E&E and Practice Exams Forum

[persia1921]

Hey Everyone, I just wanted to get a few opinions on whether or not writing out answers to the e&e questions is worth the time and is more/less valuable for exam preparation than taking actual exams?

So far I have been reading the corresponding sections of the e&e both before and after class, and looking at a few questions. I have been looking at the questions and answering them, but not actually writing my answers out. I do want to start practicing writing answers out, but am not sure if I should spend my time writing out questions in the e&e or focus on exam questions.

Thanks for any input.

[tuhaybey]

I think I'd recommend a middle approach- jot down a quick outline of some points you would hit and then checking against the answer they give to see if you hit the same points. If you don't record anything, you end up giving yourself a less than honest evaluation of how you would have answered it. You think "sure, I would have said that and that and that" in hindsight much more readily than you actually think of those things in advance.

Actually writing out long form answers to E&E questions I found to be a waste of time. Definitely do write out full answers to at least some of the full practice exams you take though. If you have a ton of practice exams to work off though, you might also go through and jot down answers for some of those as well. I found that to be a useful way of pulling together answer outlines and you can cover a lot more practice exams that way.

That said, I would add one caveat- if you have an exam coming that will have "short answer" questions, you might want to actually write at least some of the E&E answers out just to practice that.