I like this tactic of not forgetting the strengths, and am trying to keep in mind ceiling and floor effects, regression to the mean, and all that jazz. I'm thinking that building on a strength will be good until I hit my ceiling, wherever that may be (when I feel saturated with info, when I consistently answer the AATBS end-of-chapter questions right, when my practice test scores on that section are stable). Then it's maintenance. Like running my 1.5 milers at a steady speed, not building speed or distance.
As for weaknesses, I am thinking I have a lot of room to grow so I won't neglect them. But, I'm not going to give them a SUPER amount of time either. I figure that any studying in these weakness areas (I/O, Development, Social) will probably give me some pretty good gains and a moderate amount will be sufficient. In other words, I'm not going to bother memorizing every leadership style theory and job satisfaction statistic. I think there are much better ways to spend my time. I'll do just enough to get a moderate amount of details so I can get a few more right in the end. Getting back to my analogy...I know that speed is not my forte in running, nor will it ever be. BUT, I can work on once a week and it will end up helping me with endurance and adding mileage.
Speaking of all this, I should probably get back to studying!
I like this plan... my worst scores are: 1) I/O, 2) Test Construction, 3) Research, and 4) Development.
ReplyDeleteDo we know if the balance/percentages of what is covered is going to change substantially in August? I am worried about being the first sets of cohorts with the new scoring formula. :( Oh well... guess we should figure out how many we have to get right out of 175 to still pass? Is that published anywhere?
MH
Good question, MH. From what I've seen it won't change much. The one comment someone on the Yahoo group made was there is no official I/O breakdown, which is true. Guess it is spread out across so they can hide how much we actually have to know. Bugger!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, here's the info.
ASPPB has info on it in their brochure for test takers, starts on p. 22 for those of us post Aug. 1st. http://www.asppb.net/files/public/IFC.pdf
Here is a post on the EPPP Prep Yahoo group also that summarizes the changes. I blocked out the dude's name for anonymity, but looks to be legit.
An interesting change
While looking through test data wondering about how the test will change in
August, I found an interesting site:
According to ASPPB the test will have the following weights
Biological Bases of Behavior 12% (up 1 % from last year)
Cognitive-Affective 13% (same as last year)
Social And Cultural 12% (same as last year)
Growth & lifespan 12% (down 1% from last year)
Assessment 14% (same as last year)
Treatment, Intervention 14% (down 1% from last year)
Research methods 8% (up 1% from last year)
Ethics 15% (same as last year)
which suggests more focus on Research methos and Biological Bases of Behavior.
Interesting,
xxxx