Did you know every year, there is a disaster that hits college students twice a year in May and December? Without warning it sweeps in, disrupting lives of thousands of people. Some people don’t make it, and the people who do survive would rather forget the whole experience and look to the future.

Sound familiar? No, I’m not talking about tsunamis or hurricanes.

I’m talking about finals!

Do you think of finals like this? If so, it might be a good idea to face the pain and look back to see what you could have done better. What you might discover is that if you had done a few things differently earlier in the semester, the apocalypse called “Final’s Week” would have been a cake walk!

To do really well on your finals, you really have to start preparing on the first day of class. That way, instead of cramming for your finals next semester, you’ll only have to do a nice little review the night before. Sounds pretty sweet huh?

If you want to ace your finals, spend less time cramming for them, and have zero fear come final exam time, read these 6 tips and apply them to your studies next semester.

1) You didn’t really forget it all.

One thing most students don’t understand about memory is that it’s not like a textbook. You can’t go to the table of contents, look up the location of the memory, and turn to the right page.

It is also not like a chalkboard. You don’t erase memories to make room for new ones. They’re all still there!

So don’t sweat it if you feel like you have “forgotten everything.” Chances are the knowledge is still there in your brain somewhere. You just have to do some reviewing to refresh it.

2) Learn it the first time.

If you start reviewing and you still don’t feel things clicking, it is because you didn’t learn it right the first time, not because you forgot it.

If you were getting Cs and Ds on your exams leading up to test time, you probably were not doing a very great job learning the stuff during the semester, were ya?

3) Do well on tests.

Your tests will give you the best “sneak preview” you can get for your finals. So do your best on them. And hold onto those suckers! They’ll prove very valuable come finals time.

When I get my graded exams back, I always do two things:

1. Go back and look up answers for questions I got wrong.
2. Hold on to them!

Old tests are the best thing you can use to study for your finals. Better than your notes, better than your instructor’s Power Points, and better than your textbook.

4) Be consistent.

Some people, (like myself) do just fine without taking notes in class. Other people would rather not read the textbook. That’s fine, but do not change your habits half way through the semester unless you really believe you must.

If you keep switching things up every week, you will never find a good “groove” that works for you, and you will still be confused as hell during finals week.

Having good study skills requires that you know how to study. If you don’t know how to study for your course by finals time, you did something wrong.

5) Stay organized

Keep separate folders and notebooks for each class and keep all your old tests and notes in these folders. That way, the night before the final, you won’t be scrambling to find materials to study from.

6) Make friends in each class.

I have always been the type to do things on my own and this tip I learned fairly recently.

Making a few connections in each class will pay off down the road. Especially when you start taking courses for your major. You will inevitably find a few of the same people in each of your classes. Make them your allies! There are a lot of ways you can help each other out.

Sometimes in one class you will find someone who had already taken a class that you are currently in. Most people are more than willing to give you advice on how to do great in a class and if you’re really nice, they might even give you their old materials (notes, study guides, and even old tests!)

So here’s a recap of the 6 steps to preparing for your finals next semester:

1) Realize that you can’t forget everything you learned

6) Make friends in each class.

I cover a lot of these steps more in depth in my other posts, so look around, but these might get you started.

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could walk into your classroom on final exam day without worry and ace it? Bookmark this post and read it again in August (if you can remember!) If you start preparing early your finals will be a breeze.

image by wittco.gmbh

Popularity: 45% [?]

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

2 Comments »

image by shadphotos

If you’re like most students, you probably rely on the internet a lot to research for papers and presentations. But what about when you’re studying for a test? Or answering questions on a worksheet? Or if you’re just plain confused about a subject?

Don’t be afraid to look outside of your classroom for information or clarification on what you’re learning.

Knowledge is universal!

Unless you’re a graduate student studying cutting edge discoveries in your field, the stuff you’re learning about is probably pretty basic for that subject. There have been thousands of books, articles, and lectures covering Econ 101. Where do you think your textbook and instructor are getting their information? Unless your prof is making it up, they are getting their information from the same sources that you can find on the internet: scholarly journals, encyclopedias, news media, etc.

You should seek to learn instead of memorize. When you really get that point ingrained in your noggin, you won’t need to rely on your textbooks and teachers as much.

Finding answers on the internet is sometimes faster than searching through your textbook.

Have you ever come across a term in your textbook that just made you think, “What the $@%# does that mean?” and then spent half an hour paging through that textbook to find the definition of this word?

Try typing the word into Google, and you might be surprised that the first result is a dictionary definition or Wikipedia entry about that exact term.

Wikipedia is about as accurate as any other encyclopedia.

I know most teachers treat Wikipedia like the red-headed stepchild of encyclopedias, but it really is good! A study in 2005 found that Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica had about the same amount of errors.

Whether Wikipedia is an authoritative source of information for your research paper is a subject for another article. But when you’re just looking for understanding on a subject, Wikipedia rules.

Textbooks can suck at explaining stuff.

A lot of textbooks are just plain horrible at helping the reader understand the subject. If you’re reading a chapter that’s just really dense and hard to understand, hop onto Google and see what you can find.

Getting information phrased in many different ways will help you to understand the topic. You might have to read several different explanations until you find one that is written in a way that “works” for you.

Then there are those damn bold faced words. Some textbooks like to drop a ton of fancy technical terms on you and then give you a one sentence definition in the back of the book explaining it. Sometimes a one-sentence definition of a word just isn’t enough to understand what the heck they are talking about! If you want a little more clarification, look it up online.

There are all kinds of websites especially made for students of various subjects

You might be able to find a full-blown website that’s devoted to helping students of a specific subject. If not, a lot of professors will put their notes and lectures online for their students to read. These are really easy to find through Google.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions on this topic, please post a comment!

Popularity: 17% [?]

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

4 Comments »