So it’s time for finals. How did this happen? You’re not prepared, you need at least three more weeks to study and you aren’t even sure how your Latin professor has enough material to fill up a three hour slot! After 7 finals weeks of my own (some more successful than others..) and witnessing other students try to brave the seemingly endless five days, I’ve realized something groundbreaking. Finals week comes in three phases, each distinct. For the next two weeks (and, of course, today) I will walk you through the intricacies of finals and, hopefully, lead you successfully through summer vacation mecca.
The Windup: Commonly defined as the week preceding finals where we know we should be studying but spend all our time panicking about studying instead.
1) Papers vs. Exams: It sounds quite simple, but there are two different kinds of finals which require a very different type of focus. The first, final papers, can be tricky because they are often due either at random times during finals or even before the week begins. When writing your papers keep in mind: no ten page paper should take you more than ten hours. This being said: there is some careful planning involved. What a paper should be is putting your previous knowledge into a concise format. So, to get yours done quickly make sure you have all of your thoughts planned out and solid. Do not research as you go!! You have two modes-planning and writing. Every transition between the two wastes time and kicks your focus-which will deteriorate as the windup week takes its toll. If you start your paper this week, instead of next week as you would have, send it in to your professor for feedback. Many will note your timeliness and almost all will offer helpful revisions that will give you at least an extra 5 points.
Tests require a different kind of focus, which for some is much more difficult to maintain. Just the fact alone that there is no bound to studying (you never know when you’re done) can be discouraging. Make sure you set a time limit on your studying (try two one-hour blocks per day) and alter between writing and studying. Feeling productive will often encourage you to continue on and studying before bed will help you organize your thoughts the next morning. As you study, write down questions in a separate and clean notebook: sort by subject. This week is key for last minute questions because teachers and TA’s are not completely inaccessible and still in “class” mode as opposed to “contact me at home by email” mode..far less useful.
2) Review Sessions: are totally underrated. If only because there is a guaranteed solid hour of time that you will be forced to listen to your class materials, you should attend each review session you can. Other students may ask questions if you can’t think of any and often these questions may be helpful to you. If you know the material, or think you do, come to TA sessions and help others while the TA is busy answering someone. Explaining information to others will help to secure it in your memory for the day of the exam.
Because you will get more and more bogged down with work as the week goes on and the dreaded first day of finals draws near, make yourself a schedule of all the review sessions each class offers and decide which ones will fit into your schedule. Don’t back out the day of each session, tell yourself it’s just a short time and remind yourself that some of the people who you’re competing with for a grade will be reaping the benefits of TA wisdom that you’re passing up. If you’re TA happens to somehow be clueless on the subject (which somehow is a relatively common occurrence) bring your questions anyway and discuss with fellow classmates. Talk through your ideas of why your answer may be right or wrong and email your professor with any questions you come up with together.
3) Deadlines: are underemphasized. Understand that your teacher is not, no matter how hard they try to be, totally impartial to your actions. Asking a professor for an extension the night before a paper is due may grant you a few extra days for the assignment, but it often does not reflect favorably upon you-plus the closer you get to completing your four years the more it should sink in that deadlines are as final as they sound, and you must center your other commitments around them, not tweak them to fit your other commitments. It is up to you, not your professor or anyone else, to turn in your assignments on time throughout the semester, and nothing changes simply because you are swamped. Set reminders, write in calendar notes, do whatever it takes to remind yourself at least two days before each assignment is due, in case you’ve forgotten it. It helps to plot this on your review sessions calendar, so you can get a better idea of where your time will be allotted.
4) Priorities: are not as valid during your windup week as they will be soon.
Right now, unless there is an extenuating circumstance, all your classes are created equal. Devote time to each of them this week, staggering your study hours between them. Taking a break from one subject to study another is not only healthy (as we often reach mental roadblocks after thinking about the same thing for a while) it will also help you become accustomed to sorting out the different information once the time comes to switch gears quickly between tests.
5) Your professors are intelligent: we give them all the benefit of the doubt. So you can rest assured that for the most part a question that appears on your midterm will not make its return on your final. Don’t study your exams or home works verbatim. Understand concepts and make sure that if you are memorizing information, you need to memorize the key facts and their implications, not simply exact wording- if all you study are words without any knowledge of their context, etc, you are more likely to forget and this will cost you valuable points on exam day. The same basic principle goes for math and science oriented courses. Practicing the same problems repeatedly (be they multiple choice or any other format) will cause you to recall things based on the individual numbers you’ve accidentally memorized. Your professor will not be using the same numbers on your exam, even if he/she uses the same exact problem. If your only reason for knowing you made a mistake is because you remember the final result and it differs from your solution, you will have no idea whether or not your answer is correct when different numbers are inserted.
Play around with problems, ask professors for supplemental problems explaining that you’ve begun to memorize the answers and are unable to rely on your understanding of the procedure itself. You will never run out of practice problems (sorry) so until you run out of time or start to question yourself in areas where you were originally confident (stop at that point) continue to expose yourself to different problem wording, different numbers, and various twists on the same concepts.
6) Professors give hints: ask your professor what his/her advice is for studying. Often they will give you a list of things to prioritize (most of my professors emphasize studying problem sets and lecture notes while discouraging wasting time on reading the book-thanks for yet another $200 spent on a paperweight). If your professor happens to stress your textbook, spending all your time studying class powerpoints can take a huge toll on your grade: courses like Developmental Psychology, for example, have roughly half of the test questions taken from book material that is never even covered during class time.
7) Cumulative: it’s an important word. Unfortunately professors tend to find it amusing to play around with it. I once had a professor tell me my exam was “only a little bit cumulative, but mostly not.” What? Make sure you know if your exam is absolutely NOT cumulative, don’t waste valuable time studying the wrong information! But don’t be fooled by the word itself. If you are a math student for instance, you may not be re-tested on more basic concepts in the class, but more than likely the material from the second portion of the semester will have directly built on those concepts. If you are shaky on them, review them. If you have any doubt in your mind that there may be a cumulative exam, even if it’s just a little but mostly not, make sure you review your study notes for the midterm and secure concepts and information you may have set aside a few months back. Don’t be too discouraged, most likely the information you were struggling with at the beginning of the semester will seem easier and more pertinent now that you have more advanced skills with which to tackle it!
So here you go, my wisdom to share with you for your windup to finals. Stay tuned for Sunday’s edition of The Pitch, your prep for the (gasp) first exam.
Ladies and gentlemen, let the games begin!