Perry Binder's Innovative College Teaching Books

My Tips for the Entering College Class of 2019:

Five Ways to Ace College Exams

c 2010-2015 Perry Binder (first printed in The Huffington Post)

Wouldn't it be great if college classes were pass/fail, and students could focus on learning rather than competing for grades? Let's get back to the real world for a second, as I propose what I would do as a student to prepare for college exams:

1- Ask your professors to give practice quizzes. Each semester is a feeling out process for students to figure out what types of exams a professor gives. Practice quizzes, with no attached grade, can relieve stress and reveal a lot about upcoming exams. I give a ten question practice quiz prior to the first and second tests so students can see my style and tricks. While my exams are "closed book," I give students the option of taking the practices quizzes with or without notes, with the belief that students haven't fully studied at this point. After the quiz, we go over the answers together.

2- On essay exams, ask your professor if you can write answers in an outline format. It is a difficult task for professors to write objective essay exam questions. Except on open-ended questions, they are usually looking for some specific responses. Why make that professor search all throughout your flowery paragraphs for those answers? Organize responses in an outline form and underline key terms. This method will make grading faster for the professor, and thus you have a happier grader.

3- Prepare flashcards for straightforward multiple choice exam questions. Make a flashcard for each term or concept discussed in class. Put the term on the front, with a definition and example applying the term on the back. For example: the legal term, Duty to Trespassers goes on the front of an index card. On the back: In general, homeowners may be liable for creating dangerous instrumentalities on the property. E.g., Jane surrounds her home with a mote filled with water and alligators to make sure Tom stays off that freshly cut lawn. Make sure to study the flashcards in reverse. (look at the back of the card to see if you can identify the term on the front) Sample easy exam question:

Harold's home was broken into three times this year. So he dug a huge hole on his lawn near the window that robbers seek entry. Then he placed a bear trap at the bottom of the hole and cleverly covered it with small branches and leaves. One night while sneaking up to Harold's window, Tim the Robber fell in, got caught in the bear trap, and was seriously injured. The next morning, Harold went out for the newspaper and to see what he'd caught. Tim screamed: "My leg. I'm hurt!" In Tim's lawsuit for injuries, Harold will likely:
a. win because Tim was a trespasser and landowners owe no duty to trespassers.
b. lose because landowners owe a duty to keep the premises free from unreasonable dangers they create for trespassers.

I know which answer you'd like to pick. Choose the other one for exam purposes.

4- For "application" multiple choice questions, talk the material out with a study friend. A well written college exam will make you go beyond the mere memorization of material. Another sample exam question:

This morning on the way to our exam, Marcel purchased coffee at the drive-through window of a local burger establishment. With the car stopped, he placed the cup between his knees and opened the lid to add cream. Accidentally, he knocked the contents of the cup onto his lap, and hot coffee soaked through his sweat pants. He screamed: "Help me, I'm burning, and I've got a
test in 20 minutes!" After completing his exam, Marcel headed straight to the hospital, where doctors treated his third degree burns. He then sued the burger joint for failing to warn him that extremely hot coffee can rip through flesh. A jury awarded Marcel $100,000 in damages, but also found him to be 75% responsible and the defendant 25% responsible for the accident. How much money would Marcel be permitted to recover if the defendant does not appeal this verdict?
a. $100,000
b. $75,000
c. $25,000
d. $0

If you chose letter "c," then you understand the legal concept of comparative negligence. In most states, a plaintiff's award is reduced by the percentage of fault assigned by the jury for an accident. However, in my state, if a plaintiff is found to be 50% or more responsible, then that plaintiff would recover nothing from the $100,000 verdict. Thus, the correct response would be letter "d."

5- On take-home exams or term papers, your computer's Spell Check is not the same as proofreading. True story: In a legal document, an attorney asked the judge for a delay in his case because he was undergoing a delicate medical procedure on his back: Disk surgery. However, he mistakenly typed a different four letter word that looked like DISK, inserting an unfortunate "C" rather than the needed "S." Spell check didn't pick up the error, since the word was spelled correctly. The take-away: Please proof your take-home exams and papers!

Pace yourself on game day. Flip through the exam before starting, to see what you've gotten yourself into. But before taking that test, try to get on the same page with your professor, because s/he really wants you to succeed.

This is the third article I've written in The Huffington Post about the Friedman case:

The Friedman case continues to be defined by delay. Two years after I posed the question, Is Actual Innocence “Capturing the Friedmans”?, the frustrating answer is: We still don’t know. Below is a tangled story of: evidence withheld by the Nassau County District Attorney’s office from its own case advisory panel; a panelist’s subsequent modification of the panel’s original recommendations; a defamation lawsuit filed by the defense against the DA’s office; the recent election of DA Kathleen Rice to U.S. Congress; and a judge set to hear Friedman’s case, though she worked as an Assistant DA with DA Rice for years.

In the above 2012 article, I summarized the case background:

On November 25, 1987, I was sprawled out on my parents' couch, when my favorite high school teacher appeared on the TV news. Arnold Friedman was a retired NYC instructor who taught computer classes in his home for local kids. I watched as he and his 17-year old son, Jesse, were handcuffed and hauled away for horrific child molestation crimes occurring in their basement. I fell off that couch in disbelief. Arnold and Jesse Friedman each pled guilty to avoid a trial, and Jesse learned of his father's prison suicide in 1995. Since his release in 2001, Jesse has attempted to clear his name, so he no longer must register as a Level 3 violent sexual predator. In 2003, new facts about his case emerged in the Oscar-nominated documentary, Capturing the Friedmans, which examined the evidence against the Friedmans and questioned whether any of the allegations against them were truthful. On August 16, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found "a reasonable likelihood that Jesse Friedman was wrongfully convicted" and that "the police, prosecutors and the [trial] judge did everything they could to coerce a guilty plea and avoid a trial." That November, the Nassau County District Attorney appointed a panel of four experts to review the evidence against Jesse.

Click here to continue reading in The Huffington Post