After the dota game yesterday, I slept at 3am. I had a weird dream, dreaming about singapore going to war, and that I was rushing back to join the war efforts, with another guy and a girl. I took a long time to prepare and once I prepared my fieldpack, I woke up.
Waking up at 1035, I went to facebook to check my millionaire city game. Sean (CQ) invited me to join and since I am being unproductive by dotaing and watching drama everyday, I decided to help him out because he used to help me out with stores and standing in COS. Then I realised that the results are out… I immediately went to UTAS eStudentCentre to check my results.
!@#!@#%#^#$^#%!@#!$ My results were the worst to date. I got 2 credits for BEA286 Investment Analysis and BEA242 Introduction to Econometrics. I got a distinction for BEA325 Prices and Profits and a high distinction for BEA200 Intermediate Microeconomics. I scored a HD on the supposedly hardest unit to understand, and a C on the easiest unit to understand(Investment Analysis), what the hell is that? and 2 credits at the same time…the only silver lining of this whole episode was that my GPA still stayed above 6 (average of 75% overall).
It’s time to pull up my socks. I had been aiming for a 6.5 GPA from the start, which means I need to get an average of 81.25% for each unit. Given that my GPA is slightly above 6, it means I need to score GPA of 7, or 87.5% for the rest of my 12 units! I need to study the actual way instead of the last-min mugging way.
Theres actually 2 different ways I know of regarding studying.
The first way is to read through the materials before lectures, attend the lectures and workshops and then revise at home. Before exams, search for online exam paper, do all and double check with lecturers, ensure questions are relevant. This is very time consuming but tends to give a result above 90%; an effective way of studying.
The second way, which has been the one I have been using for the past 18 months, is to download lecture and workshop slides from MyLO, read through, understand, memorise workshop answers, do internal assessment, do past year exam paper and memorise the answers as well as studying on the thories that has not come out in the unit. This way is very efficient, but tends to give a result of 75%(1 out of 4 wrong). There are a few flaws regarding this method.
1) Lecturers who test the same thing as what they tested in internals
2) Lecturers being new to the unit
Regarding point 1: Given that something is tested in the internals, its only logical to think that they will not test the same thing again, especially when there is some much other theories to test the student to ensure that the student understands the unit.
Of course, if they test the same thing, I would be able to write the answers out since I have done it before. However, due to the time lapse from the last time I did it, I would not be able to write out a perfect answer since I did not really prepare for it as well. Since my exam preparation was geared towards the theories that did not come out, I would not be able to apply my knowledge of those theories which I studied for the final examination.
Examples would be LAW121 Intro to Law, BMA101 Intro to Management, BEA286 Investment Analysis. A lot of my friends scored well for this 3 units, me being the only exception since my study method wasn’t geared towards the theories that did not come out. In fact, I consider those 3 to be the easier units… maybe that’s why I did not pay as much attention to them.
Regarding Point 2, since the lecturer is new, it means that they did not set the past exam paper. Besides, since the lecturer is human, he or she would want to radically change the way students are being tested in the finals to show that he is different from the previous lecturer. The old exams paper I studied and memorised is no longer relevant. I learnt this the HARD way last semester after obtaining the results today. If I were more studious in college, or more diligent in my studying now, I probably would have known it or never needed to know it.
Given that, I obviously need to change my method of studying to ensure I meet my target GPA of 6.5 . This will be extremly time consuming though.
| BEA130 | Foundations of Economic Policy | H | 2 | Results available Nov 26 2010 9:00AM | ||
| BEA380 | Derivative Securities | H | 2 | Results available Nov 26 2010 9:00AM | ||
| BEA384 | International Finance | H | 2 | Results available Nov 26 2010 9:00AM | ||
| BFA204 | Financial Planning | H | 2 | Results available Nov 26 2010 9:00AM |
This are the next 4 units I am studying. Given that BEA130 is an introductory unit which I should have taken before moving to the more complicated units, I am sure I will ace it. BEA380 and BEA384 may be hard since I have no idea what it is about. BFA204 may be hard as well since its an accounting unit which I have to study for my finance major. It will be similar to the BEA325 marketing/econs unit which I had hell with since I do not know any marketing way of thinking, I am only well associated with the logic of economical thinking.
