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Ah, the test. My most hated of adversaries. Normally I’d defeated such challenges handily in the past, which has contributed to my atrocious study habits (or lack thereof). As time has gone by the tests have gotten harder and yet my study habits have steadily declined. As I worked on my procrastination last year, I felt it was time for a change of pace and studying proved a ready topic.
The problem arises quickly, however. How do you measure readiness for a test? You can’t just compare scores... one test is not built like another. If I could somehow take a test, then study, then take it again... But again, if I study after I’ve already taken a test I’d know what to expect. I’d also have an idea of what topics I still had to work on. So we must of course change the questions, but this again raises the question of an “easy” test versus a “hard” test.
Scores have failed us; what else can we measure? I came up with the idea of measuring test preparedness. Instead of comparing just scores, I would rate my overall confidence going into the test.
So what were our results? On the whole, my actual scores on tests did not, sadly, raise that much. In fact, they appeared to, on the whole, decrease, but the most noticeable change was in my confidence. The hour or two I spent studying each night boosted my confidence noticeably.
From this, we can perhaps infer that, overall, I was much more confident about the taking of the tests but my test scores actually declined over this period. I am of the opinion that this seems to indicate one of two possibilities. The first is that the hour or so of study/review that I did actually resulted in a bit of overconfidence on my part, from the way that I perhaps relied on my readily available knowledge rather than second-guessing myself and making sure my approach makes sense before solving, as I normally do during tests. The second possibility is much simpler: perhaps the tests just got harder as we went on. It’d be interesting to find out how I would’ve done on the same tests without studying and compared it to how I did with studying. I don’t believe it’ll be possible until we manage to clone me while retaining my memories. A scary thought, but an interesting one nonetheless.
So will I continue to study? Probably, as long as I still have the time. I’d only be wasting time on games anyways, so I might as well put those hours to good use. The boost in, for lack of a better better word, confidence is well worth it in my humble opinion. Until next time, hit the books.
