Ecology veterans... Please help

[Fakesmile]

I'm taking a second-level general ecology course. While taking general bio, ecology was one of the worst topics which dropped my average in general bio, but I decided to take it because I didn't have a lot of choice with courses this semester.

Anyway, the midterm is going to be next week. The prof said it will cover only paragraph and essay questions. I'm worried because, though I have learned all the bits and pieces of info and definitions covered in lecture and corresponding pages in the text, I don't think I'll be able to answer an open-ended paragraph/essay questions that require you to synthesize all those individual pieces of info. Also, during lecture, the prof tends to bring all these separate bits of info together and offer some statements, but I often lose track of the discussion and the reasoning in ecology don't seem to come naturally to me. (though I have done well in more technical science courses like biochem, orgo, etc.)
For those of you who have aced ecology, I'd appreciate any advice on how to do well on the course.

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[LRAccord624]

This will vary between different schools and even between professors, however, I'll share my experience.

Ecology was one of the only classes for which I religiously read the textbook. I read a little every day, then scanned again before the test. I made big reviews, which included lecture and reading notes. My professor would introduce an important topic, then give several instances with which that topic was concerned. So I would list the important terms, then give any example that either my teacher or the book talked about which dealt with that topic. I wrote the stories out in paragraph form, and I really tried to understand the big picture behind them.

When it came to the test, I pretty much regurgitated the paragraphs I had written, including information covered in the book and in lecture. I would connect the stories, showing how they compared/contrasted, and then spoke about the big picture and why it's important in real-life.

Hope that helps.

 

[katarina90]

I have taken two Ecology courses (the general ecology you speak of, as well as microbial ecology) and the one thing I noticed is that it is about 80% evolution and 20% data interpretation (graphs, charts, diagrams, etc.)

Stating that, my advice is that if the ecology book isn't cutting it for you, look into some undergraduate evolution resources. The concepts of evolution, speciation, and different types of selection are the foundations for most ecology courses. The data interpretation issues can be assuaged for the most part by carefully reading all the graphs discussed in the covered chapters and making sure you can understand and explain them.

As a bonus, if you're a bio major, you'll most likely take an evolution class if you haven't already. So getting the basic concepts down will help you not just in this class but later on as well.

 

[MilkmanAl]

He expects you to learn and not just memorize? The nerve!

Like the two above said, make sure you know the concepts and how everything fits together rather than only being able to regurgitate info. I mean, you should be doing that for all of your classes, in theory, but I'm well aware that most people don't bother. If you don't understand the connections go re-read until you do.