What techniques do you use to study for finals?

Question

My college finals are coming up, I only have 3 finals but I am kind of stressing on how i can study. Im an ok test taker but I have studied throught my courses. I am wondering if anyone has used some techniques that have worked, besides the old read and reread.

Answer 1

Ok, its now beyond the time for the old ... keep up during the semester. So, here's what I suggest:

1. The following work on SOCIAL SCIENCE courses (for science, math, etc., try someone for I know nothing about those subjects, which I scrupulously avoided).

a. After done with the reading part (which you kept up on), synthesize your notes and readings down to a few pages, and then further down to a page, and then down to a notecard. From that, be able to explain to yourself (or others) all of the concepts that were in the books. It is helpful to have someone ask you questions -- they do not know the subject, but that's ok, you can even tell them the question they meant to answer. The key is that you will not have the piece of paper in front of you.

b. Most important -- the night before each exam -- get a good night's sleep. It is much more important for you to be able to think clearly. Get up and have a good breakfast. You need to be able to do your best by thinking clearly.

c. Take the notecard(s) with you, and review them in prep for the test.

2. Remember in social science class (usually essay), your analysis will be more important than facts. So ... when in doubt, write about what you DO know. The other concepts will come as you write, so do not panic. Many times I wrote a paragraph (darn good too), and then realized the answer the teacher was looking for.

3. Remember your audience. It is much easier for a teacher to find fault with an argument or analysis with which he disagrees than one with which he agrees (he will believe you know things you did not write if you agree with his view, but you had better be very very complete if you disagree with his view -- even though prof will try to be fair).

When done -- its MILLER TIME --- keep that in the back of your mind, and you will get through it.

Answer 2

1) Sleep at least 6 hours the night before each final. This helps prevent mental blank-outs & actually the memory cannot load info into long-term storage without 6 hrs. of sleeping.

2)Try to stay in as quiet a place as possible until each exam is over.
This helped me keep my mind more focused in college exams.

3)Avoid very sweet things the morning of the exam - sugar can, I found, also interfere with concentration.

4)If you start to feel too stressed to study, take a short walk & use deep slow breaths to calm down & increase oxygen to your brain.

5)Worry is wasted energy. Do your best & then forget about it - the exam is over. Focus on the task at hand. No matter what happens, you will still be alive afterwards!!

Hope this helps.

;-)

Answer 3

I keep up on my studies all semester so right before finals I only have to review. Our college also has a dead week scheduled right before finals week. No big projects/tests are allowed to be scheduled during that week unless specifed in the course syllabus to protect the students and allow time to study for finals.