As the first semester comes to an end there is one task that makes the month of December dreadful: studying for finals. As the daunting week approaches, the determination of students to either acquire or keep their desired letter grade in classes motivates them to begin studying. The stress and pressure build up for both underclassmen who are not granted many exemptions and for upperclassmen who begin to worry more about their futures. This semester sophomore Sahil Adhawade is taking finals, starting on Dec. 18, from his 5.0 classes, two of them being pre-AP Precalculus and AP Statistics.
Adhawade prefers to study individually because it saves more time and allows him to be aware of where his level of understanding is in certain concepts. He plans on reviewing previous notes and revisiting the hard concepts. He shares one of the most stressful aspects about finals week.
“Although I am a very organized person, which is helpful because it makes my studying process a lot easier, I still get stressed out about finals that are back to back as I have more than one thing to worry about,” said Adhawade.
Senior Naomi Musa is in her third year of high school and is graduating early this year. She gets to follow the exemption rules of a senior as she is now considered one in the system. Because of this, Musa is in both junior and senior classes. She is taking three finals this semester: AP Literature, AP Economics and AP U.S. History. When she learns, she tries to remember concepts and connect them together so that they make sense instead of memorizing them. That way when she begins studying for cumulative tests like finals, she can refresh already established connections instead of having to relearn everything.
“Even though I am taking finals in three of my AP classes, I would think that studying for most of them would not be very hard. Economics has never been a challenge for me and I have heard the Literature final is not something to worry about. However, it is different with AP U.S History as history subjects are much more detailed and the only option is to memorize,” said Musa. “But there are usually reviews that guide me in the right direction so I throw all of my energy into those.”
Musa, like many students, approaches each final differently and uses a variety of study techniques for each. She shares some tips on how students can work hard to achieve their goals on their final exams like she had to do to graduate early.
“I would tell other people to work smarter, not harder and to work for themselves. It is much more satisfying and easier if you can see yourself benefiting from it,” said Musa. “I would also advise people to work their own way, which will allow them to be much more successful and have much more fun than trying to achieve their goals someone else’s way.”
Here are a few study tips to help guide your final exam preparation
- Re-write hard concepts multiple times to get them in your head
- Make an outline of what you need to know for each final to keep everything organized
- Turn off notifications and study in an area that has minimal distractions
- Go back through previous tests and quizzes to ensure that you have covered all possible information that will be on the final exam
