5 Tips for Success On Your Final Exams

With the end of the year and final exams steadily approaching, I wanted to share five tips in order to be successful in your final exams.

1. Schedule Your Time                                                                                                                                                                                                                      It can be difficult to start studying for your final exams one month or even a couple weeks earlier, due to the number of other assessments stacked up at the end of the school year. However, despite this, if you schedule your time, you can study effectively for your exams in even a week. For example, you could organize your exams dates in one schedule, and layout your priorities deciding on how much time each day you are going to take to study each subject. This way, you will be able to spread out your week’s time on multiple subjects throughout the exam season, instead of cramming for one test, the night before.
2. Write a Brief Overview & Set Study Goals                                                                                                                                                                         For each subject, you can also quickly jot down a brief outline on what the units are, and what topics you would like to focus on for each subject. This way you will be organized on what you need to accomplish for each subject and be able to plan ahead on the areas you may need to focus on or give importance to when you are studying. Setting study goals/deadlines for specific topics/units, may help you stay on track with your schedule.
3. Notes for Key Points                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Passively reading the textbook, or even your old notes may not be a very effective technique to study, especially when you are going through a whole course worth of content. Instead, you can make notes for some of the key points that you think may be useful or important. If you do not like notes, you can even prepare flashcards or any other study method that works for you, to keep you fully concentrated and focused when you are studying. Also, if/when you are making notes (or flashcards, etc.), you should try to budget your time -the notes do not have to fully comprehensive, key points would be more useful.
4. Review Old Exam Papers                                                                                                                                                                                                 It is always recommended that you try to find old exam papers online for your subject in order to test yourself on the material. This can give you a rough idea of what you can expect for your final exam, as well as, help you prepare for similar questions that may be on your exam. If you are given a review booklet, it is also recommended that you do that as well- teachers usually try to put similar questions in the review as in the final exam.
5. Take regular breaks                                                                                                                                                                                                          All this being said, it is still important to take care of your mental health and wellness during exam season. It is important to keep taking regular breaks so that you can be refreshed – research shows that taking breaks while studying can actually increase your energy, productivity and ability to focus.

Hope this helps! Good luck to everyone on your final exams!

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