It was confusing to have to switch between the two.

I’m going to assume college is going to be pretty much the same thing.

Many years ago I came up with a personal philosophy about studying, especially cramming, for test taking….

@wtd: It does work a lot better talking to your friends about the material. Even for projects that might help you get ideas. We had a Geography project where you had to research your native language. Me and one of my friends native languages were English, so we did “Evolution of North American culture.” I walk with him back from school, so once we talked about what we were gonna write, what topics, how much we would write, etc etc. It helped me think about what else I can write, and also helps reassure me that I know what I am doing.
We had a Water Filter project too. It helped to talk to people about materials that you were gonna use. Great for ideas.

Plus, you’ll be challenged to intelligently compose your thoughts, and that will probably be the greatest benefit of all. Knowing the material doesn’t mean anything going into an exam if you can’t put it coherently on paper.

Other than that, I often find that tests are just ways to make sure you’re not paying someone to do all your assignments. At my uni, you need to pass the assignment portion as well as the exam portion to pass the class, and both aspects are usually about 50% of the grade. (For example, 5 assignments worth 10% each, as well as a midterm and a final.)

1. Closed book, on paper.
2. Open book on paper.
3. Open book on the Computer.

If the test is closed book it is important to know key terms and make sure you can explain them properly. If I ask “what is Dynamic Programming”, don’t expect to get full marks for “the thing where you use the table.” even if you are pretty good at doing basic DP problems. If you are writing large sections of code on a closed book test then memorize key algorithms that you will probably need (highest in a list, bubble sort…) if you don’t know them by heart.

Open book tests are more of an issue of organization, and as wtd said, practice. In general the problems you get will be similar to problems you’ve seen before, so it is important to be intimately familiar with your own code. Typically these style of exams are asking you to solve bigger problems. You don’t have time to be searching through your code for that one obscure command you can’t remember, you need to know exactly where to look.

Now, this is pure gaming, but you need to customize how you prepare for your exams based on your instructor and the way he/she evaluates. Just because playing Starcraft all night before an exam has worked in the past doesn’t mean it will work for this exam.