How I Study for Finals

I have been trying to write an intro to this article for 10 minutes now. My finals for semester 1 start on Monday and even though I know I have studied well all year, I’m nervous about how the exams will be. But I’m also confident about how I studied so I decided I’ll share some tips for each of the subjects I have this semester.

For those who don’t read my weekly recounts, I have Sociology, Biology, Chemistry and Math this semester. The first exam I have is Sociology on the 20th, then Biology on the 22nd, Math on the 23rd and Chemistry on the 27th. I have kept up some good study habits this year and I think that has helped ease the stress I usually face before big exams.

I haven’t studied subjects like English, Physics and Psychology in a while so I can’t really share study tips on those, but I have some exciting classes next semester if you’d like to wait for more tips. This post will only have tips for the subjects I mentioned above.

Sociology: I found that this subject didn’t have much to study. We didn’t have too many long paragraphs to memorize or too many case studies to read. There were a ton of wonderful assignments that helped us understand the course better than the textbook could. So, after my teacher established that she wanted to see a lot of social scientific terminology in our essays and assignments, I began making a list of those important words and their definitions. My final exam has one big essay question, one short answer and 20 ‘match the term to the definition’ questions. So, I think my method will really come in handy. Other than that, I kept really detailed notes of the lectures and went back to look at the power points to fill in any missing notes. We watched a few documentaries and tv show episodes in class, so I to refresh on those, I read their plot summaries on Wikipedia, along with some analysis articles to help me.

Biology: My favourite. My teacher this semester has kept all of her tests based on the notes she gives us in class, so the exam will also be the same. Again, I didn’t find the need to memorize anything because everything we learnt was either a concept, a process or a diagram. And our teacher repeatedly says she’ll ask us for links between those concepts and processes more than she’ll ask about them separately because she wants to incorporate as much of the syllabus into the exam as she can. So, I have spent my time looking for all the links I can find, big or small. Besides that, I did the best I could in class to understand the concepts well so I wouldn’t have to rely on a different source later on. But if you feel like you still need extra help, Crash Course and the Amoeba Sisters have some really good videos that explain a lot of Biology. Lastly, because this year’s Bio course was heavily Cell Biology, I try to imagine the roles a cell has. We started with the basic roles at the beginning of the semester, like cell respiration and replication, and moved to specialized cells towards the end, like nephrons and neurons. So, I like to think about all of that in one place. A neuron carrying out respiration as well as depolarization and repolarization at the same time.

Chemistry: This one was a little harder than the others to focus on. I have always been pretty good at Chemistry, but this semester, it was a little harder than what I’m used to. How I’ve done it since Chemistry became a separate subject for me in Grade 7, is I like to visit the chapters I studied and I write down just the important headings and 1 or 2 points to accompany each of them. These could be their definitions or formula(e) associated with them. What I find helps me the most though, is to do as many practice problems as I can. Most of my Chemistry tests rarely have 4-mark questions for just the explanation of a law or theorem. The bigger questions are usually lengthy problem-solving questions. And the practice problems always help my confidence. When I do these problems, besides understanding the concepts better, I become better at looking for the necessary information. Sometimes, on a test, if I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, I write down what’s given and see if they fit any particular formula. Once I figure that out, I usually reach the answer in no time.

Math: Just like Chemistry, I find that doing practice problems for Math helps me ease my nerves. These problems are usually the ones I did for homework all semester. So, I usually have my own work to refer to if I’m stuck. I don’t make a huge effort when it comes to Math because, like Chemistry, if I know what the formula is and I can spot the necessary information, I can work my way to the answer algebraically. It helps that my teachers aren’t usually picky about how I get to the answer as long as it’s correct. I’ve just had a ton of practice with what I think were the world’s toughest questions (RD Sharma Grade 10 XD). My grade 10 boards taught me how to be quick with Math and now it’s just a part of me, a habit.

That was how I study for certain subjects specifically. But what’s common in my study method for all subjects is I review all my past tests, quizzes, worksheets or any other sheet of questions I can get my hands on. This is helpful here because, unlike my previous school, at my current school, your teacher makes your final exam. So, looking at previous questions they made, you can get a feel of what kind of questions you should expect. Even if your teacher doesn’t make your class’ test, they usually make questions from the same question bank, maybe with a few changes.

I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, comment down below. I won’t be replying to any emails sent to rueshi25@gmail.com until February 1, 2020. -Aarushi