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It's my understanding that anything discussed in class or assigned in reading is fair game.

Haven't taken an exam yet, butt that's what I've been told.

kalvano wrote:anything discussed in class or assigned in reading is fair game.

Yup. That's been my experience.

TobiasFunke wrote:My professors skip over a fair amount of the reading they assign. I've sort of given up hope of catching up with my assigned readings, and instead substituted with fabulously good notes of each lecture. Will this be enough to carry me to an A-? Do I need to know anything else besides what's lectured?

This could be a great strategy, or a dire one; there's no way to know until its too late. I have had professors who only tested what was emphasized in class. But, I have also had some who expected everyone to learn what was in the book on their own, and used the class time to talk about policy concerns, emerging issues, problems with certain doctrines, etc.-- none of which was on the exam.
The fact that you've "given up hope of catching up" isn't a good sign, however. Being that far behind is not a good indicator for the success of your broader study habits.

Renzo wrote:

TobiasFunke wrote:My professors skip over a fair amount of the reading they assign. I've sort of given up hope of catching up with my assigned readings, and instead substituted with fabulously good notes of each lecture. Will this be enough to carry me to an A-? Do I need to know anything else besides what's lectured?

This could be a great strategy, or a dire one; there's no way to know until its too late. I have had professors who only tested what was emphasized in class. But, I have also had some who expected everyone to learn what was in the book on their own, and used the class time to talk about policy concerns, emerging issues, problems with certain doctrines, etc.-- none of which was on the exam.
The fact that you've "given up hope of catching up" isn't a good sign, however. Being that far behind is not a good indicator for the success of your broader study habits.

I agree that being that far behind is a bad sign. Also a bad sign that you're giving up. How far could you possibly be behind? You can't be that far into the semester that you don't have time to recover.
To answer your original question, my experience has been that material on the test can come from either lecture material or what was in the assigned readings. I haven't been tested on material in the book that wasn't assigned, but I have been tested on material that I read but was never discussed in class.

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You know who would be a better target for this question than a forum full of pseudo-anonymous strangers? Somebody at your school who has had this professor before (bonus points if they had this prof for the same class).

(And because this is the internet and tone doesn't always come across, please note that I'm trying to be helpful, not snarky.)

LoriBelle wrote:You know who would be a better target for this question than a forum full of pseudo-anonymous strangers? Somebody at your school who has had this professor before (bonus points if they had this prof for the same class).

This is actually the credited response. Professors tend on the whole to be rather consistent with both how they teach and how they test; if you can find out whether your professor previously tested mainly off the lectures or included lots of non-lecture reading assignments, that gives you your answer better than we can.

That said, if you're giving up because you're behind, you're probably a little bit screwed.

I had exams focusing heavily on in-class remarks and discussion that had nothing to do with readings (so screwed if you missed and did not get notes) and exams where max point score required reading basically everything on the syllabus even though they only got through maybe half of it in class. Everything in between those extremes as well.

Unless you have very good reason to believe otherwise, don't try to game the professor/syllabus. This almost invariably ends in tears.

And there's no such thing as being too far behind to try in October. If you didn't do anything for a month, that's a pretty big mistake, but it's not like only reading the syllabus from now on in is a great idea...

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vanwinkle wrote:

LoriBelle wrote:You know who would be a better target for this question than a forum full of pseudo-anonymous strangers? Somebody at your school who has had this professor before (bonus points if they had this prof for the same class).

This is actually the credited response. Professors tend on the whole to be rather consistent with both how they teach and how they test; if you can find out whether your professor previously tested mainly off the lectures or included lots of non-lecture reading assignments, that gives you your answer better than we can.

That said, if you're giving up because you're behind, you're probably a little bit screwed.

TCR

I asked a few professors and they straight up told me. THen I went and asked students who previously had that professor, to make sure the professor was telling the truth.

Study smart, not hard. You're not behind if they only cover whats in class and you pay attention/take notes in class/add to outline/ practice hypos..