Excerpts
 

Chapter VI
 

Taking Tests/Exams

149. Professors hate sloppy tests. Be neat with everything.

Make sure your professor can read everything without straining. Write legibly and neatly. Don't scratch things out.

Remember, when professors grade, they look at a paper from everybody in your class. That might be 100 tests; but even 25 is a lot for a professor to grade if it is a lengthy discussion test or has a lot of short-answer questions. If you write poorly or lightly, and the professor has to wrestle with your writing, you are dead (and you are a dummy!).
 

150. Consider erasable ink for exams.
 

I took all my exams with erasable ink. It gave me the authority of ink but the ability to erase and change an answer at will. Erasable ink pens are inexpensive and have an ink eraser on the tip, like a pencil. You can find them anywhere.

Erasable ink is fine for exams, but I didn't like it for anything else. It can smudge, but for one blue book test, it is fine.
 

151. Outline discussion answers in the margin,
and be neat.

If a professor tells you not to write in the margin, then don't. Otherwise, outline the answer to a discussion question in the margin.

Most professors like to see an outline. They know the value of outlines. You can score points with a good outline, and it will help you remember everything, as well as write fast and persuasively. Be as neat with your outline as with your answer itself.

Here's what I do, but you do whatever works for you. I form a column by putting a dash in front of each point I want to make:
 

- Mother performed Dock Street

- Stationed Fort Moultrie under name Perry

- The Gold-Bug

- Annabel Lee

- Considered himself Southern

- Deaths of beautiful women in his life

- First detective story

- Et cetera

Quickly put everything in your outline that occurs to you about a question so you don't miss anything. You can organize your points logically by putting numbers next to them or some such method. If something occurs to you when writing, add it immediately to your outline so you don't forget it.

Always write things down. If you think you will simply remember something later, you are wrong. You won't. This is true about great ideas that occur to you in life. Write them down and date them the moment you think of them. If you don't, you'll lose most of them.
 

152. If you run out of time, your outline can get you some credit.
 

If you have finally gotten to a discussion question and have outlined and written part of it as time runs out, at least the professor will see your outline and will know that you know the relevant issues, but just didn't have time to write them down. Your outline might earn you some points.

153. If your outline looks good, leave it. If not,
erase it.

Leave the outline if it enhances your answer or makes you, or your thinking, look good. Erase it if it doesn't. Here's where erasable ink has great value. If you erase, erase neatly.

154. Jot notes in the margin on anything that might help answer a question.
 

Do not hesitate to help yourself. Write anything you choose in the margin. This is where, again, erasable ink proves its superiority. While leaving an outline for an essay question is probably a good idea, you might want to erase other things you wrote beside multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank questions.

Or maybe not. Use your own judgment. If it can help in any way, leave it. If not, erase it.

. . .