Colossal amounts of stress, hair-pulling study sessions, and the most dreaded time of a high school student’s life all around the world. Welcome to finals. Despite the long nights, and seemingly endless amounts of caffeine, there are several methods one can use for making this time of year easier to navigate.
- Looking through your notes before trying to complete review questions may seem like the obvious thing to do, but diving straight into a study package without skimming your notes will most likely end in a feeling of impending doom when the questions suddenly become very difficult. If your teacher didn’t hand out any review material, you can write out fill-in-the-blanks based on your notes or the textbook (this mainly works for arts courses like English and Social Studies). In courses involving calculations, you can simply redo the example questions from the lessons. Lessons will not only have applicable questions for the exam, but will also have fully explained solutions.
- When the studying gets too stressful, it’s often difficult to avoid becoming irritated at your review sheets. An absent minded student, is unproductive student, so taking a break is always a good idea. Doing something to let off some steam is very helpful, such as listening to music, playing an instrument, writing, playing a video game, or even just texting a friend.
- You could also get some fresh air. Studying isn’t usually a task completed while outside (especially in January weather here in Surrey), so taking a break to go outside can really help clear your head. Walking your dog, walking your cat, or even just walking yourself can really help with getting a new perspective on the upcoming exam.
- Stock up on a snacks and get something to drink before settling down for a study period. They say that time flies when you’re having fun, but it doesn’t exactly crawl when you’re studying. When trying to solve your way through a seemingly endless mountain of review questions or staring at pages and pages of confusing notes, it’s remarkably easy to forget important things like food and drink. Before surrounding yourself with textbooks and binders, make sure you’re prepared for studying.
- Find a different method of studying instead of letting your eyes glaze over while looking at a giant stack of notes. For theory related material (arts courses and theoretical portions of science courses,) Quizlet is fantastic because it offers many options for how to practice. You can do matching, multiple choice, or simply entering the term required for the definition it shows. For example, this is a set of Quizlet flashcards someone made for the Biology unit of Science 9. What’s more is, asking a parent or sibling to help with reviewing terms and definitions, since they can correct you in real time, and you can’t accidentally see the answer like you could when quizzing yourself.
Though exams can be scary, a little bit of willpower and some organized study techniques can make a world of a difference in the stress caused by exam preparations.
