As the semester comes to an end, this means final exams are near. It is time to review everything you have learn in the past few months or year, depending on how your school structures your classes. Studying can be stressful and time consuming, so I am here to teach you some tips and tricks on acing this year's exams! Feel free to jump around the sections to find tips you find useful and discover what you want to incorporate into your studying.
Study Tools
Since the best methods of studying are different for everyone, I will share a variety of tools which can be utilized by anyone. If you don’t know what works for you, I recommend trying a variety of these tools based on the time you have and narrowing down which ones you feel are the best and developing others you find yourself.
Class Resources
Though this may seem simple, your class resources are the best sources of review. This could include worksheets, study guides, or class notes. Your major asset, however, is any previous tests or quizzes you may have been given back in the past. These assessments are great as they provided frameworks to the previous units and may include some questions the teacher will reuse on the exam.
Exam Study Guide
When a class has a variety concepts and you want to compress all this information together, a personal study guide could be created. Sometimes teachers will provide a study guide, but this becomes uncommon as you go through high school. To address this, I recommend creating your own guide to the class. This can be done in any way you want, such as typing out major definitions or combing the important concepts of your tests. By creating the study guides, you do get the bonus of reviewing all the units and not just jumping head first into studying for the exam.
Quizlet
If you preform well with repetition and your exam will contain a plethora of terms and definitions, Quizlet is a great study website to use. If you are unfamiliar to Quizlet, it is a learning tool which helps students prepare for any assessments. This tool has many features, so please check out a previous article, Quizlet | A Tool to Expand Your Studying Skills, to learn or refresh yourself about Quizlet. For preparing for exams, Quizlet provides many features to make this process easier. First, you can create a new study set comprising of everything on your exam. This can take a while,
but it can serve as a complete guide, especially if you have no prior study sets. Second, you can combine multiple sets into once. This is achieved by selecting the three dots on a study set and choosing the "Combine" option. Third, you can study an entire folder at once. This is completed by selecting the book-like symbol on a folder and choosing which option you would prefer to use. Altogether, Quizlet is a major resource I recommend to anyone who needs to memorize all the definitions on their exam.
Kahoot/Quizziz
Though I mostly use them for my language exam, Kahoot and Quizziz are great websites to review the various school novels. Depending on how many books your class reads in a semester, it can be a lot of plot information to remember. Therefore, Kahoot and Quizziz are great study tools to find review games for all your novels. Due to school books being fairly popular, you are likely to find plenty of review games on both these sites. If you wish to create your own, you can make original Kahoots and Quizzizs for any exam. These games can then be used for personal review and shared with your friends.
Organization
Now with all these resources, it may be difficult to map out what you need to study in each class and what study tools can be applicated to those subjects. To solve this, I recommend creating an exam guide and exam binder by gathering together your important papers. Both of these tactics have helped me stay organized while studying, so I hope they improve your organization as well!
Exam Guide
First, an exam guide is great to keep track of all the study tools you have available for a class. There are many different ways to do this, but for me I will create a bullet point list, writing the chapters/units first and then the study tools. I have been creating these guides for years and each time I have altered it as my study habits change. As you study, you can always scratch out or check off each unit to see your progress as you go. If you are interested in creating an exam schedule but do not know where to start, feel free to use this template and make a copy of the Google Doc.
Exam Binder
Second, an exam binder is perfect for keeping all your study guides and important exam related documents together. Everyone is different, but I tend to print rather than constantly open multiple documents. Therefore, a binder is great to keep all these papers organized and combined together. At the front of the binder, I will put my exam schedule. Afterward, I will have tab dividers, one for each class. In each tab, I will include any exam study guide, important documents, or any major review material. It is unlikely you will be able to fit every class into one binder, so choose carefully what you want to include. In the end, you now have a portable binder with all big review material which could be used wherever you want.
Motivation and Mindfulness
While knowing all these various ways to study is great, it can be hard to start working ahead for a test which is week or more away. To address this, I will share some tactics which helped me stay focused and on schedule so that I don’t end up studying the night before.
Rewards and Breaks
To not procrastinate and become motivated, you sometimes need a source of motivation. We all remember the days in elementary school when a teacher promised a reward, such as a party, if we behaved well throughout the year. Even in middle and high school, knowing a reward is coming if you work hard, helps you stay focused. This could be giving yourself something after a day of studying or promising yourself a reward at the end of all your exams. For me, I am a sweet tooth and will give myself one or two pieces of candy after studying for a class. I will also put
something aside to look forward to at the end of my exams, such as a new video game. Still, it is important to take breaks during your studying. If you work really hard at the start, you may burn yourself out by the night before the exam, causing you to lack the final motivation. I especially know the struggle on the second to last day of school, knowing only one or two exams stand between me and the summer.
Study Schedule
To keep tract of everything you
need to study in your exam guide, it can be good to create a study schedule as well. There is a lot you will need to study and you have multiple tools to use. To make sure everything is review well ahead of the exam, write down what studying you want to accomplish each day. This could be reviewing a chapter/unit of each class or using every Quizlet in one class each day. You can always incorporate this into your exam guide, such as including "study dates" next to the various items in the lists, or just write reminders in your personal planner.
The summer is coming soon, but do not give up on your exams just because it is the end of the semester. I hope you will try out these various tactics and learn what works and does not work for you. I also encourage everyone to develop your own and modify mine to enhance your studying. Good luck to everyone!