Passacaglia studies for his actuarial exam

[Passacaglia]

Okay, this is the thread to follow me along in studying for my actuarial exam. Don't worry -- there will be very little of the actual content of the exam discussed here. The focus in this thread is to help me memorize as many of the 340 flashcards as I can. For my last exam, I had a spreadsheet that I used to track the results each time I quizzed myself, but I stopped using it pretty quickly. For this exam, I'm getting started earlier, which is a plus, but with our first kid due March 26, it'll be hard to get time in before the exam date of April 30. Anyway, attached is the spreadsheet I used for my last exam in the fall.

[Passacaglia]

Now to explain that spreadsheet a little...

Column A -- number on the flashcard. As you can see, I didn't go in order. The flashcards were split into sections, and I started with the smallest section, then worked my way up to the biggest. This time, the sections are mostly the same size, so I'm just going to go in order.

Column B -- number of points in each flash card.

Rest of columns -- These are my results from each day's quiz, first the number of points I got right, then the percent of the total points. At the top is the total percentages, then the total number of flash cards. It's not the best system, since getting 2 out of 2 on one flash cards gets me 100%, while getting 9 out of 10 gets me only 90%, but it's a decent way to determine how well I did on the quiz.

If anyone wants to help, what I'm looking for are some ways to organize this data better, and some ways to organize my quizzing in general. I had a pretty good rhythm going last time, but since I only had one month instead of the 3 months I have now, I got into panic mode pretty quickly.

My method was this: To add a new card to what I "know" I typed out all the points on it five times. The next morning, I quizzed myself on all the cards that I had done this for so far. If I got the entire card right, I didn't have to quiz myself on it the next day. If I got it right two times in a row, I could skip it for two days, and so on. I never got much further than 100 with this system, but I'm worried that once I get much higher than that, pretty much all my study time is going to be taken up with just quizzing myself, and I'll never get time to add new cards.

[Passacaglia]

It begins.

Yesterday I finally started the process, writing out by hand four of the flashcards. Normally, I type out the flashcards the first time, and reserve the painful process of writing by hand as a makeup for cards that I quizzed myself at 0% on, but since I wasn't at a computer, I started writing by hand right away. No big.

Anyway, I quizzed myself this morning on these four cards. The results:

Card 1: 4/5, 80%
Card 2: 1/3, 67%
Card 3: 5/6, 83%
Card 4: 5/8, 63%
Total: 2.59 out of 4

So I've got about two and a half cards memorized so far. It's a start. The spreadsheet for the new exam, with these results included, is attached.

[Passacaglia]

Some good, some bad in the quiz results today. The bad news -- I ended up with 5.32 out of 15 overall. The good news is that if I just look at the 4 from yesterday, I improved that from 2.59 to 3.5, so hopefully with another day to cement it, the stuff I typed out yesterday, and quizzed myself on today, will come back to me. Also, trying to add 11 cards to the mix seems like a lot, especially since I just started. I had been thinking that I would set a limit of 10 new cards each day so I don't get too bogged down with all the new info, but since I figured I would do 11 and finish out the section -- plus it's early, and the cards I do first will get seen several times by the time the exam comes around, so it's not a big deal if I don't do well right away.

Anyway, to sum up my process as it is now:

1. Take a set of flashcards, and type it out five times.
2. The next day, quiz myself on all the flaschards I've typed out -- eventually this gets too big, so I'll have to figure something out here.
3. For the flashcards I get 0% on, write them out by hand five times. If time, take the flashcards I get 1-25% on and write them out by hand four times.
4. Add more flashcards to what I quiz myself on by typing them out five times (same as Step 1)

So I've got 6 cards to write out by hand. Ugh.