Using knowledge resource to maximize exam performance

Using knowledge resource to maximize exam performance

If you use only class notes and text books as study material, most likely those super students who gain information from reference books, blogs, online forums, expert websites, correspondents, tuition teachers, and seniors might be far ahead of you, just by having abundance of knowledge resource. You should do the same.

Sources of knowledge are plentiful. You just need to identify them and put effort to get them. Text books, reference books, class notes, internet, past year exam paper, postal or correspondence material, magazines, and other people’s knowledge are some of the examples. We should spend some money and time in increasing quality knowledge resource to gain an upper hand in study.

Ever since internet gained popularity, it has been a convenient and powerful knowledge resource. We can find knowledge on websites, forums, blogs, RSS subscription, video hosting sites, expert sites, social networking platforms, and many more. We just need to google relevant information and we can find it; or we can ask for help on internet and wait for assistance. We can even buy knowledge resource (books, e-books) on internet.

Reference books are alternative to your text books and class notes for your study. They are directly relevant to your school syllabus and usually provide better illustration than typical text books, which are only good for having chunks of texts. There are many brands of reference books, which is good for us consumers because we can pick and choose the ones that suits us most. We should pick reference books that display information in a way that we can absorb the information easily. Those that arrange key points in short point form, contain knowledge database, and are written in easy language are good ones.

Typically, classes and class notes are students’ main source of knowledge. Unfortunately, many teachers or lecturers lack the skills in conveying ideas to students. Only a few good ones do their job well in teaching while keeping students entertained. A good class is presented richly with lively visuals and audios, not just bla-bla for hours. You can make use of technology by taking snapshots of black/white board writings and editing them later as note taking, instead of busy jotting down things and missing the words coming out of teacher’s mouth. It’s OK to copy class notes from friends to free up time and energy, although it might be frown upon.

Books are powerful knowledge resource. I’m not talking about text book, but fictional and non-fiction books. Books are written in lively manner and we can benefit from them in many ways. We learn writing skills and gain general knowledge by reading. The knowledge input is great for us to generate quality ideas. Books are for super students who are serious in life long learning, not just to pass exam.

People are great knowledge resource. We can learn from teachers, friends, mentors, and senior. This will be discussed further in human resource. Other knowledge resource includes magazine, past year paper, and correspondence.

After acquiring sufficient knowledge resource, we can channel them into our study system. In this case, we have to put in some time and energy to convert the knowledge resource into refined information for our study.

Refined information is information that is reorganized in a form that is easy to learn and absorb. We can make refined information by rewriting or reorganizing raw knowledge from class notes and text book. Learning directly from raw knowledge such as chunks of dull text is time and energy consuming and yields little result. Many things learned will be forgotten easily. That’s why we should put some time and effort in creating refined knowledge so that our study will be much effective in the long run. Surprisingly many students rather skip this step (lazy?) and study the hard way.

One of the most essential knowledge systems is content mapping. It’s similar to the content of the book, where we list out the chapters, their subtitles, and some important points. The reason we need a mapping is simple. We need to have a guide to the subject we study, just like we need a map when we travel. Without it we will get lost like Bill Gates in Malaysian jungle. We use this mapping to track what we have covered. If we have studied a chapter, done the exercises, and felt confident to do it well in exam, we put a tick at the chapter title on the mapping. We know how much we have covered with this system.

We also mark down areas that we are weak in. You can put a big red cross on weak chapters to remind you to pay more attention in it. Also, you use this mapping to highlight important topics for exam (especially if your teacher gives tips). Now you can see it’s a mapping system with ticks, crosses, and stars. You know where you are heading and avoid the mistake of running around in circles like most weak students do.

Let’s say you are an Engineering student and you have to learn a lot of scientific formula. These formulas are scattered around in your text book and learning them from text book is like hopping around in jungle. You do more and learn less. What you can do is to create a database system.

In this system, we collect important information into categories such as formulas, glossary, graphs, diagrams, tables, and so on, depending on your field of study. You can compile a list of vocabulary if you are studying language, or make pages of scientific formulas if you are learning science, and so on. It’s centralized and every important element is in front of you, and you don’t have to hop around through your text book. All you need is put a bit of effort in making lists. You can even do it with your friends and share it with others by making copies.

This database system is useful especially when we are required to memorize the items. We can stick it on highly visible places or carry it with us and then learn it at our convenience. It’s also highly valuable if we are allowed to bring in any study material to the exam hall. All the information is nicely arranged in front of us and we just need to use it to answer questions. You won’t want to enter exam hall only with textbooks and messy class notes.

“Smart Study Card” (SSC) is a practical tool in database system, where important information is written on small paper cards and folded into wallet. We can read it anytime, anywhere, and save a lot of time. We have discussed about it in time resource.

For subjects related to Mathematical calculation, we can create a special database to collect solved problems. It’s special because we highlight the pattern of problem solving. Maths problem-solving involves pattern and no matter how much exercise you do, if you can’t grasp the pattern, you can’t master maths. To make this database interesting, each specific solving pattern is given a fancy name. We might call a simple substitution “make a change” or “do an Obama”, for example.

Depends on your subject, it might be important for you to rewrite the text into compact bullet point form for easy learning. This is suitable for subjects that involve a lot of memorization, and goes well with memory technique (which is discussed here). Rewriting it might take some time and energy but it yields great result where you can remember the facts much easier than learning from a long article. This is like converting chunks of raw meat into sausages. I did this for my History and scored high marks for it.

If you already have reference books or class notes in point form, you won’t need to go through too much trouble. You can create a system for marking down important points. Highlighter is a good tool to show important phrases but some people highlight almost everything in an article. That’s not highlighting, that’s painting your book. It should only hit the essential phrases. To mark a whole paragraph, it’s better to use brackets, stars, or underline. Make a marking system that will show important points without making your reading material look messy.

Get more knowledge resource by making friends and ask questions. Get your friends to help you create mappings and databases. People are important in helping you to manage your knowledge resource and build your knowledge system. We shall look deeper into it next time under human resource.

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