Hey, we’re back with a new chapter to this utmost wonderful guide. Today’s topic is quite subjective, and it requires a bit of analysis from your end, so make sure to pay attention.
The topic at hand this time (as the title mentions) is getting to know your professors. You may be asking yourself, why is this important? First of all, good for you to be asking questions. Second, the short answer is because an exam is a communication process in its basic form. And as a communication process, there is almost always more than one party involved, in this case one of them is the professor.
So, “getting to know your professors” may be a bit of a vague expression, let me go into more detail. There are two main ideas or characteristics that should be kept in mind when analyzing whoever is in the position of evaluating your performance:
What they emphasize on
What their evaluation method is
Lets dig deeper on these concepts. I would guess most of you have realized how much theory goes into a subject, even if it isn’t exclusively theory based. You’re presented with so many different perspectives about the same idea, all of them depicted from the point of view of different authors with their own way of thinking. In complete honesty, it can result quite overwhelming at times. Luckily for you, there’s a slight trick regarding this. It’s quite common for a professor to have certain affiliation towards specific perspectives on the topics he’s teaching, and so, if you write regarding said topics, you’re most likely to have an easier time. Basically, focus on whatever your professor decides to emphasize on within the broad and intimidating theory. Sure, this may seem a bit cheap and not everyone is going to agree with this method, but I doubt you can argue that it’s effective. Now bear in mind, just because on your exam your going to take a position from the perspective your professor is fond of, doesn’t mean you have to agree with it in your daily life. See it as a game, the exam is a challenge you must face, the professor is the boss, and positioning your writing to his liking is just a tool you use to get an upper hand. It’s quite important to note that everything within the theory is useful and has its fair share of meaning, and it’s also important for you to have your own way of thinking, but the way the education system evaluates just leaves them wide open for this kind of technique, at least most of the time.
What do I mean by most of the time? Well… some teachers are explicit about where they are positioned regarding the theory, while others not that much. Try to look out for as much hints as you can find, and take your best guess. Although, if you don’t feel confident, just go with the theory that you best handle, most of the time this is the best backup. Now, some professors will straight out tell you that they prefer your critical thinking, so if your feeling capable, try to make your exam into a argumentative writing about your perspective regarding the theory. If you’re able to display your knowledge of concepts well enough, it doesn’t really matter where you position yourself, but only under these specific circumstances.
Regarding the second point some professors tend to have their own proper twist to how they evaluate. It really depends on the content at hand. For example, it’s not the same to have an oral test or a written one. It’s also not the same if it’s multiple choice, truth/false or of your own free production. Depending on how the layout will be, you can adapt your form of studying the content. Also, this point regards the evaluation process once you turn in your exam. Sometimes negative points are applied. Under this circumstance leaving an answer blank is more profitable than taking a guess for example, so this becomes a crucial piece of information to know if you want to improve your outcome. When there is more than one professor to mark your exam, sometimes it becomes difficult to adapt your writing. This topic will be regarded in a future post. As a final tip, some professors, when working in groups, decide to only mark one question at a time. If this doesn’t make sense let me explain: if there are a total of five professors working together, and let’s say for example a total of five questions, each professor will mark only one question. It may not seem like it, but this also adds a whole new layer of difficulty (to be discussed in a future post as well).
As a closure, make sure to always be analyzing your professors, even the slightest change in their speech pattern or facial expression when referring to certain topics or authors may be just enough to give you a hint and put you on that so needed advantageous position.
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