Learning

      But the most important lesson occurred in another course. I had four exams in two days, well spaced, 9 and 1 on Tuesday and Wednesday. The first one was Modern Drama. I had studied for it but when I got to the classroom they were all strangers! I went to the English office and asked if the exam was being held in the room where the course classes had been. They said, "Yes." Uh-Oh! I went to the exam schedule and found I had misread it. Lo and behold I was having English Literature. I hadn't even looked at it. And of all the courses this was the most "fragmented" It was full of short pieces and little bits and oddments of everything and everybody. I didn't panic. Somewhere I had learned to accept that which I could not change! So I went to do the best I could. I was the last one in, the first one out and got the only A in the class!
      On reflection I realized that if I had studied all quarter and understood what was going on, then I had learned the course and should have no fear of the final. If you cram before the exam you fill your head with trivia and your mind has trouble filtering that informaton for the correct answer that the instructor is looking for.
      The instructor is not an enemy and wants more than anything to see that you got the information that they were trying to get across. I realized that it also told me what I KNEW, not what I had memorized at the last minute which I was almost certain to forget immediately.

      For the rest of my time in school (age 24-33) I did not study within 48 hours of any exam. I would go to a movie and get a good night's sleep!

      My second educational epiphany came when I was going for my Master's Degree at the George Washington University in Washington DC. We were going to be given four long exams in the four fields of Chemistry: Inorganic, Organic, Analytical and Physical. I was worried because it was 1950 and I had had my Analytical Chemistry 8-10 years before! So I went to Dr. Vincent and asked him to let me take his next exam, that I wanted to get an idea about where I stood. I also asked him to keep the result under his hat!
      I sat down and opened the exam, read through it and it seemed totally foreign. I didn't waste any time on questions that I didn't know the answer to and wound up answering about five per cent the first time through. But I was relaxed and went through it again and added a few. I don't know how many times I went over that exam and each time a little more would surface. I wound up with an 85, a very respectable grade. I was shocked to say the very least.

      But what did this mean? I came up with a theory that has always satisfied me and has severely affected my approach to study and exams.

      After that exam, I realized that I had put that information in Permanent Storage. I decided there was a Little Librarian in my brain with a fantastic file room and a big wastebasket. I realized that when I sent him some information there was a tag attached that told him whether or not I was going to need that information at a future time. He would then file it accordingly.
      I believed that idea and it stood me well. The difference here was that I now controlled the messages sent to the Little Librarian and, most importantly, I controlled the little tag that told the Librarian whether or not this was for Permanent Storage! Computer people will understand what I mean if I call this tag an extension, like .jpg or .tif.
      I was pleased when, years later, my younger colleagues at the University would ask me questions about things they had forgotten and I was pleased to be able to get the information from my Little Librarian.

      I picked up another habit which probably won't stand severe scrutiny. I believed my Little Librarian would deliver the information very quickly and that if he didn't it was probably because the information wasn't there.
      I would get an exam and first of all I would read it through, completely, so my Little Librarian would know what information I was going to need and would be working on it while I was doing other things. It was amazing how often when I went to a new question I would find the information ready and waiting. I know everyone of you has experienced this when you can't remember something, you give up trying and then suddenly, a few minutes later, there it is! What has happened is that while you are strongarming the Little Librarian you don't allow him to do his work. Then you relax (give up) and release him to do his thing and "Lo and behold!", there it is!
      I got a related habit, the logic of which is more questionable. I got to believing that if I truly knew the answer to the questions, it should be possible to write all the answers in half the time they allotted. So I did just that. I made a habit of writing my tests in half the allotted time. That way I didn't go through the test several times and start changing good answers to bad. It failed me only once. At Harvard the exams were printed at the Harvard Press and arrived at the test site, usually a large room with hundreds of seats, in a sealed manila envelope. There would be many exams going on at the same time but there would be two or three other students between me and someone else taking the same exam! One time, I worked the exam which was printed on an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet folded into a four page 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 test. I worked the problems on page one and two and halfway down page three. The rest of that page was blank. I thought the exam ended there so I handed it in. On talking out in the hall I realized there was another question on page four! I went to the instructor's office and explained what happened. He gave me a copy of the exam and watched me work the last question. However he ignored it when he corrected the test and gave me a B in a course that was a solid A until then! I have some private explanations which satisfy me.

      So the Dills Rules are:

            1. Do not study during the last 48 hours. You need to find out what you really KNOW.

            2. Read the test through before writing anything.

            3. Go through the test until you come up with nothing new, but do not change any answers unless you are incredibly sure it needs changing.

            4. When you are through, get up and leave.

            5. If you don't know the answer, LEAVE IT BLANK. Don't insult the instructor by putting down nonsense that you think the instructor will not recognize as BS!