Christina's LIS Rant
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Comps preparations
I've re-read the majority of the things I have on my reading list, and I'm coming down to the test-taking time. The only problem is that by stringing this out over more than 6 months, I have loose pieces of information in my head when I need to come to some connected whole.
From now until the time when I take my exam, I'm going to be
- brushing up on my essay exam-taking skills
- reviewing notes taken while doing the readings (either within the last 6 months or at first reading) and preparing mini-essays to try to integrate pieces from different sections.
- doing practice exam questions using questions my Advisor prepares and ones given to previous comps-takers at Maryland. I have these for communications, research methods, and information retrieval, but not for cmc or sts. STS is the one that might cause the most problems because I don't have any examples.
The format of the exam is 2x2hour questions for each of the major areas, 1x2hour question for each of the minor areas, so 8+6= 14 hours exam time to be taken over the course of 5 contiguous working days (but you can have a weekend in the middle). You get a computer that's wiped clean except for a word processing program and you get stuck in a little room and you come out 2 hours later. You can bring water and ear plugs, scrap paper and a pen. Non-native speakers get slightly more time and can bring a dictionary.
From now until the time when I take my exam, I'm going to be
- brushing up on my essay exam-taking skills
- reviewing notes taken while doing the readings (either within the last 6 months or at first reading) and preparing mini-essays to try to integrate pieces from different sections.
- doing practice exam questions using questions my Advisor prepares and ones given to previous comps-takers at Maryland. I have these for communications, research methods, and information retrieval, but not for cmc or sts. STS is the one that might cause the most problems because I don't have any examples.
The format of the exam is 2x2hour questions for each of the major areas, 1x2hour question for each of the minor areas, so 8+6= 14 hours exam time to be taken over the course of 5 contiguous working days (but you can have a weekend in the middle). You get a computer that's wiped clean except for a word processing program and you get stuck in a little room and you come out 2 hours later. You can bring water and ear plugs, scrap paper and a pen. Non-native speakers get slightly more time and can bring a dictionary.
Labels: comps
¶ 9:18 AM| |cites (technorati) |
Comments:
Just word processing? no mindmapping or powerpoint for the transition from keywords collection to the ordered outline? That's cruel!
Well, you've got paper and pen - so that's probably what I'll use mine for! brainstorming, mind mapping, then maybe outlining (or I can do that with headers in the document).. oh, and Word 2003 or Word 2007? I'd prefer to have 2007, but who knows? Hopefully not just Notepad (eek!)
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