BALANCED APPROACH (cont)

Initially, all material should be read through at least once and preferably twice to:

• Develop an overview of the material to be studied.
• Indicate what portions of the material need specific or additional emphasis.

Study material can be separated into the following categories:

• Material that needs to be learned.
• Material that is “somewhat” familiar.
• Material that is currently known.

Additionally, this author suggests making typewritten notes on difficult, important, or unknown material and place in a notebook for easy and frequent reference. This is called “forced feeding”.

When the material has been separated as previously discussed, appropriate time can be delegated to each category. This will provide the best use of study time. The following are general written examination study tips:

• Spend the maximum amount of time on material you don’t know and the minimum amount of time on material you know.
• Spend the maximum amount of time on material that can be expected to yield the most questions and the minimum amount of time on material that yields minimal questions. This can often be determined from several sources as detailed in the next section.
• If available, look at the Announcement Bulletin and past exams to determine the areas questions are drawn from (it is amazing how predictable personnel departments can be when writing a promotional examination as they usually look for the easy route). Remember, most personnel departments are responsible for producing promotional examinations for all city departments within your municipality, not just your fire department. These questions can also provide an excellent source of review material. Additionally, if the current exam writer has written past exams, determine the favorite choice (a, b, c, d) in multiple choice questions. If you have to guess, this will help you to guess intelligently.
• Difficult material can be placed on 3X5 cards and reviewed while riding to work, etc. Remember that 3X5 cards can be a time consuming process, and the information on the cards must be in the same context as the reference material.
• Stay current with your departments changes to your department library. New changes are excellent sources for exam personnel to access for examination questions.
• If essay questions will be used, the personnel who grade these “literary masterpieces” are normally looking for specific items that are pre-determined by the personnel responsible for the exam, not the length of your answers.
  Therefore, practice writing essays on potential subjects, preferably in outline form. This style is easier and faster for you to write, and for them to grade! To the average person, writing an essay in “longhand” requires more time and is usually more difficult to complete than outline form.
• If you are using multiple study partners, meet periodically to review material, discuss new material, and provide accountability to the partners. This author prefers every other week when starting and then weekly as necessary.
• With multiple study partners, it is highly recommended that the partners spend a week alone together several weeks before the written examination. This provides an opportunity to review all material in an environment that is free from phone calls (dump your cell phones), children, and other similar distractions. Prior to the “study week”, have an agenda for the week and follow it!
  As an example, this author attended a study week at a rented cabin in the mountains approximately two weeks before the written examination for Captain. Thirteen members of the study club met for eight days. During that time, we reviewed all of our material, asked each other questions on the material, and briefly discussed interview techniques. We only left the cabin for short walks and food. End result, all study club members promoted to Captain.
• Lastly and maybe most importantly, if you are married, ensure that your spouse understands and supports your commitment to prepare for a promotion. If successful, you both will profit.

In our next article, we will look at putting the program together.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 6:46 am and is filed under FD Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.