It’s May, and for most students, that means exams. Besides being brilliant, here are some sure-fire ways to best prepare for exams (in no particular order).
10 Study Tips for Exams
With a little planning and a game plan, you can feel confident as exams get closer.
- Find a quiet place to study, or use free white noise to help block distractions.
- Inventory your notes. Make sure you didn’t miss any (surely you never skipped class…ahem). Ask friends for any notes you missed and write them out yourself. Do NOT photocopy them. By writing them yourself, you ensure that you understand what they scribbled down and you familiarize yourself with the missed material.
- Organize your notes. Pay attention to quantities. If a professor spent 3 weeks on one topic and 1 day on another, chances are you need to study the 3-week topic more than the 1-day topic.
- Imagine you’re the prof. Based on the class and notes, what questions would you ask to see if someone understood the material? Then, ask yourself those questions. If you can’t answer them, study more.
- Practice answering questions without your notes in front of you. Anyone can do it with notes in front of them.
- Study. Did I mention this? Reading your notes is NOT the same thing as actually studying. Studying involves thinking, analyzing, and processing.Form a study group with 1 to 2 people who are doing better than you in class. Buy them coffee or dinner for their efforts since they’re not getting any benefit from you. :
- Get good sleep. Invest in a sound machine- you know dorm rooms are not quiet. Do not let others and their noise keep you awake.
- Go over old quizzes and tests and see what you missed. If you don’t understand what you missed, chances are you won’t get it right on the test either. Make sure you sill remember what you got right (or got lucky enough to answer correctly).
- Meet with your professor or TA to go over any questions you still have, if possible. This ones involves planning- don’t wait until the day before the exam.
- Familiarize yourself with the format of the exam. Will it be like the tests you have already taken, or a different format? Knowing is half the battle.
Good luck!
