Oh, Happy Day!!

Hallelujah!!!

So, today I passed my 140 four voice. It was SUCH a good test!!! I got so nervous/excited in the middle of the test because I KNEW I was getting every single word. You know that feeling, right? Heart pounding, trying to tell yourself to continue concentrating and move your fingers lol.

Anyway, after typing it, it came out to 10 PAGES long!! Yes, 10!! I felt so accomplished after finishing it. I also only had 14 errors for a 10 minute/10 page long test. I felt pretty good with myself!

Okay, so one of my practice routines I do here at my on-campus school is, I bought a 30 dollar voice recorder (you can get these at Wal Mart or Target). These are fabulous. They have great sound quality, are cheap, and in no way bad at all. Here is an example of one that almost got 5 out of 5 stars in quality. This one is from Wal Mart and is $34.81:

So I record my teachers in my classes and then during lab time (I have about an hour to kill in there before my final class starts) and so I plug in my headphones into the recorder directly (such a cool feature!) and I retype the day's classes. I also pull out a little notebook I keep with me and write down words I want to shorten or briefs I want to look up.

While other girls in the lab are surfing the internet, I decid to make the most out of my time at school and type, type, type!

Another way I make the most out of my time is, I always usually get into class about 10 minutes before it actually starts. This is a great time to review briefs I have written down in this notecard rolodex type thing. This is what I'm talking about:

These are similar to what I have. I have the notecards and they're held together by 2 tiny little binder rings at the top. These are great because you can stick them in your purse or backpack for school instead of having a million loose notecards floating around your room like I did! lol These bounded notecards are like 3 bucks. So, anyway, on one side I have like 10 words, and then on the back of the card I have all their briefs. I go through all of these before class. 10 minutes is a lot of time to review your briefs!!

I don't really have a routine that I do before taking tests. We get tested every day in all of my classes, and I don't do anything in particular to help me. I just try to block out everything in my mind and try to convince myself that it is not a test that I am typing lol. Which is very hard to do, but I try to tell myself that it doesn't matter if I pass or fail. Just try to get every word.

One thing that I think did help me today, was I was listening to my voice recorder in the lab, typing, and I was listening to a teacher's dictation today and she was doing a Q and A literally, it felt like, at 180wpm. I was barely getting half of what she said. So then, naturally, the four voice right after at 140 seemed slower.

Always practice about 40 over your speed limit.

-Alyson