Nailing Your Final Exams

The Christmas songs are playing. Everywhere. It’s that time of year.

While for most people, these songs are the sound of holiday spirit, for us at Launch Education Group, Christmas songs are the sound of upcoming final exams.

Festive, huh?

Now don’t look so sad—even though it’s not quite “the most wonderful time of the year” for students, finals and private SAT tutoring don’t have to be that bad, as long as you approach them with the right mindset and the right strategies. Here are some tips to keep in mind as finals get near:

Pace yourself. Studying for final exams takes a lot of time! It’s a huge mistake to wait until the day before a final to begin studying. Get started as early as two weeks before the exams, and don’t plan on having much of a social life the weekend before exams.

Pay close attention to any final exam review sheet or topic list your teacher gives out. This will help you know exactly what you should and should not spend time studying, and you can use it as your study checklist. You should also absolutely go to any and all review sessions held by your teacher.

Use previous tests, quizzes, and other assignments to your advantage. Especially in math, science, and foreign language classes, if you know how to do every problem on every previous test or quiz, you’re likely to do very well on your final exam. When you go through old tests and quizzes, take special note of any low scores you received, and plan to spend extra time studying those topics.

Get ready to memorize. Memorization is generally a key component of successful final exam studying. Since everyone’s best strategies for memorization are different, think about what has and has not worked for you in the past when memorizing, and pick your techniques accoringly.

Find the right balance of solo versus group studying. Some people actually learn a lot when studying with friends. Others learn much better on their own. Again, think about what has really worked for you in the past. Just because it’s more fun to study with friends does not necessarily mean it’s a smart choice for you.

Remember, final exams count for a lot and they can make or break your report card. You’ve put in countless hours of hard work this semester—don’t let your effort drop now! Rather, this is the time to sprint to the finish. Nothing is better than relaxing at the end of the semester knowing you gave finals your all.