Studying for final exams should start soon.
It may not, but it should. Sometimes, though, students start thinking about summer instead of studying for final exams. They make beach trip plans. They start spending more time outside. They go buy sandals and board shorts. They go hiking, or play soccer, or go camping.
And they somehow forget that they need to be studying for finals.
By “they forget,” I’m really including myself in this one. It’s spring. Trees are blooming. It’s 72 degrees outside — which is perfect. I could be playing volleyball right now, not preparing for a test that is coming up in a few weeks.
Studying for final exams
Why not just cram at the end and call it good? Procrastination isn’t so bad, is it?
Ultimately studying for finals should take the priority right now. This isn’t to say you can’t have any fun. Go outside and enjoy the spring. But at the same time, remember these two reasons that you should start studying for final exams soon.
You need to start studying for final exams early because they’re usually cumulative
This is a serious difficulty. Often studying for final exams means that you have to think back months to the beginning of the semester. You have to dig out all your old study materials.
Then you have to relearn them. Honestly, most of us can’t remember that far in the past. We need to look back at our notes, homework, and previous tests.
This is tough. There is no easy way around this one. Cumulative tests can make studying for finals really difficult.
That’s not all though. There is another reason that just compounds this difficulty about cumulative finals.
You need to start studying for final exams early because they all happen together
The problem with final exams is that they all happen within a few hours of one another. This is a serious pain. How in the world are we supposed to prepare for not just one cumulative test, but 7!
Even if you don’t have 7 tests (maybe you only have 4), that many tests in that many days is incredibly difficult to study. How do you get around this?
Answer: start studying for final exams now.
There are no shortcuts. If you start studying for tests now, you can make use of your long-term memory instead of just your short-term memory (like when you cram). That will help a lot. But it will take discipline.
What do you think — any ideas about what students can do to help them start studying for finals today?
