UMass Amherst Campus RepsCarlie Roth is a senior at UMass Amherst and is a communication major with a psychology minor. She has a focus in interpersonal communication and loves everything food and fitness related.
It’s back ladies and gentlemen. Our least favorite time of the year- final’s week. There’s no easy way around it, and there’s never any hope of getting out of it, so we have to take a deep breath and face finals head on. Lucky for you, we’ve come up with a few helpful tips that might get you through the week. When in doubt, always remember: it’s just a test and it will be over soon (thank God). In the mean time, make sure you get enough sleep, stay well hydrated, and focus! Check out our survival guide to finals week:
Make a Study Guide
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Whether you type out your notes in a Word document or make 6,000 note cards, make sure you make yourself a study guide. Study guides are one of the best ways to get all of your information in one spot so you can access it and review it easily. Sometimes, professors will give you a study guide or an outline of the material you should know. Always use those tools to your advantage. You also learn and begin to retain information while making the study guide, so when you look over it a second time much of the material will be review.
Work With People
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When you study by yourself, you may not get the same benefits you would from studying with a group. FInd friends or people you know who are in the same classes as you, and really take advantages of studying with other people. If you have more than one study guide to look at, you will have more coverage on all of the material at hand. In a study group you can also quiz each other and help explain information you or someone else may not understand. By working in groups, you further your knowledge and understanding of the material and will probably get a better grade than if you were to study independently.
Get Enough Sleep
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While you may think that staying up all night before an exam is helping you, it can actually make you do worse on an exam. Your brain works the best when it’s well rested, with a full 7-8 hour night of sleep. If you stay up all night cramming, you may be over tired and not perform as well as you’d like to. Cram as much material into your head as you can the day before an exam, but make sure you get to bed at a normal hour. Giving your body enough sleep will actually help you perform better than you’d think.