Business & Management exam 2 days away. How should I study?

[Great Polar Bear]

I have a Business Management exam 2 days away, right after Psychology. Luckily, I'm done with Psychology but have very little preparation with Business. The syllabus includes Module 1 (Business Organization & Environment), Module 2 (Human Resources), Module 3 (Accounts & Finance) and Module 4 (Marketing). The exam will contain Paper 1 and Paper 2. I am panicking because I don't know anything. My question is: What is the most efficient way to study in this time period?

My plan is:

Step 1: Do all the chapters from www.ibbusinessandmanagement.com

Step 2: Go through the past papers

Will that suffice? I can't study from the textbook because it is over SIX HUNDRED pages long and finishing those in 2 days is out of my league. What are your suggestions? Is my plan okay? What else could I do?

Extra: My task is not as difficult as it sounds though. I have studied Module 1 from ibbusinessandmanagement.com and Module 3 (Accounts) recently came in our cycle test so I'm pretty much updated with that. Problem is with Module 2 and the ridiculously long Module 4 (Marketing)

Any help is deeply appreciated!

Edited August 27, 2013 by helpfulbucket

[YellowSpider]

whoa! haha that's like most of the course man..

yeahh that site is like the best for last minute revision..

don't get worried! you've covered 1 and 3! according to me, the other 2 are actually short or simpler.. 4 is just elaborating on the elements isn't it? relax..

yeahh the text book has way too many pages.. i think you should stick to what you're doing now..

i had previously made noted for each of the modules so that's what i use.. do that before the final exam.. but for now go on with this.. i really don't see any other option and this one actually isn't bad.. make sure you know the tools,, how to make decision trees and stuff like that.. good luck

[bluedino]

The most efficient way is different for everybody! Anyway, like you, my study for the business exam was mostly crammed into 1 or 2 days.

Unlike you, I actually did study from my 600 pages-ish textbook. I pretty much read through the whole thing, but instead of memorising stuff (apart from what was truly necessary), I just tried to understand everything. As in, there's no need to memorise the advantages and disadvantages of a short/long chain of command in an organisation's structure, or what types of promotion there is. As a short term strategy (don't do this for the real exams), don't learn stuff that is self explanatory (well unless you have time), such as e-commerce - you can kind of tell for yourself what the adv/disadv/its impact on businesses is. Rather, focus on learning stuff that you do have to know and can't use logic/reasoning/common sense to figure out - such as what the different motivation theories are, and tools - like learning what the Boston Consultancy Group Matrix is.

You've also got Paper 1 so reread through the case study to familiarise yourself with it really well, highlighting all the business terms. Definitely learn terms that you don't know. It could be a good idea to read through/do mock exams of the paper (you can probably find some online) as unlike Paper 2, you can get a good sense of possible questions that they might ask.

Also, relax and don't stress. Remember for Paper 2 that you also get a choice in questions, so you get the opportunity to pick the one that you can do your best on/the one where you know the content the best. Don't know if this helps - this is just what I do because I cram study - but good luck!

Edited August 27, 2013 by bluedino

[Great Polar Bear]

Read through the whole book in a day! Woah, and how did that work out for you? What was your grade (if you don't mind)?

[bluedino]

Well, doing it that way is just a method I use for short-term cramming, and I obviously wouldn't recommend it so much for the actual final exams… and I find that it's a method that probably actually doesn't work for most people.

Nevertheless, like I said, it works for me fairly well? I've only gotten Paper 2 back this week and I got 82%/Grade 7 for that paper.

I won't get Paper 1 until later I think, but I reckon it will be around the same.

So with this method - I'm not acing every marks because there's still some gaps in my knowledge, but I know enough to be able to do pretty well?

[Great Polar Bear]

Well, my paper was strange. I knew some questions, the ones I could recall to the points from the book (I did end up reading all the chapters from the book too , except Module 1). However, some of them, I could not recall the points I had to mention. So I wrote whatever was related to that. I don't know if it's going to work in my favour but finishing the book in the last few days is actually the best option in this small time period. Thanks bluedino

Edited August 31, 2013 by helpfulbucket