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It's okay.  I think this is something all of us have done.  The Green book is quite challenging, even though it is open book.  You will do just fine.  I do most of my studying at the local coffee shop.  People ask me if I'm crazy with all the distractions, and I tell them it is less distracting than being at home.  I am not sugging that you study in a public place, just that you find what works for you.  I figure that I live at home, work FT at home (MT), have to run the house, etc., everything you mentioned above.  I HAVE to leave the house sometimes to study and have a different environment.  Good luck to you!

Hoo-boy, the Green book. I understand from other posts on these forums that the later chapters that get into coding become... challenging?... but I, too, find the earlier chapters to be difficult in their own way, and my scores on those tests have not been perfect either, to my embarrassment.

The content  is at once dry and confusing: A jumble of alphabet-soup acronyms and initialisms and industry terms are listed and flung at you willy-nilly. There's little didactic narrative you can sink your teeth into. I learn best from context, explanation, rationale, understanding not just the what but the why, and so I find studying these chapters frustrating too, as I can't wrap my brain around material  that consists mostly of  "in year XXXX, ABC agency created DEF which regulates GHI and KLMN, and established OPQRS for the TUV's." Rinse and repeat.

After reading this stuff for a while I find my mind starts to slide off of the acronyms; there are simply too many to retain. Since starting this course, I've been, frankly, worried about my ability to grasp and understand the insurance co./regulatory scheme side of coding, and the Green book is exacerbating that, big-time. I'm not sure what an inability to remember the names and functions of dozens, if not hundreds, of arbitrary acronyms will have on my competency as a coder, but it does concern me...

I have the same problem with the Gould tests and those being open book and not getting 100s.  They make the answers sound so right and usually more than one option looks good.  Hard to choose.  I am in cardiovascular disorders of the Gould book and oh boy, what a long and challenging chapter.  

The best way to approach these chapters is with the intent to not memorize any of it.  Remember, the tests are entirely open-book.  What we want to know is whether you've familiarized yourself with enough of it to be able to quickly research something unfamiliar and to be able recognize the context and follow the conversation if any of this comes up on the job.

Read through and make note of any of the green boxes in the margins.  Quite a few of your test questions come from those.  Don't try to memorize the acronyms.  Too many of them aren't anything you'll come across on any kind of regular basis.  The ones that you will are going to be repeated over and over and over.  You'll learn them naturally through the repetition.

Some of these chapters are more snooze-worthy than others.  Don't try to take any of them in a single sitting.  Personally, I would recommend using it as a break from your CCW exercises.  Maybe do 10 of those, then read one section in your Green chapter, or something like that.  The Green chapter doesn't have to be completed before you even start the CCW chapter in the same section, so you can alternate them.  Find a mix that works well for your study habits and schedule.

Before you take the Green test for a chapter, re-read the summary of the chapter.  You'll find it just before that chapter's exercises.  That'll remind you what general topics were covered and in what order, so it should be easier to flip to that part of the chapter to check your answers as you work on the test.

Another helpful thing is to flag or bookmark the glossary and Appendix V at the back of your book for use during the test (pages 745 and 735, respectively).  Be sure to double-check anything you find in the glossary against the chapter itself before selecting an answer, because the glossary can be slightly misleading with a few terms, but it is good for jogging your memory when you're having trouble finding a term or topic within the chapter itself.

**Edit - changed the subject to make it easier for those who can be helped by this to find it. :)

Thank you for this, Glenda ... very helpful suggestions; I appreciate their specificity, and I especially like the idea of breaking the material up into more digestible chunks.

I was forcing myself to go through each Green chapter completely--in much the same way a child might force herself to eat all her lima beans before starting on the tasty steak --but this is a better way. =) 

Thank you all so very much for your responses.  It really helps...

Glenda, I love your sentence "Some of these chapters are more snooze-worthy than others."  ☺☺☺ 

I'm fearful of trying to split things up as I go because I tend to do better if I just stay at one thing... but I may have to give that a try in order to not just zone out. 

I'll also try not to be so reactive....I knew I should have waited to send in the exam, but sometimes I just get so frustrated I say 'what the heck...'  I know self-sabotage....gotta go work on myself.  Thank you again all of you. 

Not everyone is able to break up their assignments the way I described above and do their best at everything.  That's okay, too.  In those cases, you might try a similar approach, though. 

Don't try to read through the whole chapter in one sitting.  Even if you're better at sticking with one assignment and finishing it completely before moving on, these chapters can be dense enough to make you get to the point where you're only skimming the second half of the chapter and not really taking in what you're reading.  Instead, break it down.  You might put a bookmark 7 pages from where you start, or set an alarm for 15 minutes, and read until you get to the pre-set break point.  Set the book down, stand up, and stretch.  Or move your laundry to the dryer.  Or wash some dishes.  Whatever you do, make it something physical but not too lengthy.  You're giving your mind and your eyes a bit of a break so that when you pick the book back up, you're refreshed (and maybe have one of those chores that was weighing down on you finished, to boot).

Everybody will find a different way that's the best solution for them, so these numbers and suggestions are just starting points.  A rare few students may be able to make it through an entire chapter in one sitting with no breaks and still be able to score perfectly on every test, but that won't be the case for the vast majority.  Fortunately, the way the course and syllabus are set up, the way you study can be flexible and suited to you.  Your deadlines are far enough apart that you should be able to experiment for a few weeks in order to find something that suits you if you haven't already.

**Edit - changed the subject to make it easier for those who can be helped by this to find it. :)