UTPB UNIV 1001 Freshmen Seminar Chapter 7

1
UTPB UNIV 1001Freshmen Seminar Chapter 7

• Listening, Memory,
• and Test Taking

2
What helps listening?

• Decide to improve at listening
• Fight distractions with concentration
• Choose to listen even when info is dry
• Withhold judgment and negative responses
• Look for speakers organization, transitions, and
  summaries
• Adapt note taking to speaker style

3
What Hinders Listening?

• Caring little about the listening process
• Stopping listening with first distraction, or
  when losing interest
• Getting preoccupied with controversy
• Getting sidetracked by unimportant details
• Thinking about other things

4
Stages of Listening

• Sensation stage
• hearing
• Interpretation stage
• attaching meaning to message
• Evaluation stage
• deciding how you feel about message
• Reaction
• Direct feedback

5
Improve Your Listening Skills

• Manage listening challenges
• Divided attention and distraction
• Shutting out the message
• Rush to Judgment
• Partial hearing loss and learning disabilities

6
Improve Your Listening Skills

• Become an active listener
• Set purposes for listening
• Why are you listening?
• What do you want to achieve?
• Ask questions
• Seek information
• Clarity points
• Pay attention to verbal signposts
• Transition words/phrases
• For example.....Similarly

7
How Does Memory Work?

• Encoding stage
• Storage stage
• Sensory memory
• lasts only a second
• Short-term memory
• 10 to 20 seconds
• Long-term memory
• relatively permanent
• Retrieval stage

8
How to Improve Your Memory?

• Decide the information is important for you to
  remember
• Understand what you memorize
• Recite, rehearse, and write
• Separate main points from unimportant details
• Study during short but frequent sessions
• Separate material into manageable sections
• Use visual aids

9

• Flash cards are a great visual aid
• Carry the card with you and review frequently
• Shuffle the cards and learn information in
  various orders
• Test yourself

10
Making the Most of Last-Minute Studying

• If you must cram.....
• Go through your flashcards
• Focus on crucial concepts
• Create last-minute study sheet with
  hard-to-remember material.
• Arrive at exam early and study notes
• At the start of the exam, if permitted, record
  helpful information on scratch paper or edge of
  exam

11
Mnemonic Devices

• Definition Memory techniques that associate
  new information with information you already
  know.
• Create visual images and associations
• Much better memory for pictures than for words
• Idea Chains
• Connecting images
• Acronyms
• PQ3R
• Roy G. Biv (colors of the spectrum)

12
Using Tape Recorders

• Ask instructors permission
• Sit close to the front
• Take notes
• Make review tapes (audio flashcards)

13
Improving Test Scores

• Identify test type
• Short-answer
• True/false
• Multiple-choice
• Essay
• Combination

14

• Material covered
• Single chapter or everything covered so far
• On text, lecture, or activities

15

• Material covered (continued)
• Predicting whats on the test
• Instructor clues
• Topic mentioned more than once
• One of my favorite topics
• Information written on handout, board, or
  overhead
• Use PQ3R to identify important ideas and facts
• Ask former students about course exams
• Ask if there are old exams to see

16
Use Specific Study Skills

• Choose study materials
• Set study schedule
• Prepare through critical thinking
• Take a pretest
• Become Organized
• Use Pretest Checklist p. 207 Figure 7-2

17
Prepare Physically

• Get plenty of sleep
• Manage stress
• Eat well
• Sugar and caffeine increase anxiety which
  interferes with memory
• Set two alarms, if needed

18
Conquer Test Anxiety

• Prepare so you feel in control
• Put test in perspective
• Make a study plan
• Practice relaxation

19
Returning Students and Test Anxiety

• Acknowledge skills gained from life experience
• Time management skills learned from balancing
  work and family
• Understanding of economics and relationships

20
Coping With Math Anxiety

• Attitude creates the anxiety
• Mathematical thinking is a type of critical
  thinking
• Math can help you get good job
• Use positive self-talk
• Dont believe that some people cant do math

21
Coping With Math Anxiety

• Use the people and resources around you
• Become comfortable with math
• Computer math games, math puzzles
• Find daily applications
• Shopping
• Checkbook
• Percentages for loans

22
General Test Strategies

• Before you look at the test, write down formulas
  and key information (if instructor permits)
• Skim the entire exam
• What type of questions?
• How many questions?
• Are all questions worth the same amount of points?

23
Know the Ground Rules

• Read test directions
• Begin with parts that seem easiest
• Watch the clock
• Do intelligent guessing
• Eliminate what you are sure is wrong
• Follow directions on machine-scored tests

24
Use Critical Thinking to Avoid Errors

• Recall carefully
• Think about similarities
• Notice differences
• Think through causes and effects
• Find best idea to match example
• e.g. formula that applies to problem
• Support ideas with examples
• Evaluate each test question

25
Master Multiple-Choice Questions

• Read the directions carefully
• First read each question thoroughly
• Underline key words and phrases in question
• Pay special attention to ONLY, EXCEPT, NOT
• If you dont know answer, narrow down choices

26
Master Multiple-Choice Questions (cont.)

• Always, never, all none, or every are often
  incorrect
• Look for patterns
• Middle value in a range
• If two choices have similar meanings, one is
  probably correct
• Read every word of every answer

27
Master True/False Questions

• Look at face value, do not search for hidden
  meaning
• Guess unless you are penalized for wrong answers
• Qualifiers are significant -all, only, always,
  because, generally, usually, and sometimes

28
Essay Questions

• Focus on what the question is asking you to do
• Watch for action verbs
• analyze, compare, contrast, criticize, define,
  describe, discuss, list, explain, evaluate,
  illustrate, interpret, outline, prove, review,
  state summarize, trace

29
Essay Questions (cont.)

• Budget your time and begin to plan
• Create informal outline or think link
• Support your ideas with examples
• Write legibly
• Reread for ideas you left out and mistakes in
  grammar, spelling, punctuation, and usage.

30
Techniques for Math Tests

• Analyze problems carefully and include all
  givens
• Write down formulas, theorems, or definitions
• Estimate answer before you begin
• Break the calculation into the smallest possible
  pieces
• Recall how you solved similar problems
• Draw a picture to help you see the problem
• Take your time
• Be neat
• Use the opposite operation to check your work.
• Look back at question to see if you did everything

31
Learn from Test Mistakes

• Did you make careless mistakes?
• Misread question or directions
• Blacken the wrong box
• Skip a question
• Use illegible handwriting
• Did you make conceptual or factual errors

32
(No Transcript)