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Welcome to college. Welcome to finals week.
Although there are times when college really is all fun and games, finals week inevitably comes around every semester. Whether you’re an incoming freshman or a returning college student, finals week can be stressful. This is your time to get prepared and avoid having to take your courses again next semester.
To keep from wasting your time, money and energy, ENTITY has some advice to help you nail your exams this year.
Your parents have been saying this since you started elementary school: Pay attention in class. Don’t just be a seat-warmer and do your best to stay engaged and awake. If you’re having trouble keeping your mind focused on the material, Cengage Brain suggests sitting near the front row to stay awake. If you know the professor can see you, you may be too embarrassed to fall asleep. Also, Cengage Brain suggests sitting in the same seat every class, which “may help trigger your memory” when finals week rolls around.
If you pay attention in class, then you’re already ahead of the game. Pick your favorite spot, take notes and ask questions. Be that brave soul and raise your hand; it will pay off in the end.
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Take note of anything in bold in your textbook assignments, worksheets or PowerPoints. Copy it, learn it, memorize it. In addition, remember than anything your professor repeats more than once is your cue to write it down, as it will most likely feature in your exam.
If you’re not sure how to take effective notes, Life Hacker suggests sticking to keywords and writing short sentences in your own words. The most important thing, however, is to be flexible and adapt to your teacher’s lecture style.
If possible, take notes by hand when you can. Pam A. Mueller of Princeton University conducted research which shows that taking handwritten notes benefits students in the long run. She tells NPR, “The students who were taking longhand notes in our studies were forced to be more selective – because you can’t write as fast as you can type. And that extra processing of the material that they were doing benefited them.”
If you want to nail your first college exam, make sure you do your homework as it’s assigned. Don’t put off your assignments until the night before they’re due; a habit of procrastination is not going to be beneficial as you continue through college and after graduation.
Waiting until the last minute means you will either copy the assignment, skip it altogether or finish it so fast that you won’t learn the material. What happens then? You will be completely lost come exam time.
Not only that, but doing your homework on time benefits you every day, not just during finals week. When you do your homework a few days ahead, you can actually read all of the instructions, sleep earlier and take your time.
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Annotate everything – readings, homework, PowerPoint slides. Write a note beside anything that strikes you or place a post-it in your book so you can come back and review it.
According to AP Central, “Students can easily improve the depth of their reading and extend their understanding over long periods of time by developing a systematic form of annotating.” When you take notes directly onto your books or pre-prepared PowerPoint slides, you have all the necessary information – the text from the readings and your notes on how you are processing the information – in one place. When notes are closer together, they are easier to understand and organize.
Not only that, but annotating also helps you personally engage with the text. “You can deliberately engage the author in conversations and questions, maybe stopping to argue, pay a compliment or clarify an important issue,” AP Central writes. “If and when you come back to the book, that initial interchange is recorded for you, making an excellent and entirely personal study tool.”
If you managed to survive high school without studying, you may be in for a shock during freshmen year. Unless you were blessed with a photographic memory and an astounding knowledge of the world, you better get to studying.
Note cards, post-it notes, outlines – use anything and everything that can help you retain information.
For those of you who don’t know how to study effectively, the State University of New York website suggests avoiding all-nighters and studying in 20 to 50 minute increments with five to 10 minutes of break-time between each session. According to a Work-Learning Research conducted by Will Thalheimer, Ph.D., spacing out your learning benefits long-term retention.
And if you’re getting tired, get up and move! According to Active, just 30 minutes of cardio can wake you up and boost your memory. Cardio sessions pump extra blood to your brain, which then delivers the oxygen and nutrients it needs to perform at maximum efficiency. It doesn’t matter if you’re dancing, jogging or speed walking, exercising just may help you ace your exams.
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According to the Huffington Post, a sleep study performed by researchers from Ghent and KU Leuven Universities in Belgium found that “students who generally got a good night’s sleep performed better on exams.” When you sleep, “new knowledge is integrated into our existing knowledge base while we sleep,” says Dr. Stijn Baert of Ghent University.
Additionally, sleeping can help boost your thinking ability and improve your athletic performance. So you’d better get to bed on time each night. Even if it’s tempting to pull all-nighters, you don’t want all that studying and hard work to go to waste.
So just remember, for your next finals week simply stay engaged, stay active and stay rested.
