Finals week is one of the roughest of the year for most college students. Over the past 3 years, I have found things that have worked really well to make sure that I have the grades I need to pass a class and to move on to focusing on the next few weeks of break!
1. Ask your teacher what kinds of things will be in the final.
Most teachers will hand out a study guide, but if not, during the last few days of classes. ask your teacher. Most of your classmates may have the same question and may not want to ask the question. Knowing what kind of questions will be on your final, will help you decide what you should really focus on when it comes to studying. For example, if your teacher says that the majority of your questions will be multiple choice, you can make flashcards of questions you think may be on your exam. If the questions will mostly be short answer or essay questions, you can use your study guide questions and try explaining to yourself the process or answer to the question you think you might have to answer! Overall, it never hurts to ask your teacher what to expect on an exam.
2. Ask your teacher if the exam will be cumulative or not.
Some teachers will have cumulative exams while others may just focus on what you have learned in the past few weeks. If cumulative, study past test and quizzes. These exams are the easiest to study for in my opinion. You can put your questions on flashcards and study the questions and answers that way. It is really important that you don't memorize the letter or number to the question because the order in which the answers are given on the old test/quiz, may not be the order on the final exam. Make sure that you study any new material you learned within the past few weeks too. Your final may be split into a certain percentage of review and a certain percentage of new material.
3. Studying is important, but remember to take a break too!
Though studying for final exams is important, so are brain breaks. Studying for too long can be detrimental to your memory. On a blog by SUNY, it recommends studying for 15-20 minutes at a time for better long-term memory retention. A study by Dr. Will Thailheimer, confirms this. Both links found below.
http://blog.suny.edu/2013/12/scientifically-the-be... (SUNY Blog)
http://wp.phase-6.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/S... (Study on Learning Processes)
4. EAT A HEALTHY DIET AND GET EXCERCISE!!!!!
The most important advice I can give you to survive finals week is to eat and get some exercise! Eating a healthy diet gives you plenty of energy for both studying and completing your exams and projects! Though drinking coffee and energy drinks gives you energy, this energy usually doesn't last long. After a while, you will start depending on more and more because the amount of energy you will actually take from these uppers, will not be as much as when you first started.
