Preparation for examination?

[Adam Ricardo]

How English-majored students to prepare for their final examination


When I have received the above writing topic, I felt immediately perplexed because never have I prepared for an examination. No matter it is a med-term or final examination. In my mind, there is only one thing for a college student to prepare – preparing for learning. Very am I depressed that most of the college students always want to prepare well for their examination in order to get good grades. In fact, getting A-grade does not mean you are really a distinctive student. On the contrary, getting D-grade does not mean you are absolutely a bad student (there are a lot of factors affecting the grading of a student such as the conflict between a student and lecturer!). I have long been looking down on those lecturers who put their personal hatred into the grading. At the same time, I have long been showing a low opinion of college students whose they always try to get A-grades by using different methods. No matter dirty or clean, those methods, as far as I am concerned, are bad methods not only in terms of intelligence but also in terms of ethics. Using any means in order to get high grading is very stupid in terms of life as well because you will only become an “examination machine” and also an immoral person at the end of the day.

In the following paragraphs, I will mainly explore the process of learning both in theory and practice with a view to waking up students how to prepare for their learning. In practice, preparing for their final examination in college is only a subset of preparing the final examination for their “examination” in life. I sincerely introduce my point of view to Hong Kong students.

There is tremendous number of definitions of learning. B.R Hergenhahn (1988) defines learning:

Learning is “a relatively permanent change in behavior or in behavioral potentiality that results from experience and cannot be attributed to temporary body states such as those induced by illness, fatigue or drugs”.

Stephen B. Klein (1991) defines learning:

Learning can be defined as “an experiential process resulting in a relatively permanent change in behavior that cannot be explained by temporary states, maturation, or innate response tendencies”.

Both definitions have the key words: Permanence and Experience. In other words, the process of learning is a permanent process, not only preparing for an examination in college but also preparing for your “examination” in your life. Senge (2000) uses an everyday life example in nature to connote the process of learning:

“It is an extraordinary experience to look at a flowering plant and see it in growth. Organs, which can be quite different in outer appearance, are recognized as being manifestations of the same form, so that the plant now appears as the repeated expression of the same organ. Seeing the plant intuitively in this way is to experience it “coming into being”, instead of analyzing the plant as it appears in its finished state…”

The finished state is not getting an A-grade in the examination. Instead, it means a student becomes a perfect person in his or her life. The process of growth of a plant is the allegory of the process of learning to be a perfect person. In fact, the theory of learning is not easy for a year-one college student to understand without the concrete steps. Before I state my steps for learning, I should like to inform those students that even the steps are useful for me, it does not mean it would apply to you. The only advice, indeed, that a student can learn from another about the process of learning is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions, on the condition that you have to assimilate my first paragraph. The method to assimilate my first paragraph is to read it again and again.

If the above advice is agreed, then I feel at liberty to put forward the process because you will not allow my points of view to fetter your independence, which is the most important quality that a student can possess during the process of learning.

Preview is the first step in the process of learning. There are two types of preview: comparatively long-term and short-term preview. For example, there are three months in the summer holiday. I will have a look at the background information of the subjects that I should learn in the next semester. If I am interested in a particular one, I will try to look at it more in depth. When during the semester, I prepare for the subjects every Saturday and Sunday, of course, only on my favorite subjects. It is impossible for me to preview every subject. “Choosing one and being concentrated” is the key.

Review is the last step in the process of learning. As same as above-mentioned preview, there are also two types of review: comparatively long-term and short-term review. For instance, having finished my two semesters this year, I try to review what I have learnt. I have learnt a lot of things but some of them are useless in terms of my personal need and interest. Within all those subjects I have come across, I chose Poetry and fiction. In those poems, I like Shakespeare sonnet. There are more than a hundred of Shakespearean sonnets but “Sonnet 116” is my favorite one, so I will study it in depth. What “in depth” means: I will recite and dictate the poem. I will identify the parts of speech of every word in the poem. I will break down the sentence structures of the poem and analyze the components. I will apply the technique of syntax, which I learnt from the linguistic lesson to analyze the poem. I will compare this one to other sonnets. I will try to translate the sonnet into Chinese. I will study the historical background of Shakespearean sonnet. I will use the poetic techniques learning from the lesson of poetry to explore the sonnet. For the fiction, I have chosen “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath (Feminist writer in 60s) to study. I will study Sylvia Plath background. As she is a feminist, I will try to study feminism. There is a sense of existentialism in the fiction (I first studied existentialism in 1997 and have read one introductory book only), so I will study existentialism again. I know that she is also a poet, so I will read her poem. I know her husband, Ted Hughes, is also a very famous poet, so I will read his poem to compare them.

The above-mentioned examples are the process of my learning. One thing is extremely important: Before you do anything, you have to read the content such as the poem or the fiction you choose, again and again until you are very familiar with it.

The rationale is that it looks like a baby learning to walk. It first needs to learn standing steadily (reading the content itself), then walks slowly (spreading to other related areas in which you are interested.), and finally it can run (breaking the so-called orthodox and giving your originality).

These are the three steps of my process of learning. I am really sorry to tell you that the last one will not be easily done by the students who always purse their A-grades or done by the so-called first honor students. I really do not understand even some lecturers who praise and encourage them to do so. They only know how to get high marks in the examination and full of citations in their paper. I really pity them because it is the humor of an egghead who is against the critical thinking as well as creative thinking.

In conclusion, I have degraded the process of preparing for final examination. I have given my derogatory remarks to the college students who always purse a high grading by any means and to the lecturers who sometimes put their personal hatred in grading their students. I have defined “Learning” and given my two examples in the process of learning. What I really wanted to point out is that the process of learning can help the process of preparing for the final examination and can prepare for the process of being a perfect person in life. Lastly, I should like to use the maxim of Rene Descartes (1596-1650) to end my paper: “I think; therefore, I am”.