How do you study for IT exams?

Question

How do you study for IT related exams?

Are you the sort of person that leave it to the last minute? Do you go through all of the lab work and re-do them? Do you use the techniques taught in personal projects, learn extra things that way? Do you just go over the lecture notes and hope for the best?

I'm just finishing my undergrad CS degree, and tend to study the specific material only on the couple of days leading up to the exam (bad form I know). I tend to learn the material best by applying it to other problems and work I'm doing.

Just wondering what techniques others use.

EDIT: Made into community wiki post.

Answer 1

Personally, I never had to study a lot. I attended classes, listened to the professor, did the assignments and/or recommended problems, and read the chapters from the book that the professor said we should read. A few days before the exam I would go over the material for a few hours, or if there was something I knew I didn't understand, then I would focus on that. I found I could get a pretty good idea of exactly what the professor was going to put on the exam, just by paying close attention to what they taught in class.

Basically my approach comes down to this. Learn the material as you go along, and there will be very little to actually study by the end of the semester.

Answer 2

I am with kibbee on this one a lot, I find that cramming, or last minute studying is not a way to actually retain knowledge. I take concepts presented in classes and try to apply them to something, work with test projects, or overall experimentation.

I additionally do have a very weird trait where I have an amazingly good memory where it comes to programming concepts, ideas, and little tidbits of information, therefore once I've done the practice and learning during the course there is no need for studying, just like when I took most of my Microsoft Certification exams.

So the short answer is, keep up on it and get to kow the material along the way!

I also say this as a college instructor as I'm an Adjunct for technology courses, and I find students that employ my thought process not only take more out of the class, but do better on exams and have better long term retention.

Answer 3

I have to support the idea of learn as you go rather than last minute cramming. If your objective is to actually learn the material being taught rather than "pass the exam" then you must attend all lectures and attempt to learn the material as it is being delivered.

Many CS exams focus on applying your knowledge rather than memory. Cramming implies that you can memorize a few facts without full understanding and then present these facts to the examiner. But to get a good grade you need to demonstrate understanding of the concept behind the facts. And that takes time.

As a lecturer myself I see many students that do one or the other. The students that stand out and do well are the ones that work all year long. They ask the most questions and are generally more troublesome than the students that wait for the last minute. But I prefer these troublesome students because at the end they are the ones with real understanding. I have no hesitation in recommending them for jobs an so on.

Answer 4

I am really lazy so i decided that i would learn the Method of Loci for this curriculum. Worked really really good for me (and for my girlfriend, who studies Law, too). It really simplified learning and made it way more fun while shortening the learning span (a lot imo). As far as i can say it works pretty good for computer science and law and it also develops fantasy and imagination skills if you train it regularly. I usually train for about an hour a day when i have holidays and more during the curriculum.

I got the Method of Loci from a book written by a German memory athlete (if there is a English word for it please let me know) Gunther Karsten (german Wikipedia) and it was really enlightening!

Before this curriculum as said above i was lazy and a last minute learner. That did not work out too good (but not too bad as well :).