calculating sin(1.37 mm), it's obvious that you've made an error. In your case, seeing that your unit of wavelength is seconds might be a problem.

yeah, I get careless and frequently drop units. I will start writing units from now on.

 

[Hurkyl]

I also tend to do an exam from front to back -- and I tend to move to the next problem as soon as I become stuck, and don't expect to become unstuck quickly.

Then, I repeat the process, but allow myself more time to be "stuck" each time before moving on.

Then again...


(Just to clarify, this isn't an "easy"/"hard" thing -- I will happily do a hard problem the first time through if I keep getting ideas on what to try next and don't sit idle)

 

[mathwonk]

work more problems. make and take practice exams and set times for them. practice under exam conditions. when you get to ane xam the questions should be ones or simialr to one you hVE WORKED BEFORE under the same conditions.

 

[Cyrus]

work more problems. make and take practice exams and set times for them. practice under exam conditions. when you get to ane xam the questions should be ones or simialr to one you hVE WORKED BEFORE under the same conditions.

Who honestly has the time to do all this (make and take practice exams)? I just don't see this happening and think its a bad way to study. sorry.

For me, my number one thing is don't skip a problem. If I get nervous and skip a problem, I set in my mind that it is 'hard' and go to another problem with that bad feeling of a 'hard' problem waiting for me. So I push through and do the problem, and realize it was not that hard afterall. Then the rest falls in place. But when you get stuck and move on, your screwed.

Oh, and always write super neat, I mean SUPER NEAT

I get very nervous before an exam. Usually the night before I don't really fall asleep but am in a daze going over problems in my head. Its not until I finish the first problem that I am in my zone and thrash through the exam.

You have to find what your 'zone' is and how to get there as fast as possible.

During my EE exam, I could not get into my 'zone' and was like, ooooooooo sh!t, this is going to be bad. I felt like I was wasting time and not getting anywhere with problems and skipping around. Very bad place to be on an exam, and it was not because I did not study.

 

[leright]

Who honestly has the time to do all this (make and take practice exams)? I just don't see this happening and think its a bad way to study. sorry.

For me, my number one thing is don't skip a problem. If I get nervous and skip a problem, I set in my mind that it is 'hard' and go to another problem with that bad feeling of a 'hard' problem waiting for me. So I push through and do the problem, and realize it was not that hard afterall. Then the rest falls in place. But when you get stuck and move on, your screwed.

Oh, and always write super neat, I mean SUPER NEAT

I get very nervous before an exam. Usually the night before I don't really fall asleep but am in a daze going over problems in my head. Its not until I finish the first problem that I am in my zone and thrash through the exam.

You have to find what your 'zone' is and how to get there as fast as possible.

During my EE exam, I could not get into my 'zone' and was like, ooooooooo sh!t, this is going to be bad. I felt like I was wasting time and not getting anywhere with problems and skipping around. Very bad place to be on an exam, and it was not because I did not study.

usually my hand is shaking violently during a test though, and as a result my handwriting is terrible. Also, on this last test I made a million mistakes, so I had traces of things that I erased everywhere. This test was far from neat.

However, I talked to the professor about the dumb mistake I made and told him that I'd get the right answer to the problem using my method if my wavelength calculation was correct and he said he'd only take a couple points off. So, since I didn't do one of the 4 problems (which, after talking to the prof about it, he and I realized I really knew most of the answer, but just didn't write anything), and he is taking about 2 points off on the problem I screwed up, I am likely to get around a 73%. Not too bad, and I have a chance to fix that grade...I still have a shot at an A, so I am not too worried.

The good thing is though, I answer every question this professor asks in class and I am always talking about the course subject matter with the prof outside of class so he is aware that I take the course seriously. I hope this may sway his grading a bit in the end...

 

[Apost8]

I have the same problem. I study hard and obvioulsy understand the material well, but I lose points (sometimes a lot of points) on dumb little mistakes like conversion factors or forgetting to carry a negative. I find it helpful to continually remind myself to slow down and take my time. It's just something I have to be conscious of any time I take a test. I also really make an effort to leave a little time to go back over my work when possible. I have definitely saved myself a whole letter grade by catching mistakes at the end.

 

[kdinser]

I try to redo the homework problems completely 2 or 3 times in the week or 2 leading up to a test. This does not take as much time as you might think.

By the time I'm working a problem for the 3rd time, I can usually do it in less then 5 mins even if it took me an hour or more to do it the first time. Doing this let's me bang out the test questions that are similar to the homework in very short order, leaving ample time to do the more challenging problems.

Also, if an answer is clearly wrong, always make a note of it and explain exactly why you know the answer is wrong. I once saved myself 20 points on a 4 question test by doing this for a professor known for not giving much partial credit for wrong answers. He only took off 5 points because my explanation clearly showed that I understood the concept the question was testing, I just remembered a trig identity incorrectly. It made the difference between getting a B+ and an A in the class.

 

[mathwonk]

mr abdullahi, you reveal that you have no clue what it takes to do well in academics. if you think no one takes time to do the things i have recommended, you are mistaken. as a student and teacher with 45 yers of experiemce, i am telling you things that are common practice among all good students i have ever observed. i myself started doings these things in high school.

 

[leright]

mr abdullahi, you reveal that you have no clue what it takes to do well in academics. if you think no one takes time to do the things i have recommended, you are mistaken. as a student and teacher with 45 yers of experiemce, i am telling you things that are common practice among all good students i have ever observed. i myself started doings these things in high school.

Then again, every student is different.

 

[leright]

I've thought it over and I thought that maybe the reason I make dumb mistakes is because I am dumb. I dunno. :p

 

[quasar987]

Take it easy fellas.

What is the dean's list?

It seems you guys on the other side of the border (im in Canada) have all these levels of things like Senior student, Freshmen, Sophomore, Deans's list, AP calculus, GRE, Honour's class. We have none of those here.

 

[Moonbear]

mr abdullahi, you reveal that you have no clue what it takes to do well in academics. if you think no one takes time to do the things i have recommended, you are mistaken. as a student and teacher with 45 yers of experiemce, i am telling you things that are common practice among all good students i have ever observed. i myself started doings these things in high school.

Not everyone leaves themselves enough time to do that, unfortunately, but it is solid advice on ways to study.

 

[mathwonk]

my apologies for being so blunt. it aches me to see so many students unwilling to do what all of us used to do in similar situations.

but everyone learns this in his own good time.

and everyone has 24 hours in the day. when i was a student i became a vegetarian partly because with a lighter diet i could sleep less and stay awake longer to study. i also ran 4 miles a day to be in good shape also to study longer. then i skipped lunch to save more time.

i stopped reading novels and other time wasting activities. i never watched television for a period of maybe 15 years. it really is not true that people do not have enough time to do what they want. people just have different priorities for their time. i also had a wife and two children. and i supported them while getting my phd. no one else was earning money.

you will be surprized what you can do when you begin to try.

 

[Cyrus]

No hard feelings mathwonk. I want you to know, my typical bed time is 2-4 am every day, 7 days a week to make deans list. So I did NOT appreciate you telling me what you said.

 

[mathwonk]

it was this comment of yours that set me off:

"Who honestly has the time to do all this (make and take practice exams)? I just don't see this happening and think its a bad way to study. sorry.
"

that seemed a bit foolish and smartalecky, and i felt you were ignoring good advice from someone with vastly more experience than you.

If you do NOT do this stuff, I guarantee you are even not in the ball game with the best students, even if you do stay up until 4 am.

I first learned this in college in a psych course from Jerome Bruner, by reading a book called Memory. Studies show that time is more efficiently spent in studying for tests by making and taking rpactice etsts than in spending mroe time jusdt studying the amterial..

I.e. it is more efficient use of time to actually rpactice answerinbg questions, since this is the behavior that is actuaolly measured bya test.


Thus it does not take more time to do this but less. I.e. students who have 8 hopurs available to prepare, and who spend say 6 hours studying and 2 practicing answering questions do better in tests than those who study 8 hours.

Check it out, try it.

peace.

 

[Cyrus]

it was this comment of yours that set me off:

"Who honestly has the time to do all this (make and take practice exams)? I just don't see this happening and think its a bad way to study. sorry.
"

that seemed a bit foolish and smartalecky, and i felt you were ignoring good advice from someone with vastly more experience than you.

If you do NOT do this stuff, I guarantee you are even not in the ball game with the best students, even if you do stay up until 4 am.

peace.

I said I agree with you on going over problems. What I don't see myself doing is writing exams to take. I'm sorry, but not everyone does this. It takes time to write a good exam. And even then, how do you know the exam you write will be anything at all close to what the professor will write? You just can't. It takes a huge amount of time to write a quality exam to practice off of.

 

[leright]

it was this comment of yours that set me off:

"Who honestly has the time to do all this (make and take practice exams)? I just don't see this happening and think its a bad way to study. sorry.
"

that seemed a bit foolish and smartalecky, and i felt you were ignoring good advice from someone with vastly more experience than you.

If you do NOT do this stuff, I guarantee you are even not in the ball game with the best students, even if you do stay up until 4 am.

peace.

I see a lot of students that have a better GPA than me, but their GPAs are where they are because they spend no time just thinking about the concepts to tie things together and get the big picture and never ask insightful questions to the professors, but spend tons of time just memorizing facts and steps, and doing problems. These people cannot even explain what it is they are doing, or the point of doing it. If you can't explain it to your great grandmother, you don't understand it, and these people couldn't even explain it to their professor, or another student. I am not impressed by people that say they have high GPAs. You need to show more than that. GPA is meaningless.

It is just as important to think about concepts as it is to work problems, in my eyes. Problems don't necessarily provide conceptual insight, but only provide mechanical technique to solving a particular problem. I suppose if I need to give up problem solving time to think about concepts and as a result, take longer to work problems on tests since I didn't work as many problems, it is a good trade off. Also, this results in a somewhat depressed GPA than the other students that work just as hard, but devote more time to working problems and less time to thinking.

 

[mathwonk]

for example, in preparing for a history test, you should write a sample essay on a topic that is likely to come up on the test. then you can either use it directly or draw upon it for other questions on the actual test.

It amazes me that this is such a strange concept to people here as it was well known at Harvard when i was an undergrad there. I aced some graduate courses in math using this method as an undergrad. I walked out of lynn loomis real analysis final e.g., 30 minutes early with an A.

This is also the method we used in high school when I was mid state or state math champ 2 years out of 4 in high school. At Harvard there were collections of old final exams in all the house libraries and we studied them before finals. I myself took in advance every test written by a single prof before going into his final.

I expect my phd students in algebra to work every old prelim for the last 10 years before attempting the prelim in january. anyone who does not do this is not trying hard enough to pass.

 

[mathwonk]

I am sure you are right that not everyone around you is doing these thigns. I am telling what poeple do who win postdocs to harvard, research grants, and international conference invitations,...

if this is your goal, he who has ears to hear,...

 

[vanesch]

I'll add my two cents to the discussion here.
As I started out as an engineering student, "small errors" on tests were severely punished. Many professors said: "I couldn't care less whether you understood the problem and the principles of the solution ; I want to see the right answer come out. If, as an engineer, you design a power plant, and it blows up half of the city, you can always try to tell the judge that you knew the principles, but that you made some minor errors making the final answer come out wrong."
This is often different in a maths or physics department, where the professor usually wants to find out whether you knew the principles, and the problem at hand is just a way for them to analyse your reasoning. Although not entirely: Feynman is known to have said to a student: "if you don't get the last 2 pi factor right, you've understood nothing!"

Now, everybody makes errors, and indeed the worst ones are those where you misunderstood the principles of the problem and the solution, but you should consider it also a serious error not to be able to find the right answer.
I think there are several factors playing here, and there are ways to avoid this. The most straightforward one is probably this:
Work tidy . Often wanting to write quickly and sloppy introduces silly errors. Take your time to write nicely, don't do 20 steps in one line. Ok, this takes some exam time, but tell yourself that it might save you a lot of time "looking for the error". (and even looking for the error will be more efficient that way).
Master the basics blindly. This is often a vexing thing, but if you don't remember exactly your trigonometry relations or so, you'll make silly errors that way. Be sure to master them, and don't be afraid to do some drilling problems on them if you think that there's a problem. It is study time well invested.
Regularly check your intermediate results Often, there are simple ways to test the consistency of intermediate results: units, if it are real-world problems: are the results realistic ? Can you easily derive some side result from your intermediate result which verifies something about it (by re-deriving something given in the problem or so) ...
If you find something fishy, track back before continuing. If you don't find an error, write down on your copy what you find strange. (in engineering class, a professor found it a positive attitude that you signalled something "strange", meaning that as a real-life engineer, you'd probably want to double check things).

If you're pretty sure that the final answer cannot be, say so on your copy.

And then, practice, practice, practice. But practice in a realistic situation: don't be happy during your practicing that you make small errors: work as tidy and serious on your training exercises as you would on your exam: you don't get bad habits that way.

 

[leright]

I am sure you are right that not everyone around you is doing these thigns. I am telling what poeple do who win postdocs to harvard, research grants, and international conference invitations,...

if this is your goal, he who has ears to hear,...

If a student that does the things that you are saying to do, and can work every problem that could be on a test, but cannot explain to someone else what it is they are doing, or what the point is, then they aren't going to be win postdocs at harvard.

If you can't explain something in a simple, yet complete way, you don't understand it, no matter how good you are at doing the problems.

 

[Cyrus]

This is also the method we used in high school when I was mid state or state math champ 2 years out of 4 in high school. At Harvard there were collections of old final exams in all the house libraries and we studied them before finals. I myself took in advance every test written by a single prof before going into his final.

Unless a professor here gives you a sample exam, they do not want old exams being handed out. Why? Because people study the exams to see what is asked and not the material itself.

To me, that is studying verrry biased to what the teachers going to ask you. It's learning what the teachers going to ask, as opposed to what do you really know.

 

[leright]

I'll add my two cents to the discussion here.
As I started out as an engineering student, "small errors" on tests were severely punished. Many professors said: "I couldn't care less whether you understood the problem and the principles of the solution ; I want to see the right answer come out. If, as an engineer, you design a power plant, and it blows up half of the city, you can always try to tell the judge that you knew the principles, but that you made some minor errors making the final answer come out wrong."
This is often different in a maths or physics department, where the professor usually wants to find out whether you knew the principles, and the problem at hand is just a way for them to analyse your reasoning. Although not entirely: Feynman is known to have said to a student: "if you don't get the last 2 pi factor right, you've understood nothing!"

Now, everybody makes errors, and indeed the worst ones are those where you misunderstood the principles of the problem and the solution, but you should consider it also a serious error not to be able to find the right answer.
I think there are several factors playing here, and there are ways to avoid this. The most straightforward one is probably this:
Work tidy . Often wanting to write quickly and sloppy introduces silly errors. Take your time to write nicely, don't do 20 steps in one line. Ok, this takes some exam time, but tell yourself that it might save you a lot of time "looking for the error". (and even looking for the error will be more efficient that way).
Master the basics blindly. This is often a vexing thing, but if you don't remember exactly your trigonometry relations or so, you'll make silly errors that way. Be sure to master them, and don't be afraid to do some drilling problems on them if you think that there's a problem. It is study time well invested.
Regularly check your intermediate results Often, there are simple ways to test the consistency of intermediate results: units, if it are real-world problems: are the results realistic ? Can you easily derive some side result from your intermediate result which verifies something about it (by re-deriving something given in the problem or so) ...
If you find something fishy, track back before continuing. If you don't find an error, write down on your copy what you find strange. (in engineering class, a professor found it a positive attitude that you signalled something "strange", meaning that as a real-life engineer, you'd probably want to double check things).

If you're pretty sure that the final answer cannot be, say so on your copy.

And then, practice, practice, practice. But practice in a realistic situation: don't be happy during your practicing that you make small errors: work as tidy and serious on your training exercises as you would on your exam: you don't get bad habits that way.

Thanks for the insightful advice Vanesh.

I was talking to a professor of mine today and he said that same thing about getting the right answer in the real world is imperative. I told him that the exact same problem I could do correctly in less time while sitting at home, but on the test it takes me LONGER to do the problem, and I get the wrong answer! He said that for him, any time he got a problem wrong it was because he didn't know how to do the problem and not because he made silly mistakes. He is simply a good test taker, and I am not. I also told him that it frustrates me when I can do the problems at home in a timely manner and understand the concepts, yet when I take the test I come up short. I told him that I strive for As and get A-s and B+s and Bs. He said not to worry about it and he got As all his life and they really did him no good in the end. However, I told him that they help get you into grad school. He agreed and that was the end of the conversation.

Overall though, the guy gives good advice. However, he knocks points off for things like rounding 9.981 to 10.0, but in many cases the extra accuracy is needed to get a meaningful answer, so I understand where he's coming from.

 

[imabug]

mathwonk's advice is excellent. how do you expect to become good at problem solving if the only problem solving you do are the 5 or so questions a week the prof assigns as homework.

Look at any of the standardized exam (GRE, USMLE, LSAT, etc) prep materials you'll find in the bookstore. What are they filled with? Practice exams. What's the first thing they tell you in all of those books? Take the exam under exam conditions. There are many reasons for this:

• Get you to practice problem solving techniques
• Get you used to solving problems under exam conditions
• Get you more familiar with the material
• Gets you familiar with various types of problems
• Better familiarity means being able to estimate what your answer should be (at least within an order of magnitude
• You'll learn to recognize different types of problems and the solutions that go with them

You don't even have to spend time making up your own exams. Work out the questions in textbooks. Check the department or your students union to see if they have an exam bank you can buy old exams from. Ask senior students if they have copies. Your library probably has several decades worth of physics textbooks just loaded with questions at the end of each chapter (where do you think profs get most of their questions anyway?.

 

[JasonRox]

I agree with mathwonk here.

It sounds crazy, but that's the reality to doing well. I haven't done all of that, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did in Graduate School.

The whole purpose of writing your own exams is to force you to stop using the information at hand. This forces you think, and solve without help. In the end, if you get anything wrong, you now know your limit to the information you know. Therefore, study that for a bit, then write another practice exam and see where you can't get through.

If you already solve problems without looking at the information at hand, then it's all good. I think you're totally fine here because you aren't being dependent on the information at hand. The only problem now is basically how fast you solve the problem. Basically, I just ask myself realistically, am I fast or not? If not, then work FASTER! If you don't know, write a practice exam and find out if you're fast.

The only problem that comes from writing practice exams for me is that once I write/read the question I probably already know how to solve it and/or a method to do it. Plus, I'll remember the question 100%. I'd still remember it if I wrote it a month ago! Another problem is that if the solution does not pop into my head, I'll ponder about it until I got it because I love the challenge. Of course, I can always put hard questions on, but then that goes beyond the difficulty of the midterm, which is fine, but I like to do these on my own time rather than for study time.

Anyways, my philosophy to doing well in classes is to focus more on the understanding and learning of the material. It's not so easy these days because the focus is shifting into learning-how-to-pass-the-midterm rather than learning the material itself. As well as professors are teaching-you-to-pass-the-midterm rather than teaching the material itself. I don't blame anyone for this because that's just the result of having so many people in university focused on getting the degree for the job and not for the learning or actual education.

Like, for example, I suck in probability. But in reality, I'm probably one of the better students in the class. I say I suck because my understanding of it is weak. I can solve problem after problem, but give me one problem that is vastly different (but same material) and I'm probably screwed. Of course, I'm probably ready for the midterm and can do well, this isn't my goal. Why? Because if I understand it, I'll probably never forget it for awhile and that's what counts. (Even though I hate probability, the remembering part is beneficial because when I study for finals, I'm half way done.)

I met students with higher marks than me in Linear Algebra, but yet in a third year class a linear transformation question came up and I was the only one able to understand it or even answer it. As a TA, I feel fairly comfortable that you can ask me anything with regarding to the text because I did it, I understood it, I remember it, I studied it, etc...

I met students with higher marks than me in Calculus, but yet I understand it more than them. Some forgot Green's Theorem!

The more I understand it, the less I need to study. And so, that's my method.

 

[mathlete]

I agree with mathwonk here.

It sounds crazy, but that's the reality to doing well. I haven't done all of that, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did in Graduate School.

The whole purpose of writing your own exams is to force you to stop using the information at hand. This forces you think, and solve without help. In the end, if you get anything wrong, you now know your limit to the information you know. Therefore, study that for a bit, then write another practice exam and see where you can't get through.

If you already solve problems without looking at the information at hand, then it's all good. I think you're totally fine here because you aren't being dependent on the information at hand. The only problem now is basically how fast you solve the problem. Basically, I just ask myself realistically, am I fast or not? If not, then work FASTER! If you don't know, write a practice exam and find out if you're fast.

The only problem that comes from writing practice exams for me is that once I write/read the question I probably already know how to solve it and/or a method to do it. Plus, I'll remember the question 100%. I'd still remember it if I wrote it a month ago! Another problem is that if the solution does not pop into my head, I'll ponder about it until I got it because I love the challenge. Of course, I can always put hard questions on, but then that goes beyond the difficulty of the midterm, which is fine, but I like to do these on my own time rather than for study time.

Anyways, my philosophy to doing well in classes is to focus more on the understanding and learning of the material. It's not so easy these days because the focus is shifting into learning-how-to-pass-the-midterm rather than learning the material itself. As well as professors are teaching-you-to-pass-the-midterm rather than teaching the material itself. I don't blame anyone for this because that's just the result of having so many people in university focused on getting the degree for the job and not for the learning or actual education.

Like, for example, I suck in probability. But in reality, I'm probably one of the better students in the class. I say I suck because my understanding of it is weak. I can solve problem after problem, but give me one problem that is vastly different (but same material) and I'm probably screwed. Of course, I'm probably ready for the midterm and can do well, this isn't my goal. Why? Because if I understand it, I'll probably never forget it for awhile and that's what counts. (Even though I hate probability, the remembering part is beneficial because when I study for finals, I'm half way done.)

I met students with higher marks than me in Linear Algebra, but yet in a third year class a linear transformation question came up and I was the only one able to understand it or even answer it. As a TA, I feel fairly comfortable that you can ask me anything with regarding to the text because I did it, I understood it, I remember it, I studied it, etc...

I met students with higher marks than me in Calculus, but yet I understand it more than them. Some forgot Green's Theorem!

The more I understand it, the less I need to study. And so, that's my method.

I agree with this 100%. I feel that lectures cover way too much material. I don't have a problem with the pace, but I'm not learning anything. I got two As in my E&M courses, but my understanding is very weak... why? For example, we'd cover Gauss' law and then do a most basic example and then move on. Like you said, any problem out of the ordinary dealing with E&M will be tough for me if I can't just plug numbers into the equation.

I know it's up to the student to learn more about something, but it's tough to find a time when you can devote yourself to learning something on the side when you probably have other work you can be doing for your classes.

Basically, I'd rather do less material and cover it more in-depth than just flying by learning the bare minimum.

 

[unit_circle]

I've thought it over and I thought that maybe the reason I make dumb mistakes is because I am dumb. I dunno.

Your not dumb. You chose the "true light" which is science and mathematics. That makes you smarter that all of the post-modern, truth-denying liberal arts majors out there . I'm only half-joking, English and history majors feel free to flame me.

 

[JasonRox]

Your not dumb. You chose the "true light" which is science and mathematics. That makes you smarter that all of the post-modern, truth-denying liberal arts majors out there . I'm only half-joking, English and history majors feel free to flame me.

WOW! Ignorant in so many ways.

I'm a mathematics major, and consider myself to be a man of science, but there is no way to I relate to what you're saying.

I appreciate history, arts, language, philosophy, and so on. All beautiful subjects on their own.

 

[balletomane]

Leright,
When you are taking an exam, do you feel anxious? I know that I make really stupid mistakes and blank on problems because I get really nervous what with the time pressure and perceived high stakes and all.
If that's the case, maybe working on staying calm in addition to the strategies suggested above can help.

good luck.