Item
10 : Reading Text
For today’s post, I want to share with you all a
topic about reading text which related when we want to taking essay
examination. I will show you how so don’t go anywhere!
Figure 12.3 Page 309
For this topic, I need to do a reading text task given by my lecturer. My lecturer had assigned me to read the text and highlight the important information from the text.
Prepare
for Essays
Do you guys believe me if I tell you that essays
exam can be more difficult than objective exam for most of us, students. Maybe it
is because essay exam need recall learning, right?
That is why we need to prepare for essay exam and we also need some strategies. But, we must remember that to write a good essay is not all about having good strategies. We actually need to develop creativity, organize the idea to be inserted in the essay so that our ideas and thoughts will be well- presented as we write the essay.
Figure 1: 3 steps to preparing for essay exam
Predicting the Question
This method can be used when we are not given the
essay question. Predicting the question asked can help us to be well-prepared
for the exam. Not only that, we can
increase the chances that we will learn the same topic on which we will be
tested on the exam.
We can predict at least four or five questions and
prepare for the ideas we want to present in the essay and also the important
information. Here, we need to remember that the more question that we predict, the
closer chances we get to the right question for the essay. In other word, we
should predict broad!
Some of sources to predict the question are to look
back at past year exam papers. List the asked question that we can collect. We can
also use study guides that we have and the lecture notes too. All of these
sources can help us to determine what kinds of question are frequently asked or
what did the question want.
Planning
The Answer
After we have predicted the questions, all we need
to do is plan for the answer. We should gather all the information that we get
from the lecture notes, textbooks or any sources, we have to gather the
information.
Gathering the information is to look for the related
information based on the predicted question. List the notes under the question
so that it would be easy to find.
Next, we need to organize the answer. We can use
label or numbering to differentiate the information or group them into specific
column based on the type of elaboration.
The last one is to outline the answer. It is similar to highlight the points for the question. We can list all the main points which directly answer the question. Then, indent the supporting details. This method is called informal outline. Here is the example I take from the text book.
Practice
Makes Perfect
We surely don’t need to memorise all of the outlines
that we already collect. No! all we need is some practice because practice not
only makes it perfect, it makes it permanent!
First, practice
the outlines. Once we already have the outline, try to cover the notes
except for the question. Ask ourselves the question and answer the question. Challenge
ourselves and see whether we can elaborate all the main points or not. Practice
them over and over again until we get them.
If we, by any chance, have a difficulty to get all
the points, try to use mnemonic device
to recall. Mnemonic device is a memory cue that can improve our recall.
All we need to do is find a keyword for that point
and underline it. We can memorise the keywords using acrostics or catchphrase.
The last one is, try to write down some answer so
that when the actual exam day, we know what to write down or insert in the
essays.
So that is all from me for today’s post. Hope it is helpful for you too. Thank you so much for spending your time here and goodbye!
P/s: All of the information above are based on my study skill textbook provided by my lecturer for study skill (UED102) course. All of the images or pictures are just my creativity. I do not own any of them.
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