Chapter 5
Case Study
Soledad left the classroom very upset. She had just finished taking her first exam in her Comparative Politics class and she had blown it. She took too much time and the professor told her she had to stop. Now she knew she was going to fail it. She had only written down about half of what she had memorized for the test. She wondered how this had happened to her.
Her professor had announced the midterm at the beginning of the course, but had not given any specifics about it. “Know everything” was his response when asked by his students what they should focus on when studying. Therefore, Soledad read and reread the chapters, she studied her notes, and she even put in some last-minute cramming the night before. She declined the opportunity to join a study group, believing that it couldn’t help her since she had to know everything.
By the time she got to class to take the test, she was panicking. She hadn’t anticipated feeling that way about it since she felt like she over-studied. But she didn’t know what kind of test to expect so she was getting more and more nervous.
She discovered that the test was a combination of multiple choice and essays. She jumped into the essays, figuring they would be the hardest and worth the most, and decided to save the multiple choice questions for last. She spent too much time writing her essays, and never got around to the multiple choice questions before she had to stop. Had she checked the point value of each section, Soledad might have been surprised to learn that the essays were only worth 5 points each and that the multiple choice section was weighted much more heavily.
Questions for discussion:
1)What did Soledad do wrong?
2)What should Soledad do when the test is returned to her?
3)What advice can you give Soledad about maximizing her time spent on studying for tests?
4)How can the P.O.W.E.R. method help Soledad next time?