Flawless Finals Pt. 1: General Study Tips

Below are some general study tips to help you plan and study for your upcoming final exams (or AP exams). This is part of a 4-part series published by the Board of SASS throughout the month of May!

• Create flashcards—either written or digital—to review material (helpful for all subjects, but especially so for vocabulary with languages, formulas for math and science, and other tasks of memorization)

• Review your notes and look over old problems from class

• If you have a study guide, that’s a great place to start! Go through the study guide and make sure you understand everything

• Divide the topics of your exam into three categories: 

• Things you understand and need little review of

• Things you don’t quite understand or remember, but think that you can understand quite well with some extra study/practice time

• Things you do not understand and need help at office hours or from a peer tutor to really understand

• Plan ahead—if you want to attend office hours or peer tutoring, make sure that you have enough time to book a convenient appointment. Especially with the Writing and Tutoring Center, slots can fill up fast.

• Make a plan of how you’re going to get everything done. There are many tools and ways to do this! Whatever way works for you, plan out how you’re going to complete each major project/assignment or how you’re going to study for a given exam. Mapping out realistically how much time it will take can help you to not procrastinate and get a better understanding of how much you need to invest each day.

• If you do extracurriculars such as clubs or sports, consider skipping some meetings/practices. During especially busy weeks, finding some ways to increase time for studying is really important.

• That said, if you have an extracurricular such as sports that really helps to decrease stress for you, there’s no need to skip that! Managing stress is really important as well.

• Take breaks when you need them. Sometimes it feels like you just have to keep working as hard as possible, but taking a break will both help your stress and give your brain time to process everything you’ve been studying. Taking a break is healthy and okay!

• If you’re feeling stressed, talk to your counselor. It sometimes feels scary to approach adults to ask for help, but they really are there for you and are always happy to listen.

• If you just don’t feel prepared for an exam, or have a topic that you just don’t understand, talk to your teacher and peer tutors. It’s absolutely okay to come to office hours to ask about a general topic because you don’t understand it, or to say that you just don’t feel prepared for the exam in general. The same goes for peer tutoring!

• Remember that peer tutors will not be available via the Writing and Tutoring Center after the last day of classes, as they are students too and have to study for their own exams. However, writing instructors will continue to be available through the end of finals.

• Check with your teacher to see if they will still be holding office hours after the conclusion of classes—if not, make sure to ask your questions early!

• Although if you do have a question, and they are not holding regular office hours, you can still always send an email or ask to set up a special time to meet.

• Make study groups with friends/classmates when reviewing for exams. You can go over practice problems, talk about topics in general, and exchange study strategies. Working with friends/classmates will often be more fun than studying alone, and you can also put all your heads together on difficult problems!

• If you have questions about test expectations, that is absolutely something you can ask your teacher.

• When studying for exams, practice doing problems under time pressure (and without books/notes, if they are not permitted). There is a difference between being able to do a problem and being able to do it in the allotted time.

• Try to make your own study guide (especially if your instructor has not provided one, but even if they have). In trying to summarize all the information you will need into your own study guide, you will be forced to learn it better yourself (plus, then you have that guide to reference later—and if you and a classmate both make them, you can even compare to see if there’s anything you missed).

• To study for exams, try to teach the material to someone else—be it a friend, parent, even a pet or stuffed animal! In trying to teach the material, you will end up learning it far better (and more conceptually) yourself.

• If the person is someone in your class, or someone who has already taken the course, they may be able to provide you with feedback and tell you anything you missed. On the other hand, if they don’t know the material, they may better be able to tell you if there is anything that you could have explained better when you were teaching it, which may make you realize a gap in your understanding or an assumption you were making.