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RLS 111/0200 (FCCE)--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--Study Rules

Do you know how many students fail to comply with the instructions given on this page?

I did not collect statistics; but I can tell you that many pay no attention to what is said below. For your own benefit, make sure that you are not one of them.

How to do well in this course

General

(1) Come to class regularly. (To encourage you, there is a penalty for missing class. See the syllabus for details.)

(2) Pay attention to the class presentation. Even funny instructors "wear out their welcome" a couple of weeks into the semester and tend to start "putting you to sleep." Use your willpower to counteract that tendency.

(3) Do all assignments promptly.

How to prepare for quizzes (and for class meetings at which there is no quiz)—six steps

(1) Following a class meeting, carefully read the textbook segment on the material covered during that class. Read it more than once.

(2) Make a written summary of the material read in (1).

(3) Carefully study the written summary and your class notes.

(4) Invite your "imaginary friend" and pretend that you are giving him/her a summary of the material covered during the last class. This "mental speech" is to be given from memory only, without reference to any written items. (If you do have a very patient housemate or roommate or boyfriend or girlfriend or soul mate, you can speak to a real person instead of an imaginary friend; but be sure not to make a pest of yourself.)

(5) Access the course website's "Study Questions" page and try to answer the questions on the material of the last class. If you did steps 1-4 correctly, you should understand the questions and be able to answer them without needing to look at any written material (except perhaps for the one or the other detail of the "I-can't-believe-he-is-asking-about-that" nature). If you cannot answer the questions, go back to steps 3 and 4. [Note: The study questions are to come into the picture only as "Step # 5"!!!]

(6) Review the material of earlier class meetings (if any) for which you will be responsible at the next quiz.

How to prepare for exams

(1) Start preparing for exams at least a week prior to the exam date.

(2) Divide the material into equal segments and carefully review one segment per day.

(3) Briefly review all segments either on the day prior to the exam or on the day of the exam; carefully review any new material that has been covered.

Procedure leading to a low or failing grade

If you study in accordance with the following three steps, you likely will receive a low or failing grade:

(1) Following a class meeting, start out with accessing the course web site's "Study Questions" page and read the questions about the material of the last class.

(2) Look through the material covered during the last class (the textbook and your class notes) and "put together" answers to the study questions. Write the answers on index cards.

(3) Memorize the answers written on the index cards and review those concerning earlier class meetings (if any) for which you will be responsible at the next quiz or exam.

Don't say that you haven't been warned . . .

After the exams, I am regularly visited by students telling me, "I spent an unbelievable amount of time studying for the exam. I really do not understand why I failed (got only a D, or got only a C+)." Usually, the ensuing conversation reveals that these students followed the "Procedure Leading to a Low or Failing Grade" rather than heeding the "How to do Well in this Course" hints. Hunting through the course material for answers to the study questions (many of which are not even properly understood) often leads to incomplete, false, or even meaningless answers. Even if they are diligently memorized, the result will be a "mediocre-to-failing" grade. Moreover, even if the answers hunted for are correct, they must be memorized "out of context." It is a much greater strain on one's memory to memorize out-of-context material rather than to learn items logically related to each other.