How to deal with a rough semester?

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Evisju7

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I really shouldn't jump to conclusions because it's only been two weeks.

However, I find my classes quite tough. I don't mind the extra work at all; my performance is what is bothering me.

See I'm doing everything I can, but still don't feel like I'm prepared for class. Our 7 question psychology test was brutal (the answers were so damn close) and I know I failed.

My precalc class I am also struggling in. I have managed a B-ish grade on our work so far.

I am taking this personally. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong!

How do I get over this? I know a few bad grades ain't no big deal when there is A LOT of points still up for grabs.. but I can't help but assume a trend.

I also want to note I'm also at a new school and just moved. Though I study about 4-10 hrs daily, read the text, take notes, attend all classs, and make study aids. WTH more can I do?

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I really shouldn't jump to conclusions because it's only been two weeks.

However, I find my classes quite tough. I don't mind the extra work at all; my performance is what is bothering me.

See I'm doing everything I can, but still don't feel like I'm prepared for class. Our 7 question psychology test was brutal (the answers were so damn close) and I know I failed.

My precalc class I am also struggling in. I have managed a B-ish grade on our work so far.

I am taking this personally. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong!

How do I get over this? I know a few bad grades ain't no big deal when there is A LOT of points still up for grabs.. but I can't help but assume a trend.

I also want to note I'm also at a new school and just moved. Though I study about 4-10 hrs daily, read the text, take notes, attend all classs, and make study aids. WTH more can I do?


This isn't that uncommon, especially in a totally new environment. As the age-old mantra goes, "study smarter not harder". You have to be efficient with studying. It doesn't matter if you spend 15 hours reading a text book passively, it won't be better than 4 hours of intense active reading where you take notes and do practice questions (with breaks of course). You may also want to spend some time making friends, especially since you're in a new area forming study groups, especially for problem based classes like math or chem, is one of the best study methods.

Also, you should give yourself time to adjust to new professors and environment. Now that you know how your psychology professor asks questions, for example, you can better prepare for the tests.
 
I failed, literally failed, my first college exam.

If it's meant to be and you're capable, you'll be okay. If you just aren't figuring out the material, you may have to experiment with different learning strategies (e.g. more efficient studying, not more studying). I ended up just fine, and I'm sure you can, too.
 
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If you don't mind, what school are you switching to and from where? Sometimes schools of different sizes can have very different "good" study methods - very big schools tend to rely a lot on textbooks and powerpoints due to the large class sizes, while smaller schools can stress specifics of what a professor says in small classes / your notes.

The best way to boost scores for a certain class, if you understand the material, is to study the test(s) itself. If the first exam was heavily based on the prof's powerpoints, then double up on studying those and halve the time spent on the rest (readings, notes, etc). This saved my ass in multiple courses which allow a single test drop - after getting a C+ on a chemistry exam, for example, I stopped reading the overly dense text and instead did the practice sets twice each since the exam problems were similar, and voila, A- on the next test.
 
What you're doing sounds like passive learning. It must be supplemented with active learning, aka practice problems.


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