What’s “Right Now” studying?
What are you able to do RIGHT NOW? What knowledge are you comfortable with RIGHT NOW!?
Before any revision. Before any notes, material. What can you do RIGHT NOW? If you’re able to get marks for topics, and you’re comfortable with the knowledge now, why are you going to re-learn it?
As a lecturer, I can spot what students are struggling with when I see their attempts. I can give them some great advice on where to start, and what to work on. (If that happens to be “You don’t know ANYTHING, start again!!”, then so be it. But at least you’ll know!)
CTA Auditing Mock Test
A mock test course, Right Now. Based on Test 1 topics. I’ll give you detailed feedback on your communication, case study planning, and where you need to focus your studying for Test 1.
Repeating subjects?
Every year, I watch repeat students ‘start’ again. They get their study material, textbooks, and start going through the topics. Again.
It breaks my heart. Every. Single. Year.
You already have experience of the subject. It’s time you take advantage of that.
What do I see every year?
Here’s how January goes for most CTA students:
- Wait for registration to be finalised (although you know what you’re going to study)
- Wait for your material (if you’re repeating the year, it’s mostly the same as last year)
- Wait for the list of prescribed textbooks
- Wait until you get the textbooks, have printed out all the study material (This sometimes involves staying late at work to use their printers!!! But we won’t tell if you don’t!)
- Start getting ‘into’ studies by the last week of January.
- First test / assignment is probably early March. You have one month and one week(-ish) to get through all the work.
- Cry
- Cry some more
Time is short. You need to make the most of what you have.
What do I want to see this year?
I want to see students who genuinely ‘get’ that their prior year prepares them for this year. If you’ve studied first year, you should use this for second year; if you’ve finished your second year, you’ll be building on that knowledge for third year. If you’re graduated, you need to use this for your Post-grad. (And for work, obviously!)
That means that you should have a handle on what you do and don’t know. And the way to find that out (especially if it’s been a few months since your last exam!), is to start off by doing a question.
From this, you can assess just how much (or little!), you need to re-visit. You can identify the areas where you need more theory knowledge, and those where you clearly ‘get’ the theory, but struggle to turn it into marks. You also understand what you’ll be expected to DO with the knowledge that you’ve learnt, and are going to learn.
I want to see some Right Now studying!
Why won’t you do this?
Fear.
Fear of feeling stupid. Fear of ‘proving’ how much you’ve forgotten. Fear of failing questions. Fear of reliving past failure experiences. Fear of starting the year off negatively.
You may not necessarily think of these fears, but if there’s a part of you that’s nodding your head thinking “Yes, that makes sense”, and you don’t actually DO what I’m saying here, then you have to ask yourself why there’s that disconnect between what you know you should do, and what you’re actually doing.
Your brain is smart. It will find a million excuses as to why you ‘shouldn’t’ do a question first. Don’t have study material. Don’t have textbooks. Want to ‘save’ the good questions for ‘later’. You’re going to have to outsmart those messages your brain sends!
