Nerdify Reviews 6 Tips on How to Create a Study Schedule for Your Final Exams
College exams are stressful. No matter how much one prepares and studies, when it comes time to sit for the exam, the pressure of time and recollection can strike hard. Still, with the right planning and forethought, studying for college exams can help reduce stress levels. For that, the Nerdify Rreviews team made a list of 6 tips that will help you to create an effective study schedule for your final exams.
1. Use a calendar
Printing or making a calendar to write out plans for the coming days or weeks is an excellent way to visually organize study preparation. Calendars provide an easy way to write and plan out events and obligations in a given month, around which one can plan their studying.
This is especially useful for students working long hours to help afford college. In such cases, study time can be hard to find, as not every college job allows for long moments of downtime to hit the books. When that is the case, knowing when the time is available to sit down and focus on exam prep is essential.
For final exams, a month’s planning is a good start. Anything more can cause severe burnout, and anything less is unlikely to provide enough time to thoroughly review all the relevant material.
2. Prioritize for harder exams
Generally, the end of a semester or trimester has not one final exam, but several. That means having to juggle study time for multiple tests, which can be stressful and difficult to organize for some. Making time for each one is important, and tackling the harder exams first will help with that material actually being reviewed.
Working on the difficult stuff first is hard, but sites like Reddit are filled with stories of people who ignored exams because of difficult material and suffered the consequences. It might be hard to struggle through the hard stuff, so make sure to take that into account when planning study times for each exam.
3. Set personal goals
Just reviewing the material in preparation for an exam might seem a little aimless. Having goals and priorities regarding the material, subjects, and upcoming tests can help a lot with directing energy and resources into areas that need review as well as helping ensure proper planning.
Goals should be as specific as possible to help direct studying. “Review this chapter” or “flashcards related to this previous test” are good examples. Our Medium articles or Nerdify Reddit can provide great insights into setting personal goals for studying time.
4. Set a schedule
Along with a calendar and prioritization, a planned schedule will help a lot with ensuring time is set aside to focus on studying. This is especially useful when it comes to setting time slots for harder subjects which will take more time. Preparing for a math exam might take an hour, for example, to review problems and practice, while reviewing a chapter from a literature class might only take twenty minutes.
Schedules are also useful because they place studying within the broader scope of the day. Sleeping, eating, classes, and work all take time, and a schedule helps place study time within that broader view.
5. Don’t neglect personal health
When planning schedules and calendars, it might be tempting to neglect meals and sleep to make more time for studying. Reddit reviews and other social media platforms will make it very clear that doing so is a bad idea.
Lack of proper diet, exercise, and, especially, sleep, can have adverse effects on memory retention and comprehension. Those are essential to studying and preparing for exams. Time taken from sleep and eating is borrowed time, and generally not very productive.
As part of studying for exams, make sure to eat right, walk around, and get plenty of rest. Sleeping might be a low priority in college, but it is essential to memory retention and being rested and ready for the actual exam.
6. Take a break
As part of personal health and good study habits in general, make sure to take breaks now and then. Rests are essential for giving the brain time to process material as well as help reset in between subjects.
While meals can and should count as a break, smaller breaks in between study sessions are helpful as well. Resetting between different subjects will make switching gears much easier, allowing for more study time to be spent on reviewing the material instead of processing that it’s a new subject.
In Conclusion
The Nerdify Reviews team knows that studying for final exams can create a lot of stress. Proper planning won’t eliminate that stress, but it will reduce the effects and provide a degree of confidence that will help make test-taking easier. With the right plans and time allotments studying for even the most difficult subject of the semester can be handled timely and effectively to ensure excellent results.
Still stuck with some of your tasks? Ask our Nerds! They know how to help you with the most tricky subjects.
