MT1 Tips

[Folashade Alfred 1E]

For those who did well on MT1 (around an 80% or higher), can you offer any tips on how you went about the test questions or what your method is for being an effective test taker? I go to the step-up sessions and workshops which help but I still end up getting confused on certain questions when taking these tests. Thanks.

[morganm]

When preparing for Lavelle's tests, I find it extremely helpful to first do all of the Achieve HW questions + the self-guided questions he posts on his 14B website. There are a lot of problems in the textbook that he wants us to cover, so doing all of them is recommended as it prepares you for multiple variations of similar questions. Next, I review my lecture notes and write out important equations, relationships, and rules. I find this part to be important since there are plenty of conceptual questions on his tests that require a good understanding of how the chemistry that we've covered works. I usually end my studying by looking over Chemistry Community for the UA's review midterm worksheets and completing 2-4.

In the test, try not to panic as I know certain questions can get overwhelming pretty fast (especially if you don't know what to do immediately). Just recall the important rules & relationships and try to apply that logic to whatever question is in focus.

Good luck!

[Nancy Duenas Dis 1D]

Hi! With midterm 1, I feel like it was a lot of conceptual questions so I think knowing the topics and how the theories/concepts came to be would be helpful. For midterm 2, since it deals with thermodynamics, I think the test would be more math/problem-solving based. To study for this, I do all the textbook problems and the achieve problems and when I am done with that, I go through the problems again but in a different order. This helps me because it's kind of like a test where the problems are from different sections which helps with memory. I also try to find past 14B exams and if none are available, I create one using the UA worksheets and the Achieve/textbook problems. Another study tip with the concepts is to write them down on a whiteboard (active recall). This helps find gaps in your knowledge so you know what topics to study instead of practicing everything in one go. Hope this helps!

[Serenity Shadowens 2F]

For me, something that helped is that I would make sure I could answer every objective on the assigned outlines. For conceptual objectives, try writing them down and making sure you can explain your answer. For math related objectives, do all the textbook problems and redo the ones you struggle on until you can do all of them with ease.

Another important thing is rest! Getting enough sleep will help you focus and not miss any small questions.

Good luck!