It’s finals season! A time that students dread yet love at the same time. They spend days studying when they could be watching Disney+, and it’s all for getting a good grade. But once it’s all over, students have a good two weeks to watch The Mandalorian many times over.

So what’s the best way to get through finals with as little stress as possible? Mr. Jeff Wellwood works as one of Prep’s counselors as well as in Cura Personalis. He gave us lots of great information.

Make a schedule!

Many students prefer to study only when they feel like it, and that’s not a great idea as that time will probably never come. If you don’t make a set time to study, you’ll likely keep putting it off. Plan out how your day will go. Write down when you plan to eat and when you plan to study. If your favorite show comes out at the same time every week, include that in your schedule. Once the show is over, shut off your TV; otherwise, you’ll find that you spent the past five hours wasting time.

Wellwood gave us a copy of a schedule that you can use to help organize your time. You can find it here. Thank the Cura Personalis team if you find it helpful!

Lay low on lyrical music!

Everyone loves to jam out to songs like Let it Go and Do You Want to Build a Snowman while doing work! Who doesn’t? That’s some addictive stuff! But is that the best thing to listen to while studying? No. Music with words can actually make it much more difficult to retain information. When a person listens to someone speaking, their brain has to process what is being said. If you’ve ever tried writing something while listening to someone else, you may have found that you started writing something that the person had just said. A sentence that you intended to be about one thing may have turned into something completely different. It’s the same sort of thing when studying and listening to lyrical music.

Wellwood says that your best option would be to listen to baroque music, but anything without words should do. Here’s a Spotify playlist that you might want to check out.

Get your priorities straight!

If you already know a certain subject well, maybe spend a little more time on the stuff that you don’t know. If you’re a master chemist, try studying for English. At the same time though, don’t completely ignore your strong subjects. 

(This reporter tried that once; let’s just say that it was no longer a strong subject after that.)

Talk to your teacher, you have them for a reason!

They know what’s on the test! There’s a good chance that they’ll let you know what you should focus your studies on if you ask. See if they’ll tell you what kind of questions you’ll get, hopefully, you get lots of true/false! I know some of them can be pretty scary, so if you prefer, try emailing them. You might not get the best help that way, so try to make some sort of effort to talk to them in person.

Wellwood mentioned that if your teacher can see that you tried to do well by getting help, they might give your grade a small boost if things don’t go as well as you had hoped.

Study Methods

If your trying to study math, the best thing that you can do is practice. When you’re tired of that, get a snack and then practice some more. For subjects like English and history, make some flashcards and go over your notes.