Math is cumulative, always. Typically, the material at the end relies on the material at the beginning, so testing on the end usually means testing on the beginning as well. Also, math never experienced the same level of grande inflation as the humanities, at least not in any decent college. It is common that about half the class usually gets A's and B's, (fewer A's than B's) and half gets C's and D's (fewer D's, and F's for those who really screwed up). Sometimes it's stricter, sometimes easier. So a C in math means about the same as an A- in an English class. Also, math exams are usually scored differently. Often, exams are made intentionally difficult so that a student has to know everything cold and be able to think creatively to get 100%. So an average score might be 65% or even lower. That's not a D, that's a B-. Perhpas it's different for remedial/precalculus courses, but it's pretty common for intro calc and anything beyond. I knew a physics professor who gave an exam to a freshman class once where the average was 39% -- on a multiple choice exam where you could expect to get 20% by randomly guessing.
Studying advice: go through all the material once, and note what you didn't understand. Then work out what you didn't understand -- on your own, at office hours, with a tutor or TA, or best, with other students. Go over all your homework and work out whatever you screwed up on, the same way. Then go over everything again to make sure you didn't miss anything. That's not one night of studying -- that's a few weeks, an hour or two each day. You should see how everything fits together, and that there are only a handful of things that you really need to remember. So don't memorize many formulas, but figure out how to derive them quickly.
Exam advice: don't freak out if you don't know something when you look at it. Move on and come back to it. I've taken exams where I didn't get a single thing when I first looked at the exam, but then realized what what the questions were asking after a bit. Freaking out would have made that impossible. Second, even if you don't get something, work as much of every problem as you can. You'll either get partial credit, or you'll figure it out after all. (Unless it's a strict multiple choice -- but in that case the questions are usually simpler.)
Quote from: Janet Lynn on December 07, 2009, 08:49:02 PMMaybe it is just the hormones.
I really, really, really hope that wasn't meant seriously.
