Practice/sample Tests

Here's a treatise on my philosophy about practice tests. The bottom line is: They're bad for you. I have caved in over the years and I now upload copies of some old exams for students to look at. There are only two good results of this. First, at least there's a handful of problems everyone will really learn to work. Second, students get to see what the format of the exam is apt to be. These advantages are sorely outweighed by the disadvantages, and if my thousands of students hadn't worn me down over the years, I would cease making old exams available.

The worst result is that so many students will do nothing except work the practice exam over and over. Instead of studying the material for the sake of actual understanding, they will spend their study time memorizing pencil strokes.

So first, they end up learning nothing. Then they, surprisingly, are furious when they bomb the real test because "it was nothing like the practice test." ((facepalm)) First, the practice test is not supposed to be like the real test. Second, but in fact, the real test was very much like the practice test, however, in their narrow view of studying, they didn't learn the broad view which was the goal of the course. If one understands the material at the level we're after, then one would see the similarities between the tests. Further, the point of the practice test wasn't to show you exactly which topics would be covered, so that you could ignore and skip things that are part of the course. It was just to show you how you would be tested (because that reduces some people's anxiety. I don't know why, it just seems to.)

So it does no good (and if fact makes you look bad) if you complain that there was a linear approximation problem on the real text, but none on the practice test. We educator types really, really hate (maybe more than anything except grading) indications that a student is trying to minimize his learning. I can't teach you anything when you're working so hard not to learn anything.

I'm trying to make this clear: The practice test will not help you study for the test. Puh-freakin'-eriod.

Therefore, I have this policy: I don't give out solutions to the practice test, nor do I help students work problems on the practice test. You're already distracted enough from what you should be doing (working a large number of a large variety of problems.) There's no sense in you and I both wasting our time helping you memorize the answers to several problems which won't be on the real test. Especially when that means I have waste my time 100 times, while you do it only once.

The best way to prepare for a math test is 1. to do lots of different problems. Almost all textbooks have more problems than you can work, so you really don't need an extra source of problems (like a practice test)
and 2. make sure you're well-rested and fed before walking the test. I have seen lots of guys try to take math tests when they're so tired that their skin is green. I've never seen one of them pass a test.