Do you really read the whole textbook from A-Z?

[cookderosa]

Right now I'm preparing for a bunch of exams and got myself ready for some textbooks. No surprises looking at the number of pages (its 600-700) they may just take me about month and a half to complete these books with all the quizzes and assignments. I like studying but I have to confess it's a tad inefficient.

On this forum there are seem to be so many wizards that seem to finish their studying and pass their exams in a day or two. I don't know if that is corrupting my mind but hey it's some food for thought.

Back to the discussion how would you manage your studying if you were to tackle a 600 pager tome?

You won't need to learn an entire textbook. Frequently, the last 1/3 of a book is where the author(s) put their own extra content, so start with that in mind and hit the table of contents.

For an exam, look at the content distribution. Here's a fictitious one:
10% History of the topic
15% Content A
14% Content B
13% Content C
24% Content D
9% Content D1
5% Content D2

Everything should total 100%. Based on the number of exam questions (let's say 100 for this exam) you'll get an idea of what to expect. In this exam, expect 10 questions on the history, 15 questions on Content A, etc.
If you look at content D, you'll see sub-content (D1+D2) making this section the DOMINANT section. 24+9+5= 38% (38 questions). If it were me, I'd spend the majority of my time in that section. Not 38%, more like 70% of my time. Why?

Because if I can learn that topic solidly, I stand an excellent chance of earning more than 30 points, potentially 38. No other section comes close to that kind of reward/return on investment. This is the chapter I'd "study" hard. The other chapters that tie into exam content total 62% of the test, but it's too watered down- it's like trying to study for a game of trivial pursuit. So, in the other sections, you study/memorize important people, dates, and vocabulary words. If you look at a section and say "what are the top 5 important things about this chapter" and then just study that, you're on target. The rest is guessing.

In my opinion, targeting your efforts based on exam distribution is the best return. So, in an exam like this, you could probably study for a pass in a week. The effort required to get a perfect score (in comparison) might take a year. I can't draw you a chart, but you get the idea. Lot's of "up side" in the first week, followed by a sharp decline in return on time invested.

That said, after you've taken one or two, you'll get into a grove that works best for you. Good luck!!