Changing the subject completely (unless it’s turned you to drink…), Wessex Scene reports on a study concluding that “alcohol does not reduce awareness of making mistakes but instead reduces how much we care about making those mistakes”. [Thanks to Ones To Watch for the linkage.]
I learned an important lesson at school that stayed with me throughout my time at university.
My Home Economics teacher announced to class that, as a change of plan, everyone would be completing a short test during the lesson. We had planned on doing some baking that day, so the alternative was a rough deal. I could make a mean flapjack…
“Don’t worry,” said the teacher. “Maybe we’ll still make stuff after the test. There should be time…”
When the paper was handed out, the teacher said we could start and she told us to read through all the questions first so we understood what we were being asked to do. Naturally, we were more concerned with finishing the test as quickly as possible. So when the time started, we raced off.
photo by Cathdew
The test didn’t seem too hard. Slightly bizarre, but not difficult:
Read through this test.
Write today’s date at the top of the page.
Write your name in any corner of the page.
What is 100 minus 99?
Touch your nose for 5 seconds.
Get out of your chair, jump up twice, and sit down again.
Draw a circle in the middle of the page.
Wave your arms in the air.
And the list went on like this over a couple of pages. The tasks got increasingly lengthy and ridiculous. And before long, the entire class was all over the place and laughing at each other.
But some people grew suspicious and confused. Instead of carrying on, more and more of us started to read through the test. The final task said, “To complete this test, you only need to complete the first task. Everything else is irrelevant. Thanks for reading through the test first.”
The teacher wasn’t trying to make fun of the class. She said that it may have been a laugh, but there was a serious point: It pays to check what you are being asked to do. If you don’t truly know what’s being asked, how can you be sure you’re on the right track?
From that point, I understood the importance of treating essay and exam questions as seriously as the answers. Your assignments aren’t likely to have tricks like the one I’ve described, but it shows how easily you can end up answering the wrong question and lose big marks as a result.
So what do you do?
Don’t rush in – Always allow a few moments to take in and read through questions and requirements.
Don’t look for key words in isolation – You’re unlikely to be asked to write everything you know about a particular word or subject, so take the question as a whole before you do anything else.
Now break the question down into pieces – When you understand the full question (and only once you do), dissect it for clues and pointers. Have you been given a specific target to frame your answer? Does the question ask you to discuss, evaluate, compare, examine, demonstrate…?
Look for vague comments and anything that’s open to question – Practically nothing can be boiled down to a right or wrong answer. If you can spot a flaw or anything that’s open to interpretation, it may hold the key to how you should answer. Academic writing usually involves explanations and conclusions, but it also involves asking many more questions in return.
If in doubt, ask your tutor – This may not be possible in exam conditions, but for other coursework and class assignments, it’s better to ask for clarification before you rush ahead.
I don’t think I ever thanked my Home Economics teacher for giving us that test. It may not have improved my flapjack recipe, but it was still a great recipe for success…
Google is no stranger to us, right? You may even think Google is a bit too familiar…
Google is probably a big part of your life, one way or another. But when it comes to that single box on the home page, waiting for your keyword input, what do you type in? A recent US study suggested that many Google searches don’t dig deep enough.
“Throughout the interviews, students mentioned Google 115 times — more than twice as many times as any other database. The prevalence of Google in student research is well-documented, but the Illinois researchers found something they did not expect: students were not very good at using Google. They were basically clueless about the logic underlying how the search engine organizes and displays its results. Consequently, the students did not know how to build a search that would return good sources.”
Rather than type a word or two in the search box and hope for the best, there’s a whole host of ways you can make Google find you far better results to suit exactly what you’re looking for. Here are 10 simple ideas to get Google working even harder for you:
1. Go beyond the first page of results
When Google returns about a billion results, you’re not even skimming the surface if you stay on Page One. Dig deeper. You may be surprised at what you find. Used with the tips below, it works especially well, because you’ll be getting more targeted results. What used to return a billion hits may now produce a million. Or a thousand. Or a hundred.
But even if you get a hundred results back, that’s still ten pages of Google goodness going on. If you ignore Page Two and beyond, who’s to say you weren’t amazingly close to finding exactly what you wanted?
2. Find similar words with a tilde (~)
With a WHAT!? The tilde looks like this:
~
Yes, a tilde looks a bit like a curly moustache.
But wait, its powers don’t stop at imitating facial hair. A tilde also tells Google to put a thesaurus to your word. For instance, if you search for “study tips”, you get one set of results. But search for “study ~tips” and you get results for study tips, study skills, study techniques, study guides, and so on.
3. “Use quotes”
When you’re looking for an exact set of words together, put them inside quotes so Google searches for the phrase in its entirety rather than as separate words. You can still add other words outside quotes.
4. Use ‘OR’ in your search
With a few interchangeable words in mind, the ‘OR’ operator lets you search for one or more of the words you choose. Sometimes you want to search a core topic, but with several separate sub-topics. By using OR between each of the sub-topics, you don’t need to bother with multiple searches. [Make sure OR is in capital letters, otherwise Google considers it as the word ‘or’.]
5. Use Google Scholar, Books, and News
Google offers other services that give entirely different results, which can be especially useful when you do academic research. Google Scholar searches for scholarly papers. You can search within a timeframe, limiting the search to just the recent academic papers if you wish. Google Books looks at content inside, you guessed it, books. When you need a juicy quote or want to read more about a technical detail, this type of search is great. You can also study a book before you even have the physical copy in your hands. Google News looks at current events, making it great for relevant links about what’s happening right now in your area of interest. You can even set up email alerts every time new articles are published.
6. Search over a particular time
On the left hand side of your search, click on the text that says ‘More search tools‘. New options will appear to let you search the past year, the past month, the past day, even the past hour. You can also search a specific date range if you like.
7. Filter more
Also on the left hand side of your search, you can select various filtering options on your results. One good (though not perfect) option is to search by reading level (basic, intermediate, expert). You can also look at a search timeline, which can be hit and miss, but arranged differently to the standard search results.
8. allintitle:
Want to search for words that are so important they have to be in the page title? Just add ‘allintitle:’ before your search.
9. intitle:
If you want to search for a specific word in the title, but also drill down further with words that’ll only show up elsewhere on the page, add ‘intitle:’ before the word you require in the title of the page. Type the other words as usual. Google will do the rest of the magic.
10. filetype:
What if you only want to search for Word documents or Adobe Acrobat files? No problem. For Word files, add your search terms and include ‘filetype:doc OR filetype:docx’. For Acrobat files, add your search terms and include ‘filetype:pdf’.
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These search tips are quick and easy, especially after you’ve used them a couple of times. But Google search goes further than that. If these examples have got you hooked, check out Google Guide for a complete overview of everything available at your fingertips.
I’ve seen a lot of stories today about the monetary impact of higher education. Here’s a selection:
A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times shows 56% of respondents saying that university is not worth £9,000 a year in tuition fees.
A survey for VoucherCodes.co.uk suggests that nearly one in ten parents (9% of the 1,400 asked) plan to re-mortgage their house to cover the cost of their children at university.
You can’t put a specific or accurate value on education. Tuition fees and the costs associated with a degree aren’t the same as the value of HE. Some people don’t think university is worth even £3k a year in tuition fees, yet they still place huge value on it.
As for parents, that’s a strange one. Parents should not need to re-mortgage in order to cover costs. For more information on why it’s not necessary, check out MoneySavingExpert’s “20 key facts on fees, loans & grants everyone should know“.
If parents are able to offer more money, there’s no need to be embarrassed. I still hear some people say they are ‘not a charity’ and don’t want to look like they’re ‘on the scrounge’. But this has nothing to do with charity or scrounging. Consider that means testing can result in you getting less money if your parents are high earners. It’s as if expectation is built in that parents should be able to help.
[Edit: Just as I published this post, I got an email from CrossCountry Trains with another study of 1,500 parents and 500 graduates. They found that parents loan their children on average £6,568 during the three year course to cover rent, bills books and clothing. One in five parents claim to give their children more than £12,000.]
Extra money can be useful, even if you don’t need it. And if you do, what better place to start than those who love you? Especially if they want to support you and do have the resources to do so! However, there’s another other side to the issue. One person commenting on Graduate Fog said:
“I know I have an advantage over many people because my parents have been so supportive, and I don’t like that – I would like to be able to feel I am succeeding on my own terms rather than as a result of economic backing others won’t have access to.”
I’ve talked at length that students don’t always win as consumers. It’s practically impossible to get away from money issues, especially under a ‘consumer’ guise. It is important to focus on individual circumstances as well as general money matters, which is why surveys cannot paint the full picture. Surveys and polls have their place, but don’t panic about them in isolation. By all means debate, explore, carefully consider options and make decisions relevant to you. But please don’t panic.
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