recycling old exams and study groups

[Tony.]

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I know in most of my science classes at my University,
we all had study groups and once in a while we were able to get an old exam from a professor.......

is that what happens also in optometry school?
Do people form study groups easily and do professors let you look at old/past exams?
(and also! are the test questions on the exam multiple choice or essay?)

 

[cpw]

depends on the professor... most gave their exams back. They did help, but they were never exactly the same.

 

[rpames]

On every test we take at ICO the first page has a statment something like this, "Illinois College of Optometry has a closed exam policy. Any removal or copying of exam materal or content will be interpreted as cheating." It is not exactly that, but it is similar. If a student is caught with a copy of an exam...lets just say it is not good for that student. Upper classman are pretty good at helping you focus your studying by telling you what they remember being important. All the profs also have formal reviews for exams. Sometimes they even will make a review sheet. Compentancy objectives are also found with in our notes. Those really help streamline what you look at.

Many students get together to study before tests. No one is here to be really competitive so we help eachother.

 

[Tony.]

On every test we take at ICO the first page has a statment something like this, "Illinois College of Optometry has a closed exam policy. Any removal or copying of exam materal or content will be interpreted as cheating." It is not exactly that, but it is similar. If a student is caught with a copy of an exam...lets just say it is not good for that student. Upper classman are pretty good at helping you focus your studying by telling you what they remember being important. All the profs also have formal reviews for exams. Sometimes they even will make a review sheet. Compentancy objectives are also found with in our notes. Those really help streamline what you look at.

Many students get together to study before tests. No one is here to be really competitive so we help eachother.

which exam do you feel was most challenging to study for ? (i.e what class, subject) and what help did you seek out?

 

[rpames]

I think the hardest class to study for was Sensory Aspects of Vision II. The prof has been teaching the course for over 20 years and has never made a hand out for the students. He also gets made when you take notes and highlite during his class. He is crazy. At ICO, and I'm sure other schools too, we have a note taking service where students are paid to take notes during lecture and then they are sent out to all the students. The class always makes a copy of the previous years notes for that class and that serves as your class notes. It is funny to read ahead of him in the notes because he uses the same jokes and exact phrasing every year. Most of his overheads were done a "Ditto" machine. You can tell because the ink is blue. No one has used one of those in like 12 years. It just shows that he has not updated his lecture since he started teaching there.

I got side tracked...sorry. That course is the hardest because on the tests he will put a few charts without there labels and have an arrow pointing to a spot on the chart and ask what that point represents. So basically you have to remember the way the line looks on a chart and memorize everything about it just by it trend! I did fine in the course, but I hated it. Sometimes the notetaker notes are wrong and since there are no prof. notes, it is hard to determine what the correct answer would be.

He would hold review lectures right before the exam, but there were always at times I could not go. I guess what we did was just quiz each other and ask upper classmen.

All the other profs are pretty good. There is always one bad seed.

I also found neuroanatomy & neurophys to be pretty hard. The difficulty came from the amount of material, nothing else. For that class I just made review sheets for every test and started studying early. The same can be said for histology, I found that class difficult also.

Sorry for the length.

 

[cpw]

I thought gross anatomy was the hardest class first year. I got togther groups of friends to quiz each other with models and spent all the open time in the cadaver lab to familiarize myself with anatomy. It continued my despise for the lab practical. (bleck!)

 

[C_V]

what upsets me about ICO is how there were a number of people who got old exams. i just really wished everyone shared! damn! you can tell i'm mad..

and i have a right to be mad too. i got held back a year!

i sort of wanted to tell the profs who had the old exams at ICO too. but i didn't. i know it would have given me the 1 percent i needed. that's why i'm still pretty upset about it.

 

[Tony.]

what upsets me about ICO is how there were a number of people who got old exams. i just really wished everyone shared! damn! you can tell i'm mad..

and i have a right to be mad too. i got held back a year!

i sort of wanted to tell the profs who had the old exams at ICO too. but i didn't. i know it would have given me the 1 percent i needed. that's why i'm still pretty upset about it.

hm. this is a pretty random comment to make... but lets go with it..... 👍


let me ask you: How could you not get the old exams? Professors recylce exams all the time! you just need to know how to network thats all.....
(its all about who you know baby!)

 

[C_V]

tony,

see that's what i dont like! i got held back a year because of a mere percentage. and your saying that it's all about networking!

fine. it may be. but i dont think that's fair at all. what if i dont want to kiss butt to certain people in class just to get old exams. i mean, why should only "some" people at ico get the old exams and others not.

i'm positive if i got those old exams, i would have gotten the percent i needed.

that's just my grudge. and i'm just saying it's unfair that only some people have these old exams (when they are not suppose to be floating around in the first place!) 😡

 

[eyeguy03]

CV,
You make it sound like the only reason you got held back was because you didn't have the old exams. If you will continue to think that, your repeat of the year will not be fun, nor will second year be successful. I understand your pain, I really do but find a way to rise above it all and be the better man. It is the only way you will survive. Life is unfair and always has been.

If you needed only one or two percent, what could you have done to EARN that percent rather than get it. I know there are times that I watched tv, or goofed off, checked my email, played computer games, talked, slept, or overall wasted time that I could have used to study. I reccomend studying like your life depends on it next time. If you need help, come talk to me and I will tutor you on any class you need and hopefully help you to study smarter not harder. 👍
Class of 2006

 

[Eyegirl2k7]

Eyeguy,
Can you PM me?
I need help with optometry (Dr. Baker's) from 3rd term 1st year.

Thank you kindly,
Eyegirl


Hey rpames! Sorry about those mistakes in the notetaker notes. I'm still waiting to be executed by firing squad.

 

[C_V]

eyegirl2k,

sorry to hear that you had problems with optometry course.

did baker make you retake the final exam? the retakes that i had to do (before i got the letter to repeat first year) were SO HARD! the profs really made them killer 😡

 

[Eyegirl2k7]

Cv,
I don't know. I haven't heard back from Dr. Baker yet. I just got back from vacation in Canada.

I am waiting on an email. I'll do anything I can to fix it. I'll study 24/7 if necessary.

Please let me know if I can help, or even if you're in Chicago and want to get together--it's kind of quiet here in the RC.

Eyegirl

 

[eyeguy03]

Eyegirl!!
I will help you out. call my cell.
My name is not joe but I am canadian!!!