A. Cramming for success: study and academic work

Study and exams

Before an exam you can revise or cram ' for it. If the exam happens every year, you can look at past papers². Some things can be memorised or learnt off by heart. But rote-learning³ is not sufficient for most subjects. It is also possible to use mnemonics⁴. But tricks are not enough, and the best idea is to bury yourself in your books⁵ until you know the subject inside out⁶.

 

¹study intensively for a short time

² exam papers from previous years

³ learning purely by repetition

⁴ [/ni'moniks/ tricks that help you remember something, for example: 'i' after ‘e’ except after 'c' is a mnemonic for English spelling (e.g. friend, but receive)

⁵ spend the maximum time studying

⁶ know it completely

Written work for courses, etc.

Word	Description
Composition	could be just 50-100 words, often used to refer to children's worwork work
Essay	longer than a composition, more serious, hundreds or even thousands of words
assignment	a long essay, often part of a course, usually thousands of words
project	like an assignment, but emphasis on student's own material and topic
portfolio	a collection of individual pieces of work, not necessarily written
dissertation	a long, research-based work, perhaps 10-15,000 words, for a degree or diploma
thesis	a very long, original, research-based work, perhaps 80-100,000 words, for a higher degree (e.g. PhD)

 

The writing process and evaluation

It's a good idea to start with a mind-map¹ when preparing an essay. Always write a first draft² before writing up the final version. Your essay should be all your own work; plagiarism³ is a very serious offence in most colleges and universities.

There is usually a deadline⁴. After the essay is submitted⁵, it will be assessed⁶ and usually you can get feedback⁷.

 

¹ diagram that lays out ideas for the topic and how they are connected to

one another

² first, rough version

³ using other people's work as if it was yours

⁴ date by which you must hand in the work

⁵ handed in (formal)

⁶ evaluated and given a grade

⁷ comments from the teacher/tutor

 

Aspects of higher academic study

University academics carry out [less formal 'do'] research and are expected to read academic journals [note: not magazines], which publish papers/articles on specialised subjects. If a library does not have a book or journal, you can usually get it through Inter-library loan [system where libraries exchange books/journals with one another]. Academic study can be very demanding and intensive, and some students drop out [leave the course before the end because they cannot cope], but the majority survive till finals [the last exams before receiving a degree].

 

Exercises

I. Correct the wrong usage of words to do with written work in these sentences.

1. His PhD assignment was 90,000 words long and was on the history of US place names.

2. Little Martha did her first dissertation in school today. It was called 'My family'.

6. We have to hand in an essay at the end of the course. It can consist of up to five different pieces of work.

7. The teacher gave us the title of this week's project today. We have to write 1,000 words on the topic of 'If I ruled the world' and hand it in next Monday.

8. At the end of this course you have to do a 5,000-word thesis which will be assessed, and the grade will contribute to your final degree.

9. I think I'll do a study of people's personal banking habits for my MSc composition. It has to be about 12,000 words.

10.I've chosen to do the portfolio instead of the two exams, because I like to do one single piece of work where I can research something that interests me personally.

II. Rewrite this short text using active words and phrases instead of the underlined words.

When I'm preparing intensively for an exam, I don't see any point in looking up exam papers from previous years, nor is there any point in just learning things by memory. 1 know some people develop very clever memory tricks to help them remember the material, but there's no real substitute for re-reading and going over the term's work. It's a good idea to have somesort of diagram to organise your ideas, and memory-learning is useful, but in a limited way.At the end of the day, you just have to read a huge amount until you feel you know thesubject 100 per cent.

III. Use the context to guess what these idiomatic expressions about studying and exams mean and choose the right answer.

1. It's very easy to fall behind with your studies if you miss even just a few classes.
a) stay close behind other students b) find yourself far behind other students
c) get ahead of other students

2. She seemed to just breeze through the exams. Everyone else was in such a panic and almost had nervous breakdowns.

a) do them calmly and efficiently b) not take them seriously

c) cheat in them

3. I just can't seem to get the hang of English prepositions. Just when I think I've learnt them I make new mistakes.

a) memorise b) understand c) enjoy

4. When I sat down and looked at the exam paper my mind just went blank. Everyone else seemed to be writing away quite happily.

a) became confused b) became very focused c) became empty

IV. Answer these questions

1. What do we call the first attempt at writing something, e.g. an essay?

2. What word means 'the date by which you must do something'?

3. What word means 'using someone else's ideas as if they were yours'?

4. What are more formal words for 'to hand in' and for 'to mark'?

5. What verb do we use when someone doesn't complete their course?

6. What is another word for an academic article? Where can you read them?

7. What is the name of the system for getting books from other libraries?

8. What word means 'the comments you get back from the teacher about your work'?