It’s that special time of the year again. Not only are we preparing for Christmas and the new year, but before we can get to that, we must take finals. Walking around campus during this time of year, all you can hear about is the dread and misery everyone feels about having to study for all their exams. On the bright side, we are almost done the semester. While it may be taunting thinking about taking 4 different exams in the matter of the week, here are five study tips to decrease the amount of stress you may feel going into finals week.
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Quizlet
Quizlet is my best friend. I have been using this website since middle school and it has gotten me through some of my toughest classes. If you aren’t familiar with Quizlet, it basically allows you to make virtual flash cards. Most people use them for vocabulary words and definitions. However, I like to make my own “quizzes” out of them. What I basically do is make my own quiz/exam for the class based on the notes and material that I think is the most important for those particular chapters. I make true and false questions, short answer questions, and sometime multiple choice. Not only does making the Quizlet help me learn the material, but constantly reviewing it when I have 5 minutes to spare enhances my memory.
2. Practice Problems
While Quizlet is helpful for most classes, it isn’t as helpful for math-based problems since it’s difficult to come up with questions relating to that. For these types of classes, I use the textbook to keep practicing problems. Usually in the back of the textbook or at the end of the chapter, there are additional problems with the answers given to help you study. The more problems you do, the better your chances of getting the math problem right on your exam. If you don’t have a book for the class, it is easy to also find practice problems online to help you gain a deeper understanding of the process of completing a problem.
3. Studying at Least a Week in Advance
While I know it may seem redundant when all your professors tell you that you should be studying at least a week in advance for your exams, they are telling you this for a reason. The longer you are familiar with the material, the more likely you will retain it for the exam. Although studying a week in advance may seem unrealistic, only studying like an hour or two at a time each day compared to six hours in one day is helpful in your retention. This also makes studying more enjoyable since you’re slowly retaining the material and don’t have to stress out about learning all this information at once.
4. Having a Friend Quiz You
Although this may sound strange at first, sitting down with a friend in the same class and quizzing one another on the material is a great way to check your understanding. It also may give you a different perspective on the information to help you gain a deeper comprehension. Additionally, information you may have not thought was important and chosen to study may have seemed important to your friend and studying it with them will help you do better on your exam. If you’re more of an auditory learner, talking about the information instead of reading it might also help boost your grade on the exam. This is also more of a fun way to study since you are being social rather than being alone in your room.
5. Focusing on One Class at a Time
While I know during finals week your exams are one after the other, it’s important to focus on each final at a time to not stress yourself out. For example, if you have one exam Monday, another one Wednesday, and your last one Friday, start out studying for the Monday exam first, spending a majority of your time on this particular test. Once that is over, you can shift your attention to the next exam. By doing it this way, you’re not getting information from different classes confused with one another. Even though I said it’s important to study a week in advance for exams, this still is true, but you need to prioritize your classes be allocating the most time to the closer exams in order to be focused and prepared for the exam.