Study Hints

• Pay Attention. You'll get best results if you listen carefully while you're in class. Try to act interested (it may be habit-forming). The first things you should expect to see on a test are the topics that I cover in class.

• Take excellent notes on everything I say and write in class. You're here to listen and learn. This is your chance. Scribble quickly, then go home and copy your notes neatly into another notebook. Use your own words, making sure that everything I said makes some sort of sense.

• Do the homework. This is so important that I should write it twice. Do the homework. It's only worth 5 points per chapter, but you'll be happy that you practiced the problems once you've taken a quiz or two.

• Read the book. Skim each chapter before I cover it, then you will have some idea of which questions to ask. You'll also be more aware of what I am skipping. After lecture, re-read the parts of the chapter that I talk about in class.

• Be courteous. If you don't listen and take notes, please be courteous to those who do. You may nosh during lecture, but not in the lab, if you are polite and do not disturb others.

• Ask questions!!!!! It is my job to answer them. People either know all of the answers or they ask. I usually assume people understand me. If you are so lost that you don't know what to ask, then ask me what to ask! There are no dumb questions. Those who ask questions eventually become the smartest people in the class. Those who neither know nor ask will find this course very difficult to pass.

• Suggestions for Lab To do well in the lab and to write good lab reports, you must prepare ahead for each experiment. Before you walk in the door, you should read the lab manual and think through the whole experiment. Write the procedure in your own words, draw pictures, write a step-by-step procedure, and think of questions for the prelab discussion. Your time spent planning for each experiment will pay off in efficiency, speed, accuracy, and safety while you're in the lab.

  Many of you will ignore the previous paragraph. Being a naturally lazy person (and proud of it), I often walked into labs "cold" too. Those labs did not go well. I've been teaching long enough now to have seen hundreds of students come to labs each way (prepared or cold). Those who plan ahead tend to understand the material, do well on reports, and get out of lab early.