Tips for accelerating Study.com courses?

[AW84]

Are there any tips or tricks to accelerating SDC courses? I don't know the structure of its courses (quizzes, exams, assignments, etc.) but would love to know about how much time they could be feasibly completed in.

[rachel83az]

It greatly depends on the course and whether it has assignments or not. All courses have a pool of 300 points available. For the ones without assignments, 100 points goes to the quizzes and 200 points to the final exam. For ones with assignments, quizzes are again worth 100 points, but now the final is worth 100 points and the assignments are worth 100 points. In order to pass a given class, you need 210 points or more out of 300.


For courses WITHOUT an assignment:

• Take a practice exam before even starting the course. This will give you an idea of how much you actually need to pay attention during the course. Depending on the material, you may already know enough to pass the final exam. But you can't unlock the final exam until you complete all of the quizzes. 
  
• Some courses also have a separate exam to automatically mark quizzes as complete, based on what you already know. If that's an option for your chosen course, take that exam, too. 
  
• Now, when doing the lessons, check out the quiz page first. This will let you know which key concepts you should be watching for when reading/watching the lessons.
  
• If you read quickly, that's almost always going to be faster than the videos. But the videos may make it easier to absorb the information. You might want to set the videos at 1.25 or 1.5 speed if you watch them.
  
• To make life easier for yourself, you need to get 100% on each quiz within the first 3 attempts. As each quiz is 3-8 questions (usually 5 questions), this is easier than it sounds. 
  
• Assuming you got 100 percent of quizzes correct in the first 3 attempts, you only need to score 56% or better for the 210 points to pass. Take the practice exam twice after completing the quizzes. This will give you a good idea of how well you'll do on the actual final. Final exam scores are usually around +/- 10% of the practice exam. So, if you get 58% on the practice final, you're going to want to spend more time studying the concepts that you missed (because if you score 48% on the final, you will not pass). If you get 70% or more on the practice final both times you take the practice final, go ahead and take the real final exam immediately.
  

For courses WITH an assignment: 

• Follow the steps outlined above, but now (for acceleration purposes), you're aiming to score at least 70% on the final exam. Ever extra point on the final will save you time later!
  
• SDC will tell you that you need to submit assignments before the course can be completed. You can safely ignore this and take the exam before submitting any assignments.
  
• How well you do on the exam dictates how long you will need to spend on the assignment(s). If you get 80% on the exam and 100% on the quizzes, you only need 30 more more points from the assignments. Look at the rubric(s) and see what will net you the most points. For courses that have multiple assignments, you may only need to submit one to get a passing grade.
  
• For science courses with labs, you follow a different path. You want to complete the lab before taking the final. If you get 100% on the quizzes and 95% on the lab, you only need 16% or better on the final exam. Since the lab is the easiest part for many people, this takes a lot of pressure off of the final exam. 
  

Depending on how much time you have to devote to your studies, you can fully complete most SDC courses (not counting assignments) in 2-3 days. Once you've taken all of the exams you can for the month, you can then cancel or pause your membership while you complete any assignments. If you won't be needing any further SDC courses, cancel. There is a link where you can submit assignments even after you've cancelled your membership. If you plan to take more SDC courses, especially ones that have assignments, pause your membership. Reactivate it once you've completed your assignments and submit those assignments first thing, before doing anything else. Make sure you print out or otherwise save the pages with the assignment instructions (and any other relevant pages) before cancelling or pausing your membership.

[origamishuttle]

I have a slightly different method, which is to try to set aside a block of time where I can quickly go through all the quizzes and the final exam in one sitting so it's fresh in my mind. To save time I skip the material and instead learn by taking the quizzes. I also do this with Sophia, although Sophia can be even faster if you only complete the minimum of one correct question in challenges. It usually takes less than 5 hours for the whole course, but sometimes it takes a whole day for more difficult courses. Warning - while it has worked well for me, this method is not for everyone!

[AW84]

It greatly depends on the course and whether it has assignments or not. All courses have a pool of 300 points available. For the ones without assignments, 100 points goes to the quizzes and 200 points to the final exam. For ones with assignments, quizzes are again worth 100 points, but now the final is worth 100 points and the assignments are worth 100 points. In order to pass a given class, you need 210 points or more out of 300.


For courses WITHOUT an assignment:

• Take a practice exam before even starting the course. This will give you an idea of how much you actually need to pay attention during the course. Depending on the material, you may already know enough to pass the final exam. But you can't unlock the final exam until you complete all of the quizzes. 
  
• Some courses also have a separate exam to automatically mark quizzes as complete, based on what you already know. If that's an option for your chosen course, take that exam, too. 
  
• Now, when doing the lessons, check out the quiz page first. This will let you know which key concepts you should be watching for when reading/watching the lessons.
  
• If you read quickly, that's almost always going to be faster than the videos. But the videos may make it easier to absorb the information. You might want to set the videos at 1.25 or 1.5 speed if you watch them.
  
• To make life easier for yourself, you need to get 100% on each quiz within the first 3 attempts. As each quiz is 3-8 questions (usually 5 questions), this is easier than it sounds. 
  
• Assuming you got 100 percent of quizzes correct in the first 3 attempts, you only need to score 56% or better for the 210 points to pass. Take the practice exam twice after completing the quizzes. This will give you a good idea of how well you'll do on the actual final. Final exam scores are usually around +/- 10% of the practice exam. So, if you get 58% on the practice final, you're going to want to spend more time studying the concepts that you missed (because if you score 48% on the final, you will not pass). If you get 70% or more on the practice final both times you take the practice final, go ahead and take the real final exam immediately.
  

For courses WITH an assignment: 

• Follow the steps outlined above, but now (for acceleration purposes), you're aiming to score at least 70% on the final exam. Ever extra point on the final will save you time later!
  
• SDC will tell you that you need to submit assignments before the course can be completed. You can safely ignore this and take the exam before submitting any assignments.
  
• How well you do on the exam dictates how long you will need to spend on the assignment(s). If you get 80% on the exam and 100% on the quizzes, you only need 30 more more points from the assignments. Look at the rubric(s) and see what will net you the most points. For courses that have multiple assignments, you may only need to submit one to get a passing grade.
  
• For science courses with labs, you follow a different path. You want to complete the lab before taking the final. If you get 100% on the quizzes and 95% on the lab, you only need 16% or better on the final exam. Since the lab is the easiest part for many people, this takes a lot of pressure off of the final exam. 
  

Depending on how much time you have to devote to your studies, you can fully complete most SDC courses (not counting assignments) in 2-3 days. Once you've taken all of the exams you can for the month, you can then cancel or pause your membership while you complete any assignments. If you won't be needing any further SDC courses, cancel. There is a link where you can submit assignments even after you've cancelled your membership. If you plan to take more SDC courses, especially ones that have assignments, pause your membership. Reactivate it once you've completed your assignments and submit those assignments first thing, before doing anything else. Make sure you print out or otherwise save the pages with the assignment instructions (and any other relevant pages) before cancelling or pausing your membership.

So is there a textbook, and video lessons? Do they pretty well cover the same material, and do the videos narrow it down to the important topics only?

[carrythenothing]

So is there a textbook, and video lessons? Do they pretty well cover the same material, and do the videos narrow it down to the important topics only?

No textbook. The videos sometimes reference charts/images in the written articles.

Lessons are often shared across courses; you only need to pass the lesson's quiz once.

You can preview lessons without registering: https://study.com/academy/course/index.html

[rachel83az]

There is not a textbook. You can either watch the videos or read the lesson text below the videos. For some topics, you don't get a video. The videos and/or text lessons cover everything you need to pass the SDC course.

[jsd]

For resubmitted assignments, how many times can you do that?

I just submitted the assignment for Data Structures & Algorithms. It's working, but I've never written anything in Java before, so it was spaghetti code and I'm sure looks embarrassing to anyone who knows what they're doing. I'm assuming some revisions are in order. I still have a week before another exam opens up for me, so if I get this back soon enough hopefully I can bump my score up high enough to really breeze through the final.

[carrythenothing]

Under "Assignments" in the syllabus: https://study.com/academy/course/compute...nformation

• If you are unsatisfied with your score, you will be able to revise and resubmit your assignment(s) twice. You are free to resubmit an assignment within two weeks of your most recent exam attempt or at any point if you have an active college accelerator membership.
  

[jsd]

Thanks. Hopefully it doesn't need too much work.

[jsd]

lol, 100/100 on the assignment. i guess it won't need much revision. So I guess I only need 10 points on the final?? (I have 100 on the quizzes, of course)