What do I study?

STUDENT PERSPECTIVE: I don't know what to study for the tests; the questions are over insignificant things and not the major things that I studied.

Fact: As pointed out in the Syllabus, exams cover your understanding of the OBJECTIVES that are written at the very front of each day's studio manual material. Each question on the exams relates directly to one or more of those OBJECTIVES.

In order to help you figure out what to study for the tests, we provide study guides, which guide you to the location of important information for each objective. Your ability to understand any particular objective will depend upon reading the textbook in some cases, or doing the lab exercises in some cases, reading the web material in some cases, or (most commonly) some combination of these three. So if you focus on the objectives first, you can quickly figure out what to study (textbook, studio manual, or web pages) by figuring out where each of those objectives is covered. Again, be sure to study in a way that you are not simply memorizing sentences, but that you understand the process/concept covered by an objective.

A good strategy might be to write out each objective as you study, write out a 1-2 paragraph summary of each objective in your own words, and ask one of your studio instructors or study partners to check these paragraphs and see if you really do understand that objective.