Get Ready for Finals: Preparing & Studying
Prioritize, Organize, and Manage Your Time and Materials
- Figure out what your present situation is in each class.
- Estimate what catch-up work and new work needs to be done between now and the final exams. Also, estimate how much time will be needed to review for each exam.
- Learn all you can about what to expect on your final exam.
- Rank your courses according to importance, and decide on a realistic final-grade goal for each course.
- Estimate how many study hours are available to you and divide them amount your courses according to your priorities.
- Adjust your grade-goals, if necessary, to fit the realities of how much study time is available.
Especially if you’ve had trouble organizing yourself in the past, it’s important to create a detailed plan. If you need help creating this, let me know! As you prepare for your exams, it’s important to pull together relevant study materials: quiz/exam study guides you’ve been given in the past, quizzes/exams you’ve taken, and your notes/readings that will be tested on the final exam.
Find a Place to Study
If you haven’t already noticed, study spaces are becoming more and more crowded. It’s important to find a good environment that works with your personality and study preferences. Take a look at the blog post about some of the great study spaces on- and off-campus.
Visit Faculty or the Learning Centers
If you’re confused about your notes, the readings, or your past tests or quizzes, schedule time to meet with your professors during their office hours or visit the Learning Centers! Bring old tests and quizzes to review questions you missed and get tips for studying. If you’re not sure what to ask or say to your professor, read the previous post about tips on how to talk to your professor. Now is also a great time to seek campus resources that can support you, academically. Here are some:
Attend Study Review Sessions
If your professor offers a review session, go! A review session is a time set aside to answer questions about the material that will be on the final exam. These can be held during class or at a special time outside of class. Just be careful not to use these as crutches. They’re not supposed to replace studying. Here’s what you should do at a review session to get the most out of this opportunity:
- Review the material before the review session. Some students skip this step, and attend the review session with the approach that attending will be the start of their studying. There are two problems with this approach. First, if you don’t look over the notes and readings first, the information won’t be fresh in your mind during the review session, and you might be confused by the information you hear there. Second, by looking over the material ahead of time, you’ll know if there are concepts you do not understand.
- Come with prepared with questions. Many students don’t come with questions or concepts they’re confused about, and assume that others will ask helpful questions that will benefit everyone. There’s no guarantee that someone will ask the questions that you need the answers to for preparing. Unfortunately, if you don’t ask questions, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get the information you need.
- Ask the right questions. Many students come to the exam session with hopes of receiving some information about what specifically will be on the test. They ask questions like, “Is Chapter 12 going to be on the test?” or “What do we have to know about Chapter 5?” Although it would be nice to know what’s going to be on test, this isn’t the point of a review session. Instead, ask questions like, “I was really confused by Chapter 8. Could you please explain what the author means when she talks about…?”
On the Day of the Final
- If your exam is early in the morning, set multiple alarms to avoid over-sleeping.
- Eat a meal and drink water.
- Don’t overdo it with the caffeine.
- Know what to bring with you to the final. Do you need a blue book? A Scantron? A pencil? A pen? Your laptop? A calculator?
- Are food and drinks allowed in the classroom where your final will be? Sometimes, the rules are different for exam days than other days.
- Even if you don’t usually wear a watch, take one with you to the final. It’s unlikely you will be able to look at your cell phone to check the time during the final.
