It’s only worth 20% of your semester grade, not a big deal, right? Just two hours that can make or break the grades that you have worked tirelessly to earn for four months.
This year will be my 3rd time taking midterms, and my 7th time taking any sort of semester exam. I don’t want to say that I have the art of midterms down cold, but I do know a lot more than I did as a freshman.
Yes, it can seem overwhelming thinking about the fact that you have around five or six exams to take over the course of four days. But in reality, it’s only as stressful as you make it. Easier said than done, I know. However, there is some truth behind this motto. The more that you put into freaking out about how much material you need to review or how horrible the test will be, the more stressed you will actually become. The key is organization.
1. Dump everything out. Absolutely everything. It’ll look like your binder just threw up.
2. Separate any key worksheets, important notes (throw out the doodles), and all tests into three slightly neat piles.
3. Put these into a folder.
4. Take a break, grab a sandwich, go on Facebook and Twitter for half an hour (no longer than that).
5. Take out the folder, sit where you can work most efficiently and start from the beginning.
6. Take breaks every 30 minutes, unless you are on a roll and feel like you can keep going through the hour.
7. Repeat these steps for the remaining 5 classes over the course of the week.
Yes, this is a simple procedure, but done routinely for every class, it will actually ease your stress and make things feel a lot more manageable.
While students feel pressured to study days and days in advance, I have found what is most successful is only taking on the two classes you have the next day. Certainly do not study only one day in advance, but do not worry about the last exam you have before you have taken the first one. I have Calculus and Physics the first day, so I will I have been most successful when I am able to focus in on one or two subjects at a time. It eliminates stress and makes exams seem a little more like an average quiz.
How much time should you spend on each class? Never more then four hours in total; there is such a thing as over-preparing. Again, each test is two hours, meaning that it won’t cover topics in as much detail as when you did the actual unit. It is important that you understand major topics as opposed to attempting to memorize every type of problem that your teacher could throw at you.
Above all, the most important thing to acing midterms is sleep. Not just five hours but eight or nine. If you stay up until 3:00 a.m. all of that time spent studying rather than sleeping will go to waste. If you can barely keep your eyes open during the exam, you certainly will not be able to focus and get the grade. I have stayed up all night, getting maybe two hours of sleep, thinking that because I studied for seven hours I would know everything. Well, I didn’t, and you won’t either. It was only during the exam that I realized that after 2:00 a.m. I didn’t retain anything.
Organize and sleep. Do that, and you’re sure to make it through without a breakdown.
