Finals Tips and Tricks

The first round of finals for the school year is coming up, and we are here to give some realistic advice on how to study for them. We interviewed four upperclassmen to gain some insight into what their study processes look like. Mallory Mencas, Addison Jones, Maxwell Defanti, and Ella Safranski all had very different approaches to studying and made it apparent that all students learn differently. Mencas mentioned she “was very stressed” for her previous midterms, however, “If you’re stressing yourself out about that and completely decimating your social life, just don’t. If you have the passion and you have the effort it doesn’t matter how much you memorize, it just matters if you’re showing your knowledge and you’re paying attention in class.” It is important to take care of yourself and others and find the time to do something fun with friends and family whether that is taking a walk, watching a movie, or baking a favorite treat.

“Studying everything from the last semester can be overwhelming,” Jones said. “Make sure you prepare and cover all the material because there’ll be questions over the things you learned in the first few weeks that you’ll have forgotten.” Getting the big picture of the units you have learned is most important. If you can bring notecards into the exam, Safranski makes her notecards “by unit and then subunits within those units. Colors help.” As Mencas also mentions, “I write them in colors, and putting them in groups that make sense for us individually is also very important.” Figuring out how you learn best can help how you organize your notecards. Color coding is shown to be very useful in memorization and categorizing when studying or writing out notecards. Defanti states, “You’re going to make it a lot easier for yourself if you know what you’re getting into and study, definitely.”

Being prepared well in advance is no doubt important, however, some of us still wait till the last minute. Defanti remarks on his anti-stress tips as “Regular meditation, I breathe in and out to ground myself.” Jones says, “I read, and I bake, and I have ceramics last period and that usually de-stresses me. Exercise also works too.” Similar to your unique study patterns, finding your own anti-stress exercises can greatly benefit your ability to focus on class material.

Knowing how you work best in an academic environment is the first step to succeeding in school. Applying yourself and your work method to preparing for finals is the best way to thrive in school. The best advice during these times is to find a balance of school work and activities you love.