Richard and his student Jarred worked on studying for Jarred’s Psychology final exam together. Jarred is a very good student, but Psychology has a lot of complex terms that sound very similar. Some terms have definitions that are almost the same, but small nuances that can make the difference between a right and wrong answer on the essay portion of the test.

Richard wanted to help Jarred make sense of all the vocabulary and see how they were all related to one another. They went through each word and pieced together how it connected with some of the other vocabulary. Exercises like this made it easier for Jarred to remember each word and what it specifically meant. Richard would see if Jarred knew a word, asked him to explain it, and then use it in an example. Using the vocabulary words and concepts in examples reinforces the meanings and connections for students, and gives them a more comprehensive working definition of them word. For example, Jarred had to know that serotonin and dopamine could be affected by conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and depression. A lot of students have trouble differentiating between serotonin and dopamine because they have similar functions. Explaining how each one was affected by different conditions to Richard really helped Jarred distinguish between the two.

Jarred was a little worried about his final. However, after studying with Richard he felt confident and more prepared for his test. He was now armed with relative examples and real connections between the vocab to ace his final and destroy all the essay questions.