October Blues: Preparing For Midterms - MacInsiders - Student-run McMaster University Help Forum

IbrahimH · 10-04-2009 at 09:22 AM

October Blues: Preparing For Midterms

BY FEONA GRANT, MACINSIDERS

It's not that time of year yet, but we had better start preparing for it now. I'm not talking about having our stomachs empty enough for Thanksgiving dinner, but rather being prepared for midterms. University midterms is a scary thing, especially for a first year. Trust me, it doesn't get any less scarier in upper years. However, with a few simple tips that I will share with you, I hope that we can all fare a little bit better once we get to that time. [Hopefully we can also hold onto our last bits of sanity while we're at it.]

I. Take Care Of Yourself

Coming to university can mean a lot of different things to different people, but one of the things most of us have in common is being hit with a lot more responsibility and a lot more tasks to complete which usually results in not taking care of ourselves as well as we should. That means sleeping well, eating well and being active. It doesn't mean you should become a health freak [although it is ideal], it's not easy for teenagers and twentysomethings to do so. Remember to get enough sleep at night, and always eat breakfast. This gives you energy to continue on through a long day of lectures, readings and assignments. Eat [healthy] snacks at regular intervals to keep your metabolism and energy up there, such as an apple between classes.

Don't gorge on quick campus food either, try stopping by a grocery store if you can, and try to get some ingredients for some nice home cooked meals. If you don't know how to cook now, you should learn, it will serve you very well. You might ask what this has to do with midterms. Well, being healthy means that you're going to have energy to study and actually absorb material better. When it comes to crunch time and you're tempted to cram, you won't feel like complete -- let's just say you'll feel better before and between midterms. Please try to stay away from energy drinks. Drinking water several times a day will actually help to keep you going, or perhaps fruit smoothies.

II. Yesterday's Notes Are Not Yesterday's News

Keep track of EVERYTHING associated with your courses. Notes, lecture print outs, assignments. You're going to absolutely need it. It's not high school where you can sort of browse through the assigned chapters and most likely do well on the test. Professors are meticulous on testing you on pretty much everything, and you don't want to have unexpected questions pop up on the exam that essentially spell out your death. No, you certainly don't want that.

III. Got A Stack of Ugly Midterm Notes? Here's A Tip: Condense!

So you've tracked down every resource, every note taken, every kilobyte of binary code that relates to your course. However, to go through all of this all over again might seem like a pain. This is why you start early. At least three to four weeks before your midterm, if you haven't already, start reviewing those notes. Don't even begin to try and memorize, just try to understand what you're reading and begin to form questions that you think may appear on the test. Start to put the information into tables and charts, to make it more easily accessible.

Try to rewrite the notes in shorter form; students tend to write unnecessary notes -- that is, they write everything down and not all of it is completely relevant or important. Cut this extra material out, and focus on what you think will be important. Often professors will stress on what is important to know, and that's another reason why you should attend class and tutorial. When rewriting your notes, you're actually studying in this way, as you're recalling information you've heard already and writing it down again helping you to absorb it. Make sure to underline any key words, concepts, formulas, themes, etc. If in this process you come across a piece of information you don't understand, this is the prime time to ask your professor or TA questions. A lot of professors/TAs often hold review sessions, but it's not always a good idea to wait until then. [Always a good idea to go to them though!]

Consider the big questions such as conceptual and application questions, and the smaller contextual questions like factual questions that you may be asked. You might also want to invest in flash cards, writing questions or definitions on one side and the answer on another. Review these whenever you have free time [ideally you should be freeing up a lot of time to study for midterms].

My own technique is a combination of flash cards and reading notes out loud. So for example, if I'm reading over a condensed page of notes, I'll read it over and over until I understand and I'm able to recite definitions and other important pieces of information out loud without looking at the page.

IV. What's Better Than Partying On Saturday Nights? Study Party!

I'm not being completely serious here, but study groups are actually very productive as long as you don't get swept in up swapping stories of what your nasty roommate did last week, or how you broke up with your boyfriend again for the seventh time. It just doesn't relate to anything. [Well, maybe psychology, but let's get to the point here, shall we?]

McMaster has a ton of study rooms in libraries that you can book online, or empty classrooms that no one uses for hours at a time. Common areas in residences can work too. Utilize these spaces well.

When studying with a group, a good thing to do is to maybe make sure you have all the notes from the course. Arrange them by date if you can, and fill in any missing notes. After this, make yourself a practice test, with multiple choice, true false, short answer, whatever you like. It would be a good idea to use a format that your professor is actually going to use on the real midterm. When you've finished making up questions, swap with your study partners who've done the same along with you. And keep swapping until you've done all of them.

Try explaining terms and definitions to one another, it gives you confidence in not only being able to write it down, but being able to explain it to someone else who may or may not understand. If you don't have anyone in your courses that you know to study with, try hooking up with some people on MacInsiders, you may be able to find someone in the same course.

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In the end, you will find your own ways better suited to you for how you can study well for midterms and finals, it just takes time to find your niche. If you would like more tips, perhaps you'd like to refer to these articles here: I, II, III.

Good luck! I hope you all do well on your upcoming midterms and exams in the future.