How to Get Through Finals
It’s that time of the year where you can feel the stress of finals, teachers try to teach as much as they can before finals, students are trying to either catch up or not fall behind, and it’s pretty much the fastest three weeks you’ll go through. However it doesn’t have to be the most stressful thing ever if you prepare yourself correctly.
One of the most important things to remember is your mind is like a suitcase, if you try to cram everything in it some things may end up falling out. Don’t “study” last minute, and try to remember every single thing for the test. Instead, if the your teacher gives you a study guide or something to study or the book, spend 10-20 minutes each hour going over everything you need to go over. Do that everyday until your final, this will help you remember what you need to remember and it doesn’t take up all of your day.
People think they need to spend hours and hours studying when that’s simply not true."While previous lab studies comparing cramming vs. spaced repetitions sometimes found a benefit of cramming on immediate tests, these immediate tests were administered usually no more than 10 minutes after the study session. These short-term gains were invariably reversed when the test was administered after a longer delay—i.e., cramming leads to rapid forgetting. Therefore, students should endeavor to begin their exam preparation early, giving themselves sufficient time to space out their study sessions and engage in retrieval practice, so as to improve long-term retention of the material.”- UC San Diego on studying. Your brain is a muscle and if you work it too much it could actually do worse for you than good.Your brain is like a cell phone battery, eventually you need a charge. Spending 10-20 minutes each hour allows you to spend time in between to relax your mind and take away that stress, but it’s also a better way to strengthen your memory instead of cramming everything in at the last minute.
Another thing to remember is take advantage of tutoring; teachers take the time out of their day to stay and help us so use it! Any questions you have, go after school and get answers, get help on catching up on work or things you’ll need for your final. Tutoring is one of the many resources we have as students and not many take advantage of that. There’s at least two days out of the week teachers stay after school and that’s two extra days you have a week to prepare yourself. What you don’t want to do is sit at home all day on your phone wasting time away.
Meeting up in groups with other students who have the same class as you is also a great idea, You can create study groups, or have group readings, there’s no one who knows how stressful finals are than students around you because we’re all going through it. So remember, don’t cram, take mental breaks if needed for stress, and take full advantage of the help you have around you.
Another thing you have to remember is it’s all about mindset, of course you have to put in the work but if you go into a test thinking you’re going to fail, you’re going to fail. You’re going to fail because you know you didn’t study, so take the time you have before break, meet up with your teachers on anything you need to know, and it’s just one of those things you have to push through.