> Exam Tips - Islamic-Life Exclusive (c)

[Raied]

Asalamo Alaikum, as i said earlier, I would be coming out with an Exam TIPS Sheet soon, InshAllah, and i think the time is now.
so INshAllah i will begin now, and as time progresses, i will keep adding things until its perfect. And please feel free to give suggestions.

1.) Firstly and most importantly you need to have full trust in Allah(swt). You have to believe that all victory comes from Allah (swt), and make the intentions to study hard for his sake. Seriously, this is the most important tip of them all. If you get this down pat, then InshAllah every other step will just be a breeze.

2.) Say your Duas. When ever begining to study anything say "Rabi Zidni Ilma" (Oh Allah Incrase me in my Knowledge) Always! InshAllah.
2ndly if you ever feel something becoming difficult, or confusing say "Allahumma laa sahla 'illa maa ja'altahu sahla. Wa 'Anta taj-alul-hazna 'itha shi'ta sahla"
(O Allah, there is no ease, other then what you make easy. If you wish, you can make even the difficult easy)

3.) Manage your time. Don't procastinate like me! Really dont. Your only going to be kidding yourself. Manage the time Allah has blessed you with. If you really need to, then take a sheet out, put on dates, and write in detail what you will do everyday.
If you have 5 exams, then equally sort out the days, and study equal amounts for all courses. If one course is easier than the other, then pay more attention, to the harder one.

4.) Take breaks. This really depends on the person, becuase i know many people who can study for like 16 hours straight, while others (like me) can't study even for an hour without taking 50 breaks. So what you should do is take little breaks. This is what you can do. Study for an hour. Like seroiusly study for an hour. No distractions, no nothing. Just you, paper, pencil, book, and mind. (maybe calculator).
And then, after that one hour take a little 15minute break. Get up stretch, eat something, pray 2 rakats nafil maybe, watch a lil something, washroom,and etc..
Then after that break back to your old desk.
Studying for too long can be of no use, becuase your attention span is only for about an hour or so. After that you can't really pay full attention. So don't FRY your brain!

6.) Pray! By Pray i dont mean as in, just pray in this period of time. You should always be praying. I mean pray as in, those extra salah's. Pray much often, and ask Allah (swt) to make things easier for you. Also read the best book in the world. The Qur'an. Your already reading right? why not read some Qur'an then. InshAllah it will surely refresh your mind!

7.) Make sure you have the right utensils. Something i have noticed is that, when i have a good working pen, and nicely sharpened pencil, i tend to work longer periods of time. This is because if your untensil is nos sharpened, or is runing out of ink, this adds on to the stress of studying which is already there. Then you have excuses to get up from your seat to change pens, maybe, or sharpen your pencil and so on.

8.) When ever you feel sleepy, do Wudu! Really it works. Try it! When ever you think your about to dose off, get and do wudu, and take your time. Do a "Slow" wudu, instead of the quick one you usally do. Splash more water on your face, clean your feet properly, get every lil unknown object stuck in your nose OUT!

9.) Study what you don't know first. A common mistakes people make is, they study for things they find easy, and think that they have understood the whole course. Don't kid yourself. Be honest, and look for things you find difficult. Study those things first, and then move onto things you find easier.

[Yanal]

nos

It's not. Very beneficial JazakAllah.

[SilverLJ]

This is not quite about exams as such but how to answer questions. Often exam questions ask you to make your case, to persuade someone to your point of view so here is a birds-eye view of the art of persuasion. It's in two parts: a simple summary and a much harder section with a fuller discussion. (Might be useful when you are looking for a job also)

Modes of Persuasion
Here are eight suggested modes of persuasion where you can use just one or more than one but they will be of no value unless you know what your main premises are with clarity.

• Mimic the mannerisms of the ones being persuaded
  
• Framing or leading people to think about an issues or opinion in a way that is advantages to you. Instead of saying inheritance tax say its death tax if you oppose it
  
• Less is more - don’t give too many reasons in favour as it can harden opinion against you. TWO reasons for something is often the most powerful.
  
• Grind them down – nagging
  
• The medium is the means choose with care what you use to state your case
  
• Style over substance - don’t hesitate or stumble or give them time to think
  
• Get them angry and feel a sense of injustice so justifying your ideas
  
• Resistance is not futile – move toward a target bit by bit

Based on: Jones, D, L. and Motluk, A, (2008, May 10), How to get exactly what you want, New Scientist, Pages 32-37

Forming your Premises and Argument
Ideas about persuasion are not new and can be found in almost all ancient literature but Aristotle writing in about 350 BC sought to grasp the very roots of persuasion itself which required him to ponder not just the logic or argument but the nature and character and emotions in the ones being persuaded and also the method of demonstration or you can say explanation or perhaps more usually we simply say induction in the absence of deductive certainty. This is because when we try to persuade someone we don’t have the weight of a natural law to support us so induction is closer to explaining what we believe and belief is tied up with the emotions.

Aristotle uses the notion of proof but it should not normally be thought of in a scientific way such as might be used to define gravity but rather in a looser sense that of providing conviction for a proposition or one might say a good indication of its truth. Thus persuasiveness becomes, some 2,500 years ago, and for the first time, a fully systematic and even scientific exercise; it can indeed be taught, but only by a deep grasp of some of the most central features of human nature. Prior to Aristotle the Sophists where experts at argument and often were only interested in winning one not in establishing truth so often neglected stylistic matters, concentrating too much on parataxis, the balance of elements in a sentence, rather than on true syntax, the composition of extended sentences whose elaborate and constantly varied structure should beautifully echo the diverse turns taken by the thought expressed.

This task of persuasion is achieved by the recognition of rhetoric as a techne roughly translated as craft or craftsmanship. The concept of a techne is correlated with that of an episteme. The central characteristic of an episteme is that it evolves its propositions from intuitively given principles. Thus it is the function of an episteme to provide, for some domain of knowledge, a comprehensively detailed account of all salient aspects of the domain, which yet derives by logical steps from certain and indubitable premises.

Rhetoric Function
Thus whole function of rhetoric is the detection in any given subject matter of its persuasive aspects. There are only three kinds of proof available to the rhetorician; those achieved by argument, those by character (something like ethics, good person) and those by emotion. The division requires the orator understand both the principles of argument and the basis of character and emotion: this, of course, is to say that he must be both a logician and a psychologist.

• Epideictic or Display Rhetoric - Isocrates invented the so-called ‘epideictic' or ‘display' rhetoric, used on ceremonial occasions. In a sense one is not trying to make a point here but to entertain and be in tune with the gravity of the occasion.
  
• Forensic or judicial rhetoric - This uses the characteristic topics of guilt and innocence. A forensic speech is an "embellished" statement of facts, with great vivacity, to persuade the audience of the guilt or innocence of a person or group in regard to a particular action in the past. It is the rhetoric of a criminal law court.
  
• Deliberative Rhetoric - This mode of persuasion uses the characteristic topics of honour and advantage. A deliberative speech is an "embellished" statement of facts, with great vivacity, to persuade the audience of the honour and advantage that will accrue to them if they choose to initiate a particular mode of action for the future.

Objects of Persuasion
Persuasion can have only three objectives: the establishment of the justice of its given subject-matter, the establishment of its admirability or the establishment of its advisability. These three tasks of persuasion determine the three genres of rhetoric, which are the forensic, epideictic (or laudatory) and deliberative (or political) branches of the subject.

The problem of Persuasion
The problem in all areas of rhetoric is not the construction of the arguments after the discovery of the premises but rather the initial discovery of these premises. For this activity rhetorical tradition has the technical concept of invention, and invention can be said to be the primary subject of the Rhetoric.

The invention of premises that can support logical arguments, rather than psychological ones as in the dialectic there is the possibility of arguing either by the rigid deductions of the syllogistic method or by the use of more loosely inductive methods, so in rhetoric there is a peculiar rhetorical form of syllogism (a form of argument that contains a major premise, a minor premise and a conclusion) known as the enthymeme (an informal method of reasoning since either the major or minor premise is implied, typically as a conclusion coupled with a reason) so one often finds examples used in an inductive manner.

The syllogisms of logic, dialectic (loosely discussion) and science are directed at the production of conclusions as indubitably true as the premises, the enthymemes of rhetoric are characteristically derived from premises which are true for the most part and inevitably tend to produce conclusions of the same value.

Use of demonstration (Explanation)
This might be thought of in terms of emotional manipulation and the representation of character using clarity, linguistic purity, propriety, amplitude, rhythm, syntax, wit, imagery, simile and metaphor, invention of the various types of proof, logical, emotional and ethical.

There remain to be considered three things: putting into appropriate Language the points that the procedure of invention has unearthed, the arrangement of these into a whole discourse (short or long) and the effective and convincing delivery of the whole work in actual performance.

The most crucial way in which the listener's attention can be retained - and this is the summa bonum (goal which can never be fully obtained but toward which we are constantly moving at an ever accelerating rate) of good style - is by clarity. There are three good oratorical styles: clarity, decoration and propriety.

• Clarity, for instance, consists in the restrained choice of diction and also in linguistic and grammatical purity.
  
• Ornament consists in the use of metaphor (comparisons that show how two things that are not alike in most ways are similar in one important way, metaphors state that a thing is something), simile (a figure of speech comparing two unlike things, often introduced with the word "like" or "as") and figure (using words where the normal meaning is abandoned) and in amplitude, rhythm and sentence structure.
  
• Propriety consists of aptitude both to the subject-matter under discussion and to the particular genre of oratory in which one is speaking. The two concepts, clarity and purity are really distinct from one another but overlap, but clarity has more to do with the correct choice of words whilst purity relates to lucid and grammatically sound ordering.

The sources of amplification (Loosely Emphasis)
Include the avoidance of obscenity, the use of metaphor and the variation of number, all of course with a constant eye on the dangers of lapsing into poetry. The metaphor stresses the charm of unfamiliarity and may speak at a deeper level. You can use rhythm without metre, and this in practice means an extensive use of the paean (a song of praise or joy) form.

The introduction
Used to dispel the slanders that the opponent will have raised against the speaker and thus to secure a fair hearing for his own narration, and the purpose of the epilogue being, obviously enough, to round off the proofs, to recapitulate the entire substance of the work in especially lucid and forceful manner.

The point of this Exercise seems to be to clear the air for the main task of the introduction which is to win the audience round to sympathize with the point of view of the speech as a whole, and in the case of forensic oratory to induce the hearer to acknowledge the speaker's moral supremacy over his adversary. Furthermore, the discussion is enriched by sensitivity to the requirements of the different genres of speech.

From ‘The Art of Rhetoric’ by Aristotle translated by Lawson-Tancred, Penguin, ISBN 0-140-44510-2

[SilverLJ]

Raied's suggestions are all worth consideration but I might add:

1. No amount of praying will help you if you have not put in real effort to learn, God is not going to reward or help you because you have been lazy or left it all to the last minute. If however, you become ill or family matters make it hard for you to keep up you MUST talk to your tutors as soon as possible. Almost all colleges and Universities have ways of dealing with exceptional circumstances and most often they will give you more time or let you take the assessment at a later date but there will never be a lessening of the required standards.

2. You will ONLY be able to deal with what is difficult if you have thoroughly learned the basics - else you have nothing to build on.

3. Successful learning is mostly about choices. You can act responsibly and choose to put in committed effort and learn thoroughly evidenced by setting aside time, knowing about due dates and deadlines, reading the notes, doing the exercises, reading books, steadily working on the assessments, asking questions, feeling you are part of a learning community and so on and that will inevitably bring success. If you don't do this then tacitly you are choosing not to learn.

4. Take breaks as stated. Indeed that latests brain research shows that unless your do you brain never gets a chance to organise itself and the learning will be imperfect. Breaks might be for coffee, a walk, dig the garden, anything that for a long or short time gives your brain a chance to daydream all by itself. This also shows of course that learning cannot be rushed so if you think you can leave it all to the last minute you are just deluding yourself.

5. There is not just one way or one place to learn, thoughts and ideas can come any time so don't limit your self to saying you must be at your desk, you must have quiet you must have this or that before you can learn - doing that just become an excuse.

6. You must know what you have to do and then do it. Its not the tutors responsibility, its not your mothers, its not your employers, ... its YOURS.

Lots of people have written about learning and wisdom:

• Bible Proverbs 2:6 "And here's why: God gives out Wisdom free, is plainspoken in Knowledge and Understanding. He's a rich mine of Common Sense for those who live well, a personal bodyguard to the candid and sincere. He keeps his eye on all who live honestly, and pays special attention to his loyally committed ones."
  
• "It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well." (Rene Descartes)
  
• "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is a habit." (Socrates)
  
• (on learning anything) There is a better way than any of those [teaching methods] and one which is generally overlooked - it consists in the desire to learn. (Rousseau)

[Raied]

Thank you very much SilverJ for the additions. They are all true and very helpful.

Appreciate it!

[SilverLJ]

Mindset
What is your mindset, how do you think about work and success or is it all in the hands of God and you can do nothing about it?.

Here are 4 questions for you to ponder and I will in a few days time write some notes on what modern pshychology says about them and I think you will find it surprising. But add some comments of your own about what you believe to be true, what your teachers believe and what your family believe?

1. Students who are seen to have high ability relish a challenge - true or false?

2. School Success Energises students - true or false?

3. Praise, particularly praising intelligence is hugely encouraging - true or false?

4. Belief that students’ confidence in their intelligence is the key to success - true or false?

4. Intelligence is a fixed quantity, God given at birth and it cannot be increased - true or false?

Learning has a logical element, an emotional elements and a spiritual element and we must nurture all three if we are to succeed.?

[Assad]

1. Students who are seen to have high ability relish a challenge - true or false?

I think It depends, personally I felt that as I was in a more competitive environment and I see my fellow students ahead of me so it acts as a challenge for me to move beyond them. Those who are seen as possessing high ability are rather more content.

2. School Success Energises students - true or false?

True, studying in a highly acknowledged college made me more diligent at my work.

3. Praise, particularly praising intelligence is hugely encouraging - true or false?
Depends, If over praised, I will know its a prank.
4. Belief that students’ confidence in their intelligence is the key to success - true or false?
True.

4. Intelligence is a fixed quantity, God given at birth and it cannot be increased - true or false?

I believe that we should believe in our objective. If we are gifted with intelligence than use it, If not than work hard to achieve the objective.

Learning has a logical element, an emotional elements and a spiritual element and we must nurture all three if we are to succeed.?[/COLOR][/QUOTE]

True - I hope we are not getting anywhere near to trinity :)

[SilverLJ]

Some thoughts on my questions, you will find the answers a little counter-intuitive but they are backed by the latest psychological research (See book list at the end)

It is not easy to say what is meant by mindset but it think of it as being aware of how you see and interpret the world. It has been called such things as ‘meaning systems’ or ‘self-theories’ and mostly we are not really aware of them but unconsciously they do fix the way we think and act. Dweck (1999) points out that even Piaget, a champion of logical thinking and its development, came to believe that the meaning systems that people adopt, have emotional and spiritual dimensions and are more important than logic in shaping thinking and consequent actions.

Becoming self-aware of how you see and organises your world (logically, emotionally and spiritually) and generate meaning from your experiences allows you to access and assess your mindset and hence make changes. Dweck (1999) challenges the following four widely held beliefs.

1. Students who are seen to have high ability relish a challenge - such students are often the most worried about failure and their abilities, often collapsing when difficulties confront them. For example, they run into a learning difficulty and because they don’t find it easy they retreat and start using avoidance tactics.

2. School Success Energises students - success in itself does little to help a student cope with setbacks and often has the opposite effect. For example, students might have success on one course and automatically think it will always be like that so when they move on and their work is criticised they are unable to face up to it or treat it as a challenge because it touches a tender spot on the ego or self-belief and this can lead to the failure fear syndrome “I never try unless I know I can succeed”.

3. Praise, particularly praising intelligence is hugely encouraging - this is a belief we all share because we want to encourage students (or anyone) and promote desirable qualities but it is in the end more likely to lead to fear of failure, self-doubt and a poor ability to cope with setbacks. For example, one might do a good piece of work and get deserved praise for it but unfortunately it can create fear of failure because now others have an expectation about your work and sadly all too often this can lead to work avoidance strategies because you want to get praise but might not. It is not that praise itself is a bad thing, far from it, but we rarely praise people for the effort as if the success cost nothing.

4. Belief that students’ confidence in their intelligence is the key to success – this sounds logical, if you are smart you can deal with any challenge, take it in your stride. However, many of the most confident individuals do not want their intelligence tested and when it is their high confidence levels all too often evaporate. For example, when their decisions are critically challenged they don’t see that as helpful but almost as personal affront so their confidence is quickly shaken when confronted by difficulty.

5. Intelligence is a fixed quantity given by God - this sounds true but it is not. The fact is that if you are good enough to start a course then you are good enough to get to the very top. The only thing that stops you is lack of effort. It has been suggested that it take 10,000 hours to reach the very top whether its learning to play the violin or become a physicist so its up to you, put in the effort over a longish period of time and you will get there. This does not mean sitting at a desk in your garret reading books all the time, its means reading, talking, doing, dreaming, debating and so on but all with persistence.

It is not suggested here that failure and criticism are necessarily more beneficial than success and praise but it’s not, definitely not, the heart of motivation. Dweck and others have convincingly shown that motivation at its heart is about seeing that intelligence is not a fixed quantity, valuing effort, seeking challenges and persistence in the face of obstacles; these are the qualities one needs to foster and it’s easy to see they have emotional and spiritual dimensions.

Further Reading
Dweck, S.C, (2006), Mindset: The new Psychology of Success, Ballantine Books, ISBN 978-0-345-47232-8
Dweck, S.C, (1999), Self-Theories, Psychology Press, ISBN 1-84169-024-4
Goleman, D, (1996), Emotional Intelligence, Bloomsbury, ISBN 978-0-7475-2830-2
Allen, D, (2008), Making it all Work: Wining at the Game of work and Business Life, Viking Adult, ISBN 067001995X
Parkinson, N, (1958), Parkinson's Law or the Pursuit of Progress, J Murry, ISBN 0719510481 (via second hand stores)
Gladwell, M, (2008), Outliers: The Story of Success, Allen Lane, ISBN 978-1-846-14121-8
Jones, D, L. and Motluk, A, (2008, May 10), How to get exactly what you want, New Scientist, Pages 32-37


PS Dear Acid - we can get back to the trinity later!!

[SilverLJ]

We all need to be able to persuade others and particularly your tutors so:

Negotiation and Persuasion because a good learner is not passive but seeks to find solution to all sorts of difficulties or obstacles and so must work with tutors and many others to get the best out of a situation in the time available. The difficulties might include class timings, the course notes, you may feel the work is too hard or too simple, you may not like the way it is taught, the equipment might be poor, group work not organised - the list is endless. There are a number of negotiation/persuasion strategies that might be employed.

The win/win Approach – the suggestion is that agreement can be reached if concerned parties consider their underlying interests, requirements; possible decision consequences rather than stubbornly defending their own positions and so can often reach a decision that is mutually beneficial.

Consequences Approach – any decision entails risk and so we can never be sure if our probability estimates are sound or not but what we can do is know about the consequences of each decision and that is often a better guide as to what to do. This of course is not a new idea and King Solomon in the Bible famously used it so deal with an argument between two women and one baby. This is sometimes called ‘creative’ because it challenges you to look at a range of alternatives where each party to an issue ends up with something.

Advocacy – here one works with argument to obtain the most favourable outcome or at least the best alternative that is available. It is generally thought that good advocacy involves persuasion and that might be accomplished in many ways.

We all need to become skilled in assembling our answers to questions and so one needs to learn about the way we assemble honestly evidence both for and against (you must learn and understand alternative arguments) and then use persuasion and argument to reach a valid conclusion. This is not a simple matter and cannot be just learned from text books, it has to be practiced.

There are of course rules of logic and they will help us avoid contradictions, inconsistencies, exaggerations (in our own arguments) and you can easily look them up. But it might be a good idea to join an on line discussion board on a subject you are interested in and start adding your own thoughts, reading what other say, listening to what others say, refuting arguments, proposing your own arguments – get practicing.

Be careful, this is not about you becoming a pain, not letting anybody else get a word in, thinking you are always right, you are always objective, calling other people by offensive names or insulting them, pestering people night and day. It’s about learning and sharing and taking a responsible attitude even when you profoundly disagree with someone. It is as well to take to heart and warning from Francis Bacon said:

“The human understanding is not composed of dry light, but it is subject to influence from the will and the emotions, a fact that creates fanciful knowledge; man prefers to believe what he wants to be true.”

[SilverLJ]

Persistence in Learning

Sir Ronald Pitts Crick, (died last year) was an ophthalmologist who devoted much of his professional life to the study of glaucoma; he refused to believe that nothing could be done and we know now that it is a leading cause of preventable blindness. He said “nothing in the world can take the place of persistence; talent will not, genius will not, education will not. Persistence and determination are absolutely omnipotent if you want to get results”.

I wonder how you feel about this, that you have to work and work hard to get results. I could had added to the above 'prayer will not get you results' and by that I mean if you don't do the work no amount of prayer will make up for it for that would mean God would be honouring someone who takes him for granted, just calls in when he needs something.