By Connor Hawthorne, Co-Editor in Chief
Ask a student the best way to study for a final and each time you’ll get a different answer. As the school year comes to a close, students prepare for finals in a multitude of ways. Some students aren’t even studying at all! There may not be one perfect way to prepare for finals, however each student has their own method.
For his finals, Evan Trost, a Junior, plans on taking a balanced approach, spreading out studying throughout the week to avoid cramming for tests at the last minute. He explains how he is “taking a lot of breaks and trying to relax as much as possible.” Evan believes that showing effort on finals can improve relationships with teachers and provide a good measure of one’s progress. He mentions that students who want help studying for their final should “use Quizlet” since “it’s a really helpful tool for memorization.”
Junior Jazil Khalid is taking a relaxed and laid-back approach to finals, which he describes as “very chill” since “we have a lot of half days [to prepare].” Remarkably, Jazil doesn’t plan on preparing for finals at all, stating “I don’t need a good grade, I’ve already learned everything, I don’t need to prove anything.” For many students this is a common feeling, since due to how each quarter and exam is weighted, if you have gotten all A’s each quarter and midterm you can fail your final and still have an A at the end of the year. Since GPA is calculated based on the final grade in the class, many students only care about what they get at the end of the year.
For some students, even if they can afford to get a bad grade on the final, they believe that students owe it to the teachers to try on the final. Junior Teo Nguyen believes that “all throughout the year teachers have had you as a student, teaching you all these topics and they’ve put so much effort into helping you succeed you should put some effort into them.” Evan agrees with Teo, explaining how teachers have put a lot of effort into teaching students and that students should try their best on the finals, remarking how “We only have a week left, it does not take that much effort to study.”
Preparation for some finals depends on what the final is about. Instead of giving conventional test-based finals, some teachers assign students projects to do as their final, an option much preferred by students. Junior Charan Bala explains how “a project final is better since with a project final you have around a week to prepare and do the project so you have more control over how it will go.” In addition to more agency over the outcome, final projects are often easier than tests.
All students employ different strategies for final exams, from Jazil Khalid’s relaxed approach to Evan Trost’s balanced study plan. Ultimately, each student finds a method that best suits their learning style and goals, showcasing a variety of paths to academic success.