Missing it

To help figure out Trevor's way of studying - I'm tutoring him through an online intro to sociology class. This is pretty easy for me - after all, my Bachelor's degree is all connected with Soc & Psych stuff anyway - I took a number of Soc classes for my degree.

I have him set up on a schedule (which he promptly mislaid - so now it's stuck to the wall). He is supposed to read his chapter and the supplemental texts, as well as post something on the online forum & read the lecture notes. The online forum is pretty cool - you can't see anyone else's answer until after you've posted your own :)

I have been skimming the texts, and then sitting in on his quiz at the end of the week.

The quizzes are timed at 30 minutes each. The first one he took in 10 minutes, and then clicked on the 'submit' key before I could stop him. He missed 3 of 20 questions - which isn't BAD - but it didn't have to BE.

The next time, I advised him to answer everything first, and then go back and check his answers, starting with the ones he was least sure about. After all, it's open-book and you can DO THAT. He got 95% on the next test.

The following quiz, he was *sure* about a couple of answers, so he didn't want to double check them. Turns out different theorists have similar theories, but they use their own terminology. He got tripped up on the terms and didn't match the correct theorist, although it WAS the same idea...

This last time around, I skimmed the chapter he had also read, and I didn't read the other texts. If I had - I would have noticed the chapter topic was all about methods of research, whereas the supplemental readings were all about business environments. He was on Unit 5, but the text should have been Chapter 7. He read Chapter 5.

Within a few minutes of looking at the quiz, I recognized the questions were not at all about what had been in what I'd skimmed. Trevor was just confused. He actually insisted he'd read the right chapter. I had him go through the quiz and answer what he could to the best of his ability, while I quickly looked at the next few chapters and figured out it should have been Chapter 7.

I was able to help him find the right terms, but we didn't really have time to check everything. He wound up hitting the "submit" button at 1:26 to go (he kind of freaked when the 5 minute warning came up).

He wound up with 90% - which is pretty decent (especially since he read the wrong chapter - although there are only 10-12 questions for that - the rest are the supplemental readings & lecture notes).

Lesson this week? Don't assume the chapter number matches the unit number. I'm glad I was able to move him past the panic of having read the wrong chapter & get him back on track for the test. It could have been a LOT worse.