BigEvil
Member
A few hams have recently asked me how best to study for their extra test, I figured I'd put it here so you guys would have it for reference
Credit is due not to me but to Dan Romanchik KB6NU & Mike Zydiak W2MJZ (I found this on Dan's site & the posting was by Mike)....
I got the general concept HERE . The article is insanely long so if you don't feel like reading it thats fine, I'll recap what to do below. The one very very important concept discussed in the article is to AVOID the wrong answers at all costs! What that means is that during the course of your studying you want to not look at the wrong answers, don't dwell on them etc.
Here's what you do.....(this is a streamlined version of the article that I've modified based on my studying. I was able to spend about an hour a day for a week and ace the thing).
1-You'll need to grab the Gordon West extra class study guide and the extra class flash & pass index cards from HRO...
2-After that you go through gordons book in its entirety and highlight each correct answer, don't read the wrong ones, just read the question and skip to the answer. WHILE you're doing this (and this is the hard but VERY important part) you need to re-arrange the Flash and Pass cards into the same order as Gordon West's book. For example, each question has a specific number EA71054 bla bla so just find the card as you go through each question in his book so that your cards mirror the order of gordon's book verbatim.
3-Separate your sorting into chapters so you end up with 16(i think) piles of index cards (its good to wrap them with colored rubber bands to help keep track of what is what) After that you just start tackling the piles one by one.
4-Starting with chapter one you go through the cards and place any you get wrong in a review pile to re-read and review.... Once you can do the whole chapter without missing a single card then move on to the next chapter. The best part is you don't HAVE to do the chapters themselves in chronological order (for example feedlines and safety are close to last but MUCH easier than polar coordinates)... Every day at least once review ALL of the completed chapters (this will take you longer every day because you'll have more to review). For those particular troublesome cards (the ones you don't stop missing) mark them in a way where you can have them in a "really really hard" pile or whatever, those ones you'll just simply have memorized by the end since you'll be reviewing them every day. If you take an hour a day then within a week or two tops you'll be going through all 700+ questions (it takes about and hour or two to run the whole set) and will probably only be missing a few cards TOTAL.
You'll pass with ease. I took my test in 15 minutes with zero questions wrong.
Hope this helps
K1LA
p.s- important!! if you read the whole article above (good on you! I thought I was the only one) you can and should skip the whole part about re-ordering AND reading Jack's syllabus. While I liked the concept of what he did when it comes actually getting ready to nail the test in a short time I actually I found reading and re-ordering the syllabus to be useless and time wasting(I spent a full day on it and never used it).
Credit is due not to me but to Dan Romanchik KB6NU & Mike Zydiak W2MJZ (I found this on Dan's site & the posting was by Mike)....
I got the general concept HERE . The article is insanely long so if you don't feel like reading it thats fine, I'll recap what to do below. The one very very important concept discussed in the article is to AVOID the wrong answers at all costs! What that means is that during the course of your studying you want to not look at the wrong answers, don't dwell on them etc.
Here's what you do.....(this is a streamlined version of the article that I've modified based on my studying. I was able to spend about an hour a day for a week and ace the thing).
1-You'll need to grab the Gordon West extra class study guide and the extra class flash & pass index cards from HRO...
2-After that you go through gordons book in its entirety and highlight each correct answer, don't read the wrong ones, just read the question and skip to the answer. WHILE you're doing this (and this is the hard but VERY important part) you need to re-arrange the Flash and Pass cards into the same order as Gordon West's book. For example, each question has a specific number EA71054 bla bla so just find the card as you go through each question in his book so that your cards mirror the order of gordon's book verbatim.
3-Separate your sorting into chapters so you end up with 16(i think) piles of index cards (its good to wrap them with colored rubber bands to help keep track of what is what) After that you just start tackling the piles one by one.
4-Starting with chapter one you go through the cards and place any you get wrong in a review pile to re-read and review.... Once you can do the whole chapter without missing a single card then move on to the next chapter. The best part is you don't HAVE to do the chapters themselves in chronological order (for example feedlines and safety are close to last but MUCH easier than polar coordinates)... Every day at least once review ALL of the completed chapters (this will take you longer every day because you'll have more to review). For those particular troublesome cards (the ones you don't stop missing) mark them in a way where you can have them in a "really really hard" pile or whatever, those ones you'll just simply have memorized by the end since you'll be reviewing them every day. If you take an hour a day then within a week or two tops you'll be going through all 700+ questions (it takes about and hour or two to run the whole set) and will probably only be missing a few cards TOTAL.
You'll pass with ease. I took my test in 15 minutes with zero questions wrong.
Hope this helps
K1LA
p.s- important!! if you read the whole article above (good on you! I thought I was the only one) you can and should skip the whole part about re-ordering AND reading Jack's syllabus. While I liked the concept of what he did when it comes actually getting ready to nail the test in a short time I actually I found reading and re-ordering the syllabus to be useless and time wasting(I spent a full day on it and never used it).
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