Do you keep putting off studying for “just one more day”? Or have something to memorize and don't know how to get started? If so, sign up for this new, low-cost service where trained customer service representatives will force you to study by constantly calling you and making you recite the lists.
You provide them with your syllabus or notes or flashcards beforehand. The operators choose a random question and call you incessantly (or text message you, if you desire) until you pick up the phone and answer it. They keep track of which questions you've gotten wrong and they re-ask those questions more often. They also call more often if you are doing badly. If you continue to show no progress, a large, burly man will be dispatched to your house to scare the crap out of you. You don't know if/when he'll show up, so you'd better keep on plugging along!
Our staff is made up of former teachers, volunteers, college majors; etc: people who are educated enough to be able to choose good questions to ask you and interpret whether your response is correct.
Telequiz by StudyNow is great for learning state capitals, learning a foreign language, memorizing all 10,000 halfbakery ideas -- any learning project that requires a lot of memorization.
Special coaching on test-taking strategies is also available 24 hours a day. Just remember, We Won't Rest Till You Pass the Test!-- phundug, Nov 08 2006 Got my vote. I need that service now! What am I doing on here when I have two entire textbooks to memorize before Tuesday?! :-(-- cetacean, Nov 09 2006 [Ian], this is for exams where you need to memorize the material to pass the exam. I know memorization is short-term and mostly pointless because knowing how to look things up is much more valuable, but it remains one of the only ways to ensure that students actually do the reading.-- phundug, Nov 09 2006 Yes I always thought it was pretty pointless - I usually ace my exams then forget it all two days later, while the understanding has sunk in a long time before I actually memorised anything, kind of changes your way of looking at the world or analysing things rather than simply having a whole lot of un-integrated facts running around in your head waiting to be regurgitated when the question is asked. I mean I guess we do need to learn them (they don't want me poking around inside someone's brain and accidentally remove their hippocampus ("oh I thought that was the tumour")) but I don't think end of semester exams is really the best way to do it.
Writing essays at least gets you thinking about the subject matter instead of just memorising it temporarily, and you always accidentally learn it as you go. I think a better way to do exams would be to give you a question & sit you in a library where you have resources available then supervise you (this would stop people who cheat/plagarise/get others to do essays for them) for the day while you write an essay. I think one of my friends who is a med student actually does have some exams structured like this.
But still, right now in my case I do want that annoying nazi telephone service forcing me to study.-- cetacean, Nov 10 2006 //this would stop people who cheat/plagarise/get others to do essays for them//
"Cheat" and "Plagarise" are such strong words. I prefer to refer to it (as dear old mom used to say) as "using your resources."-- NotTheSharpestSpoon, Nov 10 2006 One of my friends 'used her resources' all the way through her social work degree and never got caught (didn't learn much either, she just has the piece of paper)...I just feel sorry for her clients now.
Besides, I feel it kind of defeats the whole purpose of doing the study thing (unless you really are in it ONLY for the qualification so you can get a well-paid job, in which case it makes more sense to do something that doesn't require qualifications to any great extent - some of those jobs are fairly well-paid) because you pay all this money to not learn anything (not to meantion being unfair on other students).-- cetacean, Nov 10 2006 Although, to qualify the 'not learn anything' I guess it could be argued that learning how to cheat the system is actually a more useful skill than research in certain occupations...-- cetacean, Nov 10 2006 random, halfbakery