- During the first portion
of the art history course,
I was actually failing the course.
I just could not grasp the concepts,
I, you know, suffered through
major test anxiety, so
I wouldn't fully elaborate on
what it was I was comparing,
what it was I was thinking about,
you know, in class it was a lot easier
to have a general
conversation, so one of the
techniques that I used
when I started taking tests
was, of course, predict what I thought
the questions would be and then structure
my notes in a manner
where I was just having
a general conversation of
explaining the material
as if I were in class.
And then, I applied that
to the test material
or any of the class work that we had
to make sure I got all
of the major details.
- I personally study by
going through Powerpoints,
usually my professors
are really, really good
about having all of their Powerpoints up
like, even from the first day of class.
I mean, Dr. Terrano, I've told you that
sometimes like all of her stuff is up
from the very beginning.
Or they'll put them up as they go,
which is really, really helpful, because
even if you have a
textbook, sometimes it's
just easier, especially now
that most of us are more used to
using Powerpoints and things
and the computer to study.
Then, you can do a Powerpoint and
you can even take the pictures,
like the paintings and
things from the Powerpoint,
and make your own, where you do,
and I've done that once or twice,
taken the painting, and
put it on one slide,
and then the name of the artist
and the period and everything
and put it on the next slide.
It's kind of, it's a
different way for me to
do flashcards, I know
that there are, like,
online versions of flashcards,
but I haven't really
utilized that as much.
I think I might start doing
that this upcoming Spring.
And I do that when I help
other people study, too.
Like, we'll go through the Powerpoints
and I'll have them, or even
with myself, when I study,
I say the name of the painting,
who painted it, the time
period it was painted,
what is the political or social
meaning of the painting, cause that's
really, really important.
Even sometimes what was happening at the
time of the painting,
because, like I said,
if you don't understand the period,
you don't understand the work.
So, I think it's all really important.
Even if your teacher doesn't necessarily
peg that down as one of the main things
that he or she wants, you should always,
I feel, for art history, go over that
so that you do understand it
better than you think you do.
I think as far as studying, one way that
my mom was telling me
about, because she was an
art history major when she was in college,
and they didn't have, you know, computers
and Powerpoints and online
flashcards and stuff.
So, what she would do, is
she would take her textbook
and she would take
index cards and cover up
the information on the side, kind of like
what you would see in a Powerpoint
or even if you go to a museum website
or the text underneath,
you know, the paintings
in the museum, you know, artist, date,
the width and height and all that.
And, she would cover that up and do
basically the same thing
you would with flashcards,
but just, without, you know, actual cards.
- I usually start by just, reading
straight through the
notes to remind myself of
what we went over, what the most important
paintings were, and
only the most important
paintings, the the ones that are gonna
show up on the test, are the ones that
I have the most bullet
points about underneath.
Cause that's the ones that the professor
emphasized the most.
Then, I'll usually pull up
the Powerpoints from the class
off the website that the teacher gives us,
and just take a look
at those paintings that
I thought were most important or
the teacher pointed out the most.
Those are the ones that
I stick to learning the
painter, the artist, as well as the title
and of course, which time
period that painting was from
like romanticism, classicism,
you know things like that.
And basically stuck to learning those
instead of overwhelming myself by learning
the whole Powerpoint or
something such as that.
And again, reading over the notes
two or three times again
before I take the test.
- Use flashcards, so, the test was set up
in a way where you had to
identify certain things,
and you had to give,
like, the explanations
on what it was you were identifying,
and you compared and
contrast a few items as well.
So, what I did was I would
take the main concepts,
put them on flashcards, and put
the definition of the concept
on the back of the flashcard,
then the concept on the
front of the flashcard.
So, that kinda helped me
with understanding the concepts.
As far as being able to
compare and contrast the artworks,
it was just more so of
using the slideshows
that were provided by the professor
to compare that
and take that with the notes
that I had taken in class,
so the notes were kinda structured
by, you know, just style
and time period of the work,
the artist of the work, and then just
kind of relate the historical information
with the artist to what
the artwork would've been.
So, you know, you would've known that
this artist paints, or you know, sketches
in this particular style,
so those were the things
that I would look for
when I was comparing and
contrasting the work on the test.
There were words on the flashcards and
I would use the images
that were just on the
Powerpoint because that gave me a better
picture of being able to see, you know,
the texture, the brushstrokes
on the artwork, and, just
kind of, all of the colors,
how everything was
contrasting and structured.
Versus, looking at it on a flashcard,
which would've only given me, you know,
the name of the work, the auth- I mean the
painter of the work, and then what the
historical significance of the work was.
So, I would use the Powerpoints
and then kind of remember
the work in that manner,
and just attach the artist to the work
and then that way, I
knew, okay, this artist
has this particular
style of doing his work
and relate that, as well, to the
time period that the work was.
Okay, so, I know this
particular historical event
was going on at this time, so this artwork
was related to war, or this
work was related to poverty,
or, you know, whatever it was.
This one was critiquing the government.
I did a mixture of both
memorizing techniques as
well as reviewing my notes.
With Professor Terrano particularly,
I knew if she repeated
things multiple times
in class, that it was
bound to be on the test,
so I would just kind of put an asterisk
beside the concept that we were discussing
in class if it was something
that she repeated multiple times.
And I knew to look for that on the exam.
I also tried to, after the first exam,
predict what would be
on the following exam.
So, after looking at the structure of her
exams the first time, I would try and
predict the questions that she would ask
having known what the structure was.
