questionswith finals coming up, do you have any study tips?


Don't try to cram everything in at the last minute. My suggestion is a little bit at a time over a week or so which at this point may be a little late.

You might try getting up early before the finals and studying. This way you won't forget the material.


I think a lot of it comes from figuring out what works best for you, figuring out how you learn.

For me, I'm not a night person. I found that studying after 10 or 11pm was mostly useless. I was much better off getting a good night's sleep and then waking up early to review my notes and work a few more problems.
Flashcards and rewriting things helped me a lot. As did talking through things (actually saying things out loud). Rereading and reviewing in my head was less useful.
To memorize formulas I had to write them out over and over again. Just looking at them was never enough and saying them wasn't as helpful as writing.
But I had friends I studied with who learned differently and found that different things worked better for them.

So give different methods of studying a try and good luck to you!


I second the idea of saying things out loud, depending on what you're studying. If you have a willing friend or roommate, you might ask them to let you explain things to them. If you can make things make sense to another person, you probably have it pretty well set in your own head. But lacking a guinea pig, you can still do it out loud to yourself.


Smell is very strongly associated with memory. I have heard that this is a good technique: Pick a strong smelling hard candy that you don't normally eat, like cinnamon, or if you don't drink coffee those coffee nips candies. Suck on those candies while studying, and only when studying, then suck on one while taking the test. You can even use a different flavor for different subjects. I didn't hear about this till after the testing phase of my life was done so I can't say it works, but it's worth a shot.


I just finished my undergrad and the thing that helped me the most was doing practice problems and tests. (note: I was a Chemistry major)

Before I started studying I would just take a practice test (usually teachers would give us a few old tests or practice tests). This helped me ID any weak spots in my knowledge. I would then go review the chapter(s) I was weak on - just skimming usually helped. I would then do some problems from the book.

Practice problems really help you learn the methods of actually solving a problem. If you do a problem type enough times, you will definitely be able to do it backwards and forwards.After doing practice problems I would go through the same test again and redo my problems which I missed in order to make sure that I am getting the right answers and showing all of the necessary work.

After that, I would take a couple more tests and review the chapters if I still seemed weak on something. This method seemed to help a lot. (continued)


What is your major? I minored in Film Studies, so I pretty much can give you advice on any kind of studying you need to do...

STUDY WITH A GROUP! Obviously this group should be people who either know the material just as well or better than you. Also, they should be people who are focused! This will help you stay focused because they will give you evil glares and comment if you start goofing off or something.