That challenging virtual quiz can easily send a simple study session into panic mode. We lose track of time when the questions are either quickly timed, unfamiliar, or multi-topic.
With the right Canvas Study Hacks, you can study more effectively to elevate your preparation experience and upend those tricky questions without taking risky shortcuts.
It is not about tricking the learning process. It can ease the process itself. If you make a couple of changes to your quiz prep process, you can see significant improvements.
Start With the Course Material
A simple way to make quizzes easier: study what the instructor actually uses.
Before a quiz, review:
- Lecture notes
- Assigned readings
- Previous homework
- Practice questions
- Slides and study guides
- Feedback from earlier assignments
This should not be seen as attempting to memorize every single sentence. Rather, try to figure out the writing’s high points and the manner in which they relate.
If a biology course touches on different types of cells, what differentiates one from the other and why that is important. Indeed, this type of understanding allows you to answer questions that are not worded exactly as in your notes.
Break Difficult Topics Into Smaller Pieces
It may seem impossible to study a very large chapter when you represent it as a whole block. Organizing it into smaller bits really simplifies that process of studying.
You will need to classify all your material around three categories:
- Topics you understand well
- Topics you partly understand
- Topics you cannot explain yet
Focus the majority of your revision time on groups two and three. It hardly seems worth your time to spend an hour going over things you already know.
This is one of the better Canvas Study Hacks because it allows you to make your study session active, read less, and target areas to prepare for.
Practice Before the Real Quiz
This is still something I have to be careful about because that feeling of understanding you get from reading notes is sometimes just a simulation, and yet, if you never test yourself, it can feel completely real.
Instead, create your own questions.
When you complete a section worth of study, close your notes and do the following:
- What was the main idea?
- Why does this concept matter?
- Can I explain it without looking at it?
- What example demonstrates it?
- How could an instructor convert this into a multiple-choice question?
You can already tell that you are weak in certain areas as a simple loop of a quiz where you answer those questions from memory shows this up before you encounter the same during an actual graded quiz.
Use a Simple Time Strategy
This is particularly useful when the quiz has multiple questions because time management comes into play.
One good strategy is to read through the examination and assess how difficult each question seems. Try answering the questions that are clear to you first. If one problem is dragging, skip it and go back if the quiz settings let you.
Do not spend the time and energy of five easier questions on one difficult question.
If it is a calculation-based question, note the steps before selecting an option. For pure-reading questions, know what the question is really asking before analyzing every detail possible in the passage.
Most of the time, GOOD Canvas Study Hacks are not shortcuts; but rather a way to avoid minor issues from snowballing into full-blown problems.
Read Every Question Carefully
The subjects of the quiz questions you answer online are often tricky, as a single word could alter the meaning.
Watch for words such as:
- Not
- Except
- Most likely
- Best
- Always
- Never
- According to
For example, given a question stating which statement is not true requires completely different preparation from the one asking which statement is true.
Read the question once to understand what it is about, and read it again if the wording sounds ambiguous. It takes only a matter of seconds and can avoid an unnecessary wrong answer.
Eliminate Clearly Wrong Answers
If in doubt about a multiple-choice question, do not rush to answer.
Eliminate the clearly wrong answers first. Then, compare what’s left with what you really learned.
For instance, imagine you have four potential answers and two of them blatantly contradict what your course materials are telling you. That eliminates those choices and makes it far more likely for you to choose the right answer.
This is helpful when you know an idea, but do not remember precise wording from your notes.
Avoid Risky Quiz Shortcuts
Some students look up browser hacks, sites that answer questions for you, or information on a hidden page that could expose how many will pass your quiz the regular way. Such techniques could become erratic and can violate course regulations.
This article itself is based on old Canvas tricks like inspecting elements of a page or leaving the quiz open and searching for answers. It also observed that certain current implementations of quizzes do not reveal answers in the page HTML prior to submission.
More seriously, relying on a shortcut makes you less prepared for future projects and exams.
A better way is technology-driven preparation. If there is really difficult material that could be assessed during a graded quiz, digital flashcards, notes, practice questions, and other study tools can prepare you to work through the assessment successfully.
Keep Your Study Materials Organized
ClosestBooks prevent you from wasting time searching through dozens of files five minutes before the quiz.
A simple folder structure for each course can organize lecture materials, readings, assignments, and practice material.
You can create one mini review for each of these:
- Important definitions
- Key formulas
- Difficult concepts
- Common mistakes
- Questions you previously got wrong
This is a lot faster than skimming through an entire semester’s worth of lecture notes right before a quiz.
Learn From Previous Mistakes
If you realize why an answer is wrong, it is the best kind of wrong.
Once you finish a practice or create a new feedback post, make an incentive to shorten your mistakes list from that assignment or inside the practice quiz. Make a note on the question topic and why you don’t remember.
Maybe you misunderstood a definition. Maybe you skimmed over the question too hastily. It looks like you mixed two similar concepts.
Eventually, these patterns become apparent. This allows your study sessions to concentrate on the problems that are causing actual problems.
Utilize Study Tools Prior to the Assessment
Technology can be great but only when it complements the learning and does not substitute it.
For instance, your notes could be used to generate practice questions, a very difficult concept could become easy to understand with digital tools, study material can be arranged better, and flashcards can be created.
Others browse Canvas Study Hacks, which guarantee quicker ways to answers. But the relevant question is: does a tool assist you in deriving or comprehending the content, or provide you an answer that you may not comprehend?
Once you have an understanding, that can go well in the long-term academics — which is where understanding is really a superior investment.
Prepare for Timed Quizzes
Then practice as close to the actual conditions if your biggest issue is timing.
It also involves setting a timer and answering some practice questions on your own without any notes. After the timer elapses, correct some of the questions you answered incorrectly.
This helps you find out whether your problem is knowledge, reading speed, calculation speed, or just taking too long for each question.
Then you can tweak your plan prior to the real assessment.
Know the Quiz Rules
Different expectations for different courses. Many instructors have note cards or some other resource available and others require students to do assessments without assistance.
Read the instructions before starting. When it is unclear whether or not a resource is allowed, assume that it is not acceptable and confirm with the instructor.
This is a crucial aspect of using Canvas Study Hacks in an ethical manner. The only thing worse than a bad strategy is one that causes a much larger academic problem to deal with later on.
Final Thoughts
When tests on Canvas are very challenging, they do not have to give complex solutions. In fact, much of it can make your online assessments far easier to navigate thanks to better preparation, careful reading, smart time management, and targeted practice.
You need to find the bottleneck, eliminate it; no best practices of any kind. When it comes to subjects, if you suck at concepts, learn differently. Practice with a timer if you run out of time. Raise your hand and reduce speed — if you are prone to making silly mistakes, then take some time on a dedicated problem by reading the question statement gently step by step before solving it.
Canvas Study Hacks is a tool for you to design better studying routines, not as an actual learning mechanism. Once you know what is in the quiz before starting it, you can make far more efficient use of your study time and be better prepared for harder questions.
