How to Prep for Finals

Posted on June 7, 2021

By Ruben Noroian

As the end of the high school year approaches, even with the lingering effects of Covid-19, many schools still plan on giving finals. Finals provide students with the opportunity to improve their grades, but they also provide the possibility of decreasing semester averages. I’ve put together a couple of my main tips to maximize success across all subjects.

First, is keeping a study schedule. Although procrastination seems like the easier route, planning what to study and when weeks in advance can be vital to retaining the most possible information. Similar to the AP exam, there is a lot of material to cover. In order to memorize it, it’s imperative that a student begins early. This way, you give yourself more time to cover all the material and can afford to miss a couple of days of studying.

Second, is how to study. There is so much talk of why studying is necessary, but little time is dedicated to discussing the proper strategies to efficiently memorize information. It’s easy to get distracted and take too much time to learn very little. To solve this, try focusing for 25 minutes, and then taking a 5-minute break. Many studies show that 25 minutes is the sweet spot for focused studying time.

Many teachers provide their classes with different resources and different lessons throughout each subject. If your teacher provides a syllabus or unit plan, look over those to figure out what is important to study. Reviewing past tests from each unit is also important, as it allows you to recognize the main ideas from each unit. However, there is always information that changes from the unit test to the final. Looking at lessons per unit and doing some main takeaway notes is very helpful. It allows each student to gather the main concepts from each unit, making it easier to memorize and review.

Third and final is collaboration. It’s crucial to ask for help if you need it. Teachers almost always possess extra resources for more practice. In addition, studying with friends in groups can be very helpful. I can guarantee that different students in each class know different parts of each topic from the class, so studying with other people can allow you to gather more information and pick up information you may have missed otherwise.

Hope these tips help, and good luck!