By Naomi Nguyen
This year, finals will be held Jan. 22 -24 for most classes. Since many finals are cumulative, students often have to review everything they have learned this school year, but many students have yet to begin studying at all.
Cindy Wong (’15) said, “To be honest, I haven’t really started studying for finals. I’ve always told myself that I would start the next day, or the day after, but I still haven’t gotten to it yet. I don’t feel the pressure of finals yet.”
However, there are many students whose grades depend on how well they do on their final, which can strongly impact a grade due to the larger value of the tests.
“I’m a little worried because my grades are borderline in some classes, ” stated Alexis Tran (’15). “I’m going to reread information in the books and reread my notes from class,”
While many students are looking over their old notes from earlier in the year, biology teacher Emily Barro said, “I always recommend doing outlines, taking notes on old notes and the book, but like a hybridization of those two. I also suggest word association and mnemonic devices, the weirder the better. There’s also a lot of online resources now that they didn’t have before.”
Brian Wang (’15) has yet to begin studying but has a plan in mind. ” I’m going to the library and reviewing to keep myself from losing focus,”
Since teachers often provide study guides or review packets to work on in preparation for finals, Mimi Giang (’16) said, “I’m going to just go over the review packets the teachers gave us, maybe scan the books, and hope for the best.”
Wong plans to put the resources provided by the teachers to use. “I find it really beneficial when teachers give study guides so students at least have an idea of what is being tested. I’m just going to look over the study guides that my teachers have given me, maybe review a couple concepts that were difficult for me to understand.”
