A's Q&A Map to A's?

This week's Tech strategy: Exam Prep. I'm sure I'm not the only one who can say that I've had at least one test this semester that I can say that I could have definitely performed better on. It's not necessarily that I didn't know the material, but I didn't necessarily do all that I could have to prepare for what was most likely going to be on the test and how it would appear. I know that I can say that for at least two out of three of the exams that I've taken this semester. I have the motivation to do all that I can to not let this happen come the second round of exams, but often times we don't necessarily know the best way to do so.

Of the four exam prep strategies, I used the Q&A MAP in my Calc III (MAT 379) and Linear Algebra (MAT 331) courses. The Q&A map is pretty much based around understanding how the professor tests students on topics, based on the best evidence possible, a previous exam. The format is a chart with six columns which are headings of the five PATTERNS (definition, listing, order/sequence, compare/contrast, and cause/effect) and the sixth being the header, TOPICS, for the topics tested on the first exam, which start off each row of the chart. When going through the exam's questions a count is kept of what topic the question was based on and which pattern was used in the question.

My Own Q&A Maps can be found at:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ao0YH4EHS_UvdFRidmxDdmNkM3VLZDI4Vm5yWmZUSnc&hl=en_US#gid=0

Through my own experience, I didn't find the Q&A Map to be very helpful but I feel as if it's because of the courses I used them with. I chose to math based courses, but didn't have much choice because outside of CLS 105, all of my courses are math based. In Calc I found the questions to be heavily DEFINITION-BASED and in Linear Algebra I found it to also be CAUSE/EFFECT-BASED, but i found none of this a surprise; I went through my tests just checking off the same patterns page after page. With math courses there isn't much creativity in the questions, they are pretty much all straight forward and for answers/responses, either it is or it isn't. My Calc test was comprised of four questions, with one of them having a few sub-questions and it was exactly what would be expected form a course like that. I had decided to use the Q&A Map with a second course hoping that it may be a bit more helpful, and my Linear Algebra test was a little bit more involved as there was more cause/effect used, making the student, think just a bit more, but at the same time, it only went so far. I am a bit of a visual learner, in the sense that I was able to see in front of me what the main patterns were, but again, it only went so far.

This strategy has yet to aid me much in the way I think about the courses because I haven't learned anything new as far as I know, I'm not sure if it's because I wasn't analyzing the test questions correctly, if I'm not analyzing my map correctly, or if it's something else. I feel like it may work a lot better in another type of course like a history, philosophy, or psychology course that's more involved and has more leeway in responses and thought process. I can't necessarily give this strategy a great grade based on my own experience but I definitely feel like it has potential.