STUDYING FOR ESSAY EXAMS

The worst idea to have in your mind about essay exams? "There's no way to study for them. You just have to do your best!" WRONG!  You may already know the basics of studying: to review your notes ASAP after class to fill in details that you missed. You may also know to jot down questions at the end of each day's notes-both questions for the professor AND questions that you can use when studying to test your knowledge. 

What we advise is something beyond this to help organize the course material more effectively. Here are the four steps to studying effectively for essay exams. 

STEP 1:  Get a Preliminary Overview of the Course (Ideally begin Day 1!) 
The goal here is to create your own "big picture" of the course. Use the instructor's syllabus, the table of contents and the introduction in your textbook, and the professor's introductory lecture. Your goal is to create an outline of the course: the topics your professor intends to cover in the sequence he/she will cover them. 

    Say, for example, your psychology professor's course description says, " We will focus on five major theories of personality, discussing their strengths and weaknesses." You then know the class will be divided into five main parts. 
    When you look over the textbook, you should look for similarities and differences in the way the book and the professor organize the material; this will give you insights into what the professor intends to emphasize. 
    During the introductory lecture, take very thorough notes: later in the semester these notes will help you to make connections between one part of the course and another. Pay particular attention to any "transition lectures" your professor gives as the class moves from one section of the syllabus to another. Often, these lectures provide clues to the types of questions the professor is likely to ask. 
    Once you have reviewed all this material, create a "horizontal outline" of the major topics you will be covering. Draw a line from left to right and place the major sections of the course on it; then, as you move through the class, fill out the outline with subtopics, examples, etc.

The horizontal outline is valuable because it allows you to have a mental picture of the entire class. The outline creates a mental framework for thinking about the material and aids your memory.  Having this kind of visual context makes memorizing things much easier and allows you to see relationships within the course material.

STEP 2:  Make Outline Summaries
Once you have created your preliminary overview, you need to learn the course material. One of the best ways is to make use of outlines. You should create outlines of your text and any other readings by summarizing the key points paragraph by paragraph; making yourself create these outlines helps you analyze the material and remember it.  An outline summary, however, is a slightly different type of outline. Your goal here is to create a cared that lists the most important facts and information about a topic. These cards will be useful to you in many ways-as flash cards and as the source for potential essay questions, for example.
    To make a summary outline, reduce the topic to a summary of essential information from your text book and class notes. The outline form is easier to memorize than a page of notes and can serve as the "skeleton" of an essay response. (The outline is not meant to replace all other studying; it serves as a key to help you remember concepts when under pressure.) One card might have a summary outline for the five theories of personality, for example, in a psychology class. The goal, however, is not to create just a few cards, but to have outline summaries that cover most of the material in the class, including definitions of terms and concepts. Some possible cards for a World Literature class might include "Romanticism" (which would define the term and set up dates), "Goethe" (with his dates and major works), and then "Goethe's Faust" (which would outline essential information about the work.) The more general cards help you to establish an overview of the course while the more specific cards provide the details. 

STEP 3:  Study from the Cards!
You should review your cards regularly over the semester rather than waiting for the night before the exam. As you work your way through the class, you should use the horizontal outline and the cards together. Place the cards under the outline with the most general card at the top and the most specific at the bottom. 



You can then "drill yourself" by reciting the relationships among the cards and noticing patterns. One question to ask yourself about Goethe and Romanticism, for example, is " In what ways does Goethe's writing represent the characteristics of the Romantic movement?"

STEP 4: Predict Test Questions
Besides using the horizontal outline and the outline summaries to understand the "big picture" of your course and the way the material interrelates, you should create potential test question for yourself , using the following "test verbs": ANALYZE, COMPARE/CONTRAST, DEFINE, DESCRIBE, EVALUATE, EXPLAIN, SUMMARIZE.  Think like a teacher: ask yourself, "what could the professor ask me to analyze?  What could she ask me to define?"  Write these questions down and think about them seriously; in fact, the best preparation for a test is to write some practice essays!  It's also a good idea to work with a group from the class to brainstorm essay questions and to review the material-as long as everyone is serious about the work.

GOOD LUCK AND HAPPY STUDYING!