Students Prepare for Semester Exams
Exam schedules like this one are posted in most classrooms. This one is hanging in the south campus gym.
According to Learning Fundamentals, a site to help people study and work effectively, there are ten big things students can do to help prepare for semester exams. They include getting enough sleep, exercising, hydrating, and eating breakfast.
AHS south campus counselor Stephanie Blackburn agrees with Learning Fundamentals, saying the best way to prepare for exams is to get a good night’s sleep, “adequately nourishing themselves throughout the day,” and studying 15 minutes every night on different subjects, a couple weeks before the exam.
AHS senior Holly Stoll has done a similar thing for the past few years. “I study one lesson each day for each class the week before exams, and then on the weekend I go over everything,” she says.
Stoll also said it takes awhile to figure out what study tactics work best. For her, she figured out that reviewing early, way before the exam, helped her achieve the grade she wanted. Stoll said she is very lucky that she figured out what studying tactics worked for her early on in high school.
Blackburn says, “When students are unprepared for a test or exam, there is so much that comes with it. Not only do you not get the grade you want, but kids don’t take into consideration the stress and anxiety levels of not feeling prepared.”
Stoll says she gets the best grades on test, quizzes, and exams when she starts reviewing a couple weeks before.
“Some advice for students on how to study for the exam is to study one subject at a time and go in for help if you need it to really understand the material so you can do well,” Stoll says.
Top Universities, an online media site, names a few tactics that can help with studying for final exams. The list includes the following: giving yourself enough time to study, organizing your study space, getting rid of distractions, practicing on old exams or practice exams, and teaching others on the material so you understand it better.
Blackburn says the best way to take an exam is “to go through it slowly, read the questions, look of key words or phrases that will give you hints to what the answer will be, trust your gut instinct, but you really don’t know, go by process of elimination.”
Stoll agrees saying, “It is worth it not to rush through the test to find the answers you know, but to go through the whole exam slowly, skipping the hard ones, coming back to them, and then make sure to check the whole exam before turning it in again.”
