Help a college student

/prog/ I don't understand data structures very well and I have a test next week that will either make me or break me. I am usually a star student but something about me/data structures/teacher isn't right. I pay attention in class and take pages and pages of notes and every night I read the related material for at least 1-2.5 hours each and every night although I still find myself lost. Please give me advice on how I can better understand this subject.

>>6
We actually haven't used the structures, but instead are focusing on making the structures from scratch. Would using the structures for simple games or data help me understand them better? Also the only ones we have done so far are things like simple search algorithms, red-black trees, binary search trees, avl ect...