Making it through Midterm Results

[Brianna Martilla 1C]

So I'll admit I did not do very well on the midterm. I missed some conceptual problems and also made errors in my calculations that led to wrong answers. Congrats to everyone who did do well though! If you also didn't do well, how do you motivate yourself or make yourself feel better? If you did do well, do you have any advice?

[BaileyB1F]

I didn't do well either. To make myself feel better, I talk to my friends and family about it to see what they think or if they had similar experiences. Just hearing them talk about their struggles with midterms or classes helps me to not feel so alone about my performance on the midterm. My advice would be to look at this as a chance to do even better on the next midterm and not think of it as the end of the world (even if it feels like that sometimes). Now you can try new study habits or create new practice tests and overall develop better ways to take tests in the future for other classes. Don't be hard on yourself and just remember to try your best :)

[Crystal Pan 2G]

Honestly, going to UA sessions and office hours is super helpful. Going through each of Dr. Lavelle's lectures and processing the information, and then APPLYING the actual stuff we learned is also important. Doing all the homework problems in the outlines. Going to as many UA sessions as possible really helped with better understanding the material, and also helped with better application of the material.

[Sandra Kim 2B]

I didn't do so hot either LOL although it was hard to not beat myself up over it, it's definitely motivation to prepare myself better for the next one. It's also nice to consider this as a good warning about how future midterms could be like and how fast the quarter system is since I'm just a freshman :) it's all a constant learning experience, i suppose

[Hannah_Kim_1I]

I find that in subjects like chemistry and math, the best way to get better/more consistent is to just practice a ton. Personally, I find myself getting things mixed up a lot so I always like to make sure I understand something fully and have a chance to practice it before moving on. Also, I think what really helped for the midterm was just creating a little "cheat sheet" with all the important information/things that I get mixed up a lot on it. It was nice to have everything summarized on one sheet and I referred back to it pretty often while studying for the exam.

[Summer_Corona 3L]

Yeah I didn't do as well as I'd liked on the midterm. However, what I normally always do after I'm done with a test is just tell myself that it's over and I need to accept whatever score I get because I can't change it. I usually get really nervous during tests and that causes me to make dumb mistakes so accepting the fact that what I did is final helps me cope a bit with lower scores. I also just try to use the test as a way for me to find out what I do and don't know so that I can better study it next time or ask a classmate/ta to clarify the subject.

[Hailey Kang 2K]

Hi!

One of the things that probably helped me the most was definitely attending as many UA sessions as possible. The worksheets are super helpful, but also a lot of people will ask questions that you didn't even think up but end up being super important. Textbook problems were very helpful as well!

[505598869]

I did not do well on the midterm and I am very disappointed... I felt very good after taking the test and thought I had done well. I did a lot of studying and felt like I was well prepared for everything on the test. I do not know what I could have missed but now my goal is to figure out what went wrong on my first midterm and not let it happen again.

[Olivia Smith 2E]

Hey!
Some things that really helped me on the midterm. Was that while watching the lectures I took notes on conceptual things, rather than the small details that he went into. There were some tangents that he went off on that you should just ignore as they don't help you with the actual concepts that he is trying to teach. Each note that you take should be able to refer back to a big concept and build on that concept rather than just writing down what the power points say (lead to lots of arrows and messy notes but thats ok, you will be rewriting these notes anyway). Then I went through all of the sections in the textbook that the midterm was on and reviewed my notes on the lecture, rewriting and adding anything I missed into a master study guide. The day before the test I highlighted key concepts and stuff that I was lacking on to review right before the test (or the morning of if short-term memory is not your strong suit).

A lot of this last midterm was based on problem solving so go through all of the problems assigned no matter how tedious (but leave the last 2 or 3 (which will be the hardest) to test yourself a day before the actual test). While doing the problems have all of things that you are allowed to have on testing day! So periodic table, cheat sheet, calculator, and for the first round any notes, chemistry community help, or any other aid. I would write little notes on the cheat sheet or a separate piece of paper as I built my conceptual knowledge while doing the problems or looking at chemistry community (this you will also review on the day of the test).

Check your answers and anything that you got wrong, go back to review in the textbook, chemistry community, or with a really smart friend to really understand why you got it wrong!!!, which concept you are lacking in understanding, and make sure to create a detailed note of this mistake in your master notes. Redo the problem with the new conceptual understanding and try to see why doing it this way makes more sense than when you got the wrong answer.

Day before the test, or after you are done with all of the problems. Do a dry run with the last couple of problems left. Print out a new equation sheet and periodic table and put that master note list away! Do as many problems as you can complete. Check answers, anything wrong or incomplete do same as above. If you can get your hands on some UA problems either by attending the session or having a really cool friend help you out, try those out with the same set up and problem checking.

Day of test review anything you are lacking on, and highlighted stuff on master study guide. Run through steps of a problem or just general identification of what you would do if presented with XYZ. Don't actually solve the problem tho. Warms up brain for speed and generally helps lower stress if you know what tools you can use for problems that might show up on the test. And you are set good luck!

P.S. Would start making the master study guide at the VERY least 3 days before the test as it will take a while to make it and do all of the problems; and only that late if you are willing to grind on chem. Ideally start this coming Wednesday, like one section a day, makes it easier on the sanity :)

[Marley Magee 3A]

I would definitely recommend just to start studying early. The week before the test, you should probably just start doing some problems every day. Redoing the textbook problems a couple times is helpful, since they're also on the test, and then attend as many UA sessions as possible. You can ask questions and get more practice problems there.

[Angela Marie Guevarra Dis3F]

I didn't do well the last midterm and I was pretty disappointed with myself. At the end of the day though, you just have to forgive yourself for those types of things and learn from it. Being a first-year with her first run-through of the quarter system, and struggling with the online-learning format, I just had to cut myself some slack you know? For the remainder of this quarter, I'll be applying what I've learned throughout the last eight weeks and changing my study methods/work-ethic so I'll get better results for the final.

[Adalia 3E]

Is it possible for us to go over which specific questions we got wrong with our TA's? That's usually what helps me study and go over my mistakes but I'm not sure if it's too late by now

[AJForte-2C]

Is it possible for us to go over which specific questions we got wrong with our TA's? That's usually what helps me study and go over my mistakes but I'm not sure if it's too late by now

I think this upcoming week is the time to go to office hours/review sessions for TA's. I think most if not all of them would be happy to go over specific problems you got wrong on the midterm. I'm sure you could probably stay a little after discussion and ask questions too. Hope this helps!

[Winzel Payumo 1B]

Is it possible for us to go over which specific questions we got wrong with our TA's? That's usually what helps me study and go over my mistakes but I'm not sure if it's too late by now

I think it is possible, but try emailing your TA to be sure! I agree that it's really helpful since this is what I did after the first midterm and discovered what I need to work on for the next midterm and the upcoming final.