TWO TOOLS FOR GETTING A JUMP ON MIDTERMS

You may have given a thought about midterms coming up within the next couple of weeks and may even have scheduled studying for them on your planner. This week I’m sharing two tools to start at any time that will gain comprehension, recall, and grades on midterms. If you are not already using them (some of you are), now is a very good time to start, as their power grows with use.

The first tool is to make up exam questions. When you’ve read a section of the text, go back and make up short-answer and multiple-choice exam questions. Many texts have wide margins for your comments and questions you wish to investigate—add your potential exam questions there. This analysis engages with the material and adds both comprehension and retention at a level far beyond underlining and highlighting.

Do the same thing with your lecture notes. Here you’ll add questions based on the lecture material and also covering points the professor has outright said will be on the exam, as well as areas they have particularly emphasized.

Have a study buddy? If your study buddy makes up exam questions as well, you can exchange questions and discover aspects you may have missed.

The second tool is to make up flashcards. I’m not talking about the flashcards you can download or buy, although those have their use. I’m talking about the flashcards you make up yourself. 

Again, engaging with the material this way adds greater retention than using premade cards. You are analyzing and thinking about the material as you choose the material for each flashcard and as you write on the front of the card. Then, you are building short-term memory preparatory to converting it to long-term memory as you write the answer on the back. You are engaging more and different areas of your brain, including the motor areas involved with writing, than you are in using premade flashcards. 

Flashcards can work with mnemonics, with short answer questions, with dates, names, places, legislation, geographic terms, chemical reactions . . . Big flashcards (6X9) can work with longer questions, but for some situations that can be overkill.

Again, if you have a study buddy, a session swapping flashcards gives you a different perspective about what is important to cover. 

Starting these tools this week gives you a jump on midterms, quizzes and finals for the rest of the term. And they don’t have to take a huge chunk of time—you can do a few exam questions or a few cards whenever you have a few moments.

[Side story here: One student had made a Boss set of flashcards for a STEM course. The cards were stolen shortly before the exam and the student was distraught, panicking about the loss, fearing they’d fail the exam. What happened: They discovered that they could reconstruct the material with pen and ink. They’d learned the material while preparing the flashcards. But keep yours in a safe place anyway!]

Connect with me for more tools to meet your academic goals this term [email protected] 

The information in this blog cannot take the place of support from your own mental health professional or community health resources. Reach out to them. And IF YOU ARE IN CRISIS, PLEASE DIAL 911.