How to study for exams.

After observing students' performance for tests, revision tests, remedials, and doing a postmortem with them for why, even those who worked hard and are smart, don't do very well in exams, i've concluded that they are not preparing well for exams.( for the revision tests, which are a lvl std, most are getting 40/80)

I should say they find find it difficult to bridge the gap between theoretical facts and application/evaluation/problem solving. This is because they do not understand the following principle: learning to prepare for exams is not about just mugging, its also acquiring problem solving skills. In devising solutions to problems, its not just sufficient to arrive at the "final answer". All key factors should be addressed, and given due consideration. Problem solving skills are not just useful in exams, they are useful in a whole lot of situations in life...

I think in fact singaporean students tend to treat exams as a... i dunno how to say, as a....unnatural animal. what i mean is that to them exams are just exams and somehow not related to problem solving in real life. this is at the same time true and not true.
Under the old A lvls/ and even o lvl exam system, many singaporean students have learnt, and teachers have also encouraged, a drill approach with a mindset of "memorising" without real understanding, answers to questions (problems). to them, they do not need to understand why/how the answer is crafted in particular fashion. Students, witha desire to feel secure and to do well, as well as teachers even, are equally guilty. They want to be able to simply regurgitate facts, to supply a direct and PREMADE answer to any question. so that they will never be wrong.And they just want the final answer. And if the marking scheme requires the working, then the working is also part of the "final answer" to be mugged for.

This is not the right mindset, to exams, and indeed to life. This is , to me, one of the major shortcomings of our system. To highlight what i mean, I've met graduates, and postgraduates, in the course of doing research work.

Now the nature of research work should be.. RESEARCH! that means dealing with the unknown. So skills like analysis, evaluation, generalising, deduction, induction all need to be used. Suppose we want to investigate a certain system, what do we do? well we hypothesize about how the system might be like. We compare with perhaps similar sorts of examples in nature that we already know something about. We take a similar experiemental protocol for those systems and modify them based on our hypothesis abt the current system we want to study. we conduct our experiments, and record data. based on the data collected from our system, we analyse and deduce the actual state and properties of the system as well as evaluate out modified protocol. make assessments, modify the protocol somemore,and try again. sounds very tiring and challenging yes? as well it should be.

The thing is, the typical singaporean graduate doesnt want that. they want a secure job, make enough money.. that sort of thing( so the mindset they bring to their school as kids, they also bring to their life as adults). and if the govt wants to make research one of the economic engines, then thats what they'd do. so i've met people who say, they are at a loss or don't want to create a their own/new experiment protocol. they don't want to read up and trawl the libaries, journals, an internet for similar examples/info where they can learn from and adapt solutions. They wish for a boss who would think the whole thing through and just give them instructions on what to do. They just want to be .. robots.. secure robots that is. (same as students who do practicals. they just want to follow the lab manual. they do not question, or understand even, why certain steps, apparatus, and reagents are used. to me.. thats like being robots. you dont need intelligence to follow instructions. you just need training.) I always feel a strong urge to tell these people, dude, you are in the wrong job. research means dealing with the unknown duh. In fact I like bosses that simply share with me ,a goal, a vision, and perhaps offer some advice and teaching in terms of experiential stuff like where to start, like look for info, and perhaps important factors to consider and pitfalls to avoid. and then after that leave me alone to figure out the answer.

Ok haha i digress...i should address some of the major components of info mgmt and problem solving(and adapted as exam technique) on the next post.