The weather is cooling down and department stores are starting to deck their halls. Yes, that time of year is rapidly approaching. Fall semester finals.
If preparing for these impending exams and projects hasn’t crossed your mind yet, you’re not alone. It is difficult for students to plan in advance when the weight of the second half of the semester has hit them.
However, the last day of classes is less than a month away. Between the upcoming rivalry game this weekend and Thanksgiving, November will be over before we know it. That’s why I recommend using this week to take a “knowledge inventory.”
This is when we determine what we remember from lessons and what we need to significantly review. A great way to do this is to review your course syllabi. Flip back through the weekly assignments and topics for each week of this semester. Take stock of how comfortable you feel with each topic that you’ll need to know to either take a final or complete a final project.
Once you’ve determined your comfort level with all of your course material, target your weakest topics. Now you can maximize your studying time by tackling the subjects you’ll need the most work on first. Also, when students start studying early, they have plenty of time to make an appointment with their professor during his or her office hours to seek clarification and extra help.
The University of California at Santa Cruz tells all of its undergraduate students that making time to attend office hours, especially before exams, can be crucial. According to their posted advising information, “The importance of office hours in your undergraduate career cannot be stressed enough. It is probably the first and only place where you'll receive one-on-one attention from your instructors.”
In addition to getting help from their professors, students should plan out a personal study schedule in advance before December sneaks up on them. This includes scheduling time to review their notes, re-read any difficult readings and most importantly, practice testing.
Think back to one of the most important standardized tests you’ve ever had to take: the SAT. The College Board recommends that students take several practice SATs before taking the real one in order to familiarize themselves with how the test is structured and answering questions under a time limit.
The same is true for finals. It’s one thing to know the information, but it’s another thing to be able to remember it during the pressure of a test.
While planning out their study schedule, students should make time to practice completing the types of problems or essays that will be on the final in a timed, test-like situation. While this seems like it would add time to studying, it actually saves time by showing students exactly where their shortcomings are in a test situation.
Procrastinating on finals is so commonplace in college it has become a cliché. But by beating this cliché and starting to get in the finals mindset now, you’ll be saving yourself the typical December stress in a few weeks.
Reach the columnist at Emily.Muller@asu.edu
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