So I just finished my first mid term in my first year of university and it was definately not what I expected. I think I probably got around 75%. I was just wondering if anyone had suggestions with keeping up with classes and doing well on exams. (other than show up/read and study) Thanks!
The single best thing you can do is attend all of the lectures.
IMHO, the next best things to do are to get your papers in on time and actually do the reading.
And last, but hardly least, make sure your instructor knows who the heck you are.
Good luck!
Don’t cram for tests. It really doesn’t do you any good.
Go to all the classes, do the reading. That’s the most important part. Go to study or review sessions also if that’s your thing.
Do some review in the days leading up to the exam, and the night before, go out with your friends and relax. (But don’t go binge drinking at a frat party.)
Your school probably offers some sort of free tutoring service. Take advantage of it.
Visit with your professors regularly.
Go to every class.
Read and study.
During class, prod the prof on “what’s going to be on the exam”. Most decent profs will give you some hints.
I appear to be flogging a dead horse here, but I’ll still suggest that you go to every lecture. I know from experience that this can seem quite pointless (“I’m barely even awake during lectures, so how can I learn anything?”). But trust me - things do sink in. It’s a hell of a lot easier to study things that seem vaguely familiar than things that you’ve never heard of before.
Having said that, you’ll learn a lot more during lectures if you’re active about it. Don’t just mindlessly copy down what’s written on the lecture slides - try to interpret what they’re saying and paraphrase. If the lecturer asks the class a question, answer it. If you’re not sure of the answer, answer it anyway. If you’re too shy, at least think about (and preferably write down) what you would say if you had to answer it. If the lecturer doesn’t ask the class questions, ask the lecturer questions. Sure, you may feel like a geek, but geeks get good grades.
Oh, and another thing - don’t waste time on the Straight Dope Message Board when you really have to do an assignment worth 20% of your final grade that was due yesterday.
I had a prof that was a real arrogant jerk. Every time you would ask him a question he would give a big sigh, look at the class, and ask if anyone else is lost. Shit like that. Of course everyone else is class was too petrified to say anything. One of his canned answers was, “didn’t they teach you that in high school?”. (Um, yeah prof, they teach shear-transformations in all the high schools now, yep.) I kept asking questions though, people would look at me like I was some kind of masochist. Yep, a masochist with an “A”, that’s me. 
Sometimes you just can’t get above a certain mark which a professor believes is unattainable. There are a lot of classes where students compete for the best D. The problem with this is that when a potential employer or another school looks at your GPA, all they see is the number.
For example, one of my final-year marks is a 52. None of the six students in the course, to my knowledge, got better than a 60, and some of them failed. Getting the 52 required two weeks of studying and copying out 200 pages of notes. When the exam was marked, most of my answers received a zero unless they were exactly what the prof was looking for. If an answer was completely correct, he changed his interpretation of the question so that my answer wasn’t complete.
There’s actually nothing you can do in this kind of situation, except hope that it doesn’t happen enough times to cause serious problems in the future.
Shouldn’t this thread be in IMHO?
Anyway, like friedo said, when revising for exams you really shouldn’t cram. Try making brief notes that cover all the main points of a particular topic…basically, try and summarise one chapter’s worth of material into one page. And bullet points help. Or you could try doing some brainstorms of spider-grams to help you link ideas and thoughts together with more clarity.
Best of luck (and save some for me… I got them mid-terms comin’ up as well!) 
Summarise your notes, over and over and over …
Get a big pile of recycled paper and Summarise your notes, over and over and over … from memory.
Keep doing this.
And ask the lecturer if you are unclear on something.
I think my response now be “no deuchebag, that’s what I’m paying $28000 for you to teach me”. (Somewhere in grad school I decided I was not paying an exhorbitant amount of money to pander to some jerks ego.)
Moved to IMHO.
-xash
General Questions Moderator
I remember a law school professor remarking that education was the only good she could think of where the less people got for their money, the happier they were! Sitting in the back of the lecture, inert or playing Gameboy (when you bother to show up at all) is a classic example. Given a choice, sit up at the front. Yeah, that’s not where the cool kids hang out, but it helps fight boredom and forces you to pay attention. If it’s the sort of subject where you have a fair amount of gut memorization to do - never fun, but necessary in basic science classes, foreign languages, etc. - make your own flashcards. Don’t buy commercial ones, even if they’re available, because the very process of making your own helps you learn. And never, never expect to understand things the first time. Very often, people in university (or graduate school) expect everything to come easily because they’ve never been really challenged before. Being challenged means work, folks, and there’s no harm in that even if it ain’t fun. Don’t let your ego get in the way of your learning. I watched a friend of mine self-destruct in law school largely because he couldn’t adjust to being middle of the pack - or to the idea of actually having to work hard just to get a B (the middle of the grade curve in our law school). Good luck!
Speaking as a lecturer -
If you miss a lecture, catch up asap.
Ask questions if you don’t understand - preferably in the lecture. If you don’t get it, probably most of your cohort don’t either. Since we lecturers don’t know the background of each and every student (and couldn’t design a lecture to suit all even if we did), it’s entirely likely that someone will be confused. If you still don’t get it, speak to the lecturer afterwards rather than keep asking the same question.
Ask supplementary questions, provided they are relevant, and not designed to show how much cleverer you think you are than the lecturer.
Answer questions, if the lecturer asks them. You’ll appear keen, you face will be noticed and if you are the only one who appears interested, you will probably find that the lecture is delivered at your pace …
Get yourself noticed, but in a good way. No one is going to mark you down for being a prick, but they’re not going to speak up for you at exam boards or find you that extra couple of marks you need to maitain your average etc. Being an unknown is almost as bad. It can be quite sad when we sit at an exam board, a student’s marks are borderline but no one can remember who the hell the student is so there is no one to “talk up” his mark into a higher classification.
Be mature. Talking, giggling, being too laddish to write notes means you will probably miss something.
Being bright but lazy may get you through school, and even through your first year at university, but I’ve yet to meet anyone who has managed to complete their degree without some effort. Unless they learn how to play the system, of course, but you may as well put that effort in learning.
Your lecturers aren’t out to get you. That said, if someone fails to turn up to lectures and/or is a pain in the arse when they do, I feel no obligation to drop everything and give them a one-to-one cramming session the week before the exam.
And, most importantly of all. Do the suggested backgroung reading. Even better, do some independent research. It really does go down well in exams.
One of my students managed to score 93% on my exam by doing this. This was responsible for getting her over the borderline into a higher classification of degree.
Roches - that’s a serious allegation. I teach at a British University and presume you are at an American one, but although the systems are different, I would expect the same standards in academic integrity. If you have proof of what you say happened, you have cause for complaint.
Other than attending all the lectures, taking notes, reading for the class, and studying…
Attend any free tutoring sessions you can find.
If your University has a writing center, have them critique your papers before you turn them in. (At my school, teachers get a list of who goes. It can help your grade if they see the effort.)
Know your teacher and make sure your teacher knows you.
I always type my notes from class and from my reading. It seems to make the information stick better in my head.
If you can find tests from past years, study them. The questions might change, but the format will be similar.
Good luck! The first test will tell you a lot about the course. Sometimes a 75 is a good grade. Asking for a class average, high score, and low score can help you find out where you stand. (I made a C in a class where the high score was a B and the class average was an F.)
Man, you can’t know how many times I wanted to say that. This was a summer course at a very prestigeous school. So, most of the students there were very reluctant to ask questions, figuring it might make them look “average”. The class started out with 40 people, I think there was about 12 of us left at the end.
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Register for 6 or 7 classes. Go to them all the first couple weeks. Drop the ones that you see you’re not going to like (because of the prof, or some other reason).
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If your grade in a class is not where you would like it to be, talk to the prof about doing an extra-credit project.
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In high school you can usually just show up once in awhile and pass, in college you better keep up with the attendance, homework, and reading or they will leave you in the dust.
As someone mentioned, don’t be afraid to ask whether a specific thing might be on the exam, although please don’t do like the girl in my Tox class who asks that question for every single slide the prof shows. It just bugs the rest of us.
Do the review questions at the end of the chapter, and if your book comes with a study guide, use it.
Also, quizzes can go a long way towards familiarizing you with the teacher’s style of questions, and can also show you weak areas that you’ll want to focus on. When you take one and get it back, keep it (if your instructor will let you) and use it for review.
Finally, if possible, get together with some of your classmates and have an informal review session. I’m doing this on Thursday for an exam.
Good luck!
Robin