To help students prepare for the upcoming winter finals, Octagon staffers share tips and tricks for finals in subjects in which they’ve done well. The Octagon will be posting more of these how-to guides over the course of this week.
The following is a step by step instruction manual on how to kill the freshman Ancient History final.
1) Collect all your notes and confirm that you have each day’s lecture. If you missed school for sports or other activities, make sure you get the notes (preferably from whoever has the best written notes in the class).
2) Blow off studying until a couple days before the test (unless you really don’t understand the material, or your history grade hinges upon your final, in which case I would start hitting the books during Winter Break. But if you are reading this, unfortunately that golden opportunity has already passed.)
3) Get a caffeine fix before your trip to memorizationville (No, this is not just a caffeine addict speaking; studies actually show an increase in memorization capacity after caffeine intake.)
4) Hit the books hard with 55 minutes of studying followed by a five-minute break. Keep it going for several hours, rotating between physics and math classes, and English, Ancient History and your world language.
Don’t forget to create an outline for the essay in your mind. Remember to focus on what you can change, not what is out of your control. Also a fair number of Uncle Dan’s questions (the Ancient Egyptian ones) come from your previous tests, so make sure you can answer all of the questions you missed.
5) Before the test, make sure you have the Uncle Dan essential; a blue or black ink pen (G2 Pilots .05 worked best for me. The runnier the pen, the better, so try to blunt the tip to really get it flowing; this way you won’t have to stop or press as hard). Make sure you have multiples of the pen; I decimated a pen and a half on my final.
6) On the day of the test, get another caffeine fix prior to the test, albeit in Monster, Red Bull, latte or espresso form. Although you may have to wake up 10 minutes earlier, you will thank yourself later.
7) Get to school 15 minutes early, and kill the final. Don’t forget to staple your test at a 45-degree angle and to put your test in the correct pile according to which class (I or II) you are in.
