Studying Help

[Your Usual Table]

EDIT: Removed

[Ek weet nie]

Studying Help

My understanding of the Open University is that it is dependent on continuous assessment and report/essay writing rather than exams.

400 points would have got you inside the Top 10 in my school comfortably. If psychology is something you are studying for a career or as a hobby then focusing on knowledge and understanding is much more important than short term memory.

Memory tends to be easier with stuff you enjoy or have an interest in. I'm sure you could rattle off untold facts about Manchester United or other things you do for fun. You have an interest in psychology and are doing this off your own bat, a lot of the theory will be interesting to you rather than something that just needs to be learned so you can get to the next semester/year/finish college.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Studying Help

What's 400 points? You got 40 A grades at A level?

Congratulations on getting on your course.

[Ek weet nie]

Studying Help

I didn't think you were being haughty. A good friend of mine barely managed the points to get into the course we were doing but he's an excellent engineer and is and will be successful in his career. Yet, he still thinks of himself as being not as smart as some the people who outperformed him in school even though he is naturally talented for the field he is in. I thought I sensed something similar in your post.

I'm not sure what course you did but I did engineering. The only trick was doing the past exam papers and being able to remember formulae. Looking back it is scandalous how little I actually knew about the subjects I was getting good grades in.

When I was reading up on the OU website about something that I wanted to do I got the impression that they had moved away from exam based assessment of performance. I don't thik there would be any tricks to that other than the normal general study tips that you see anywhere. From my experience of studying whilst working, I would say your biggest problem would be being disciplined about finding the time to study.

[Ek weet nie]

Studying Help

Tubby, CV did the Irish Leaving Cert. We do at least six subjects, three of which must be English, Irish (unless you weren't born in Ireland) and Maths. If you do more than 6 subjects, your best six are counted (most schools do 7 although there is nothing stopping you from doing extra on your own time). There are three levels - higher, ordinary and foundation. The points come from the grades you get in a subject. For higher:
90%+ is an A1 which gets you 100 points.
85-90% is an A2 which gets you 90 points.
80-85% is a B1 which gets you 85 points.
Thereafter every 5 percentage marks drops 5 points to you get to D3 (40-45% which gives you 40 points).

The highest points for ordinary level is 40 for an A1 down to 5 for a D3. Foundation level doesn't give you any points.

Courses in University will specify minimum standards. After that all students who applied for a course are ranked by the number of points they got and the number of places in the course are filled according to this ranking.

[Jon]

Studying Help

CV - I'm pretty sure Phoebe is doing an Open University degree in Psychology so you'd do a lot worse Pming him.

[David Agnew]

Studying Help

Yes, yes, I am. (I didn't see this thread yesterday.

Right, so far, I'm on my second course, with the next one booked and paid for, the one after that booked, and the one after that is planned.

Now, in my first year there was one "exam". It was just an essay, done under exam conditions. The first year is a Level 1 course, and everything is done to ease you (back) into study. The Level 1 course doesn't affect your final score, and essentially, the year is about passing or failing, and 98% of the people who finish the course, pass. (Although Level 1 was compulsory for Psychology when I started, it no longer is, and someone in the other place found Level 1 too easy to enjoy).

When I did that "exam", I'd returned from working in London about 48 hours before, and had only had chance to study a total of four hours on that block (compared to the recommended study time for that block of 64 hours). I concentrated on the fact that you were provided with the question for the "exam" in advance, and told where the relevant parts to read were, and I just crammed, standing outside the door to the room memorising as many words as possible, as late as possible, and as soon as the exam started just wrote all the important words I'd remembered down at the back of the paper, so I could write an essay.

Only to not quite understand half of the question, with it only falling into place a couple of days later. Pass mark is 40%, I got 65%. Piece of piss.

Other than that, there are few exams. This course has an end of course exam (without the aid of the questions in advance), which I am trying to avoid thinking about until my last assessment is done next week. There is a day school a week or so before the exam, which will be helpful.

Those are two 60 point courses (one year each), and the next three add up to 60 points (one is residential at Bath University in August), and none have a exam involved.

Each of the three year long courses after that (60 points each) have an exam attached. So, by the time I get my degree, I will have sat a total of four exams, and one assignment under exam conditions.

And by all means PM me, or ask further questions, I'll be glad to assist.

[WOM]

Studying Help

The only things that ever benefitted me, study-wise are these:
- take your lecture notes.
- that evening or the next day, rewrite them to condense them to about a quarter the length.
- when you're studying for the exam, rewrite them again as major themes and minor points.
The rewriting is what makes it stick in your head.

And:
- sleep is essential to memory, so don't cram for anything the day of. It won't stick.

[David Agnew]

Studying Help

You don't really have lectures with the Open University. You have tutorials instead, which are more student involved.

One thing that will really help CV, is that part of the second year's course looks at memory, and how you're memory works, and how best to use the memory in terms of revision.

[WOM]

Studying Help

You'd think they'd move that to a first year's course.

[David Agnew]

Studying Help

No real exam in the first year.

[Ubik]

Studying Help

Hi, regular lurker, irregular poster.

Usually I'm content to let other posters express what I'm thinking with far more wit, brevity and eloquence than I can muster, but as I've just completed a Psychology degree at the OU, I figured it was high time to make my debut on world.

Although what Phoebe is saying is correct, there are exams for all level two and three courses, and these can be quite intensive. The more socially oriented courses tend to be easier to revise as I found it was only really necessary to recall a few key studies and write logically to get a good mark. The more scientifically oriented courses are more knowledge intensive, and for these revision is like, dead important.

The method WOM mentions worked pretty well for me. I made fairly copious notes and re-wrote the course material as I went along. Then a couple of weeks before the exams, I revised the notes I'd made and tried to condense them from memory. I also made mind maps of each chapter, which helped structure what I was recalling. My memory is pretty flaky, but I managed to get pretty high marks in all my exams and ended up missing out on a first by only a couple of percent overall. I did well enough to consider doing a masters degree with the OU at any rate.

Good luck with your studying. It's a lot of work, but it can also be a lot of fun.

[Wyatt Earp]

Studying Help

Study-wise, I seem to be all or nothing: I either completely master the course or else coast and fuck up. Mastering it just involves working really, really hard, I think. Work and work and work, and then work some more. Very little is beyond you if you're prepared to do that.

I agree with WOM that forcing yourself to rewrite stuff in freshly organised ways is the best way to stop your mind wandering. I still use that method when reading academic papers, or at least ones I'm properly interested in. Just reading doesn't seem to do anything.

I also used to make myself do mock exams against the clock, but that may be a bit subject-specific. It did once, on my master's, throw up the fact that I actually knew very little about one course and couldn't answer any questions properly at all. Without the mock I reckon I'd have struggled to make half marks; with it, and the extra revision it made me do, I managed to get above 70.

Friends: I did that mock, and the subsequent revision, on my honeymoon. Mrs E, in the meantime, took the opportunity to teach herself to juggle, and is still very good at it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Studying Help

Welcome, Ubik. Well done on your degree.

400 sounds like a decent score to me, CV/NA. Thanks for explaining the system. One of the pleasures of this board is learning about Ireland.

[Gerontophile]

Studying Help

Tips for studying:

Stay off the beer/drugs.
Take plenty of rest.
Do something physical, regularly.
Take notes.

Find something difficult (about your subject), and take an hour out to break down into reasons you find it difficult.

However, if you dont have the required time, just take lots of notes, however unimportant. They WILL help, when you re-read them.

[Wyatt Earp]

Studying Help

Gerontophile wrote:

Stay off the beer/drugs.

I'm not sure about that one. I find a reward system works quite well for me: another hour's study and you're allowed a beer. I imagine joints would also work, but I ain't into that.

I've also used this reward system writ large: after the exams you get to go on a massive bender.

Massive benders not appeal to you, gero?

[Gerontophile]

Studying Help

HAAHAAA on so many levels.

But, no. Have a beer to relax after an evening at the books or tapes or whatever, but dont go on the piss/whatever.

AFTER the exam/s is entirely different.

[Ubik]

Studying Help

Thanks Tubby and no worries CV. Drop me a PM if you want to know more.

One last thing to bear in mind is that you can use some of the credit you've earned in your first degree towards your Open University qualification, so you can graduate much more quickly. Very handy if you're considering working in the field, and like me, have astoundingly little patience.

[David Agnew]

Studying Help

Welcome, Ubik.

CarnivorousVulgaris wrote:

Thanks for all the advice, lads. It's sincerely appreciated. Phoebe, Ubik - congrats on embarking upon the course and especially to Ubik on your result. I might lob you both a PM later on when I'm starting the first module, if that's alright.

No worries. One thing the OU also do, is they sell previous year's papers, so that you can see the type of questions you'll face. And certainly on the course I'm on (DSE212 - Exploring Psychology), they at least tell you which areas you're unlikely to see questions based on - usually the areas the previous assignments have been based on.

And in your opening para, you mentioned finances willing - don't forget that although most funding is geared towards those without a degree, there is some financial support available for those who already have a degree.