Finals

So I only have four finals this semester, two comprehensive, two not. What are comprehensive finals for people who have never taken them? Basically what it means is the finals cover everything from the entire semester. Luckily one of those comprehensive finals was only the 2nd half of the semester, so the concepts are more fresh in my head. Now you might be having finals, or maybe just a test to end the semester. My other two classes are the latter. That means they only cover a couple of chapters each instead of about 15 like my other classes. My two comprehensive finals are on Copyright Law, which has very boring important details about it as well as the book is outdated by a few years, and a course called Understanding the Bible, which goes into depth on the entire Bible in one semester (which in my opinion is way too little time, my professor agreed). Now for these studying has gone multiple ways. For the previous two tests for Understanding the Bible, the professor basically told us to study the notes he gave us, and he would normally breeze through them and not let us write everything down, and he didn’t post the powerpoints either, so that made things difficult. I really didn’t even know what the tests would be like until the first one happened, and because of that I didn’t do too well. It was a lot of vocab that I had no idea about and it was kinda strange. At least for the 2nd test I understood a little bit more, and was able to study the vocab and do better. However, for this last test upcoming, it will cover everything, and luckily we actually get a study day, however it’s not like a formal study guide or anything, it’s more like you go and ask him questions, so you bet I have a bunch for him. For my 8 week class, it’s much different. We had to do an outline for every chapter, and we also use that as a study guide. He doesn’t make the powerpoints available either, but if you do the outlines well and edit them when he teaches, you’ll be set. Another really amazing thing is right before every test we do a kahoot that has literal questions from the test on it, then the same day right after we take the test, and now since all those answers are fresh in your head, you basically have half the test answers right. So that class will be much easier even though the test is longer. The review class we did a 100 question kahoot and it was so easy. My other two classes like I said are not comprehensive, in one of them we even take a practice exam so we get a feel for how the real one is. That one is also an exam on paper, which only that class and my Understanding the Bible class has. The other class we pretty much only do lectures until the last day, and the professor gives us a study guide and we get to look at that to study. I mostly use the powerpoints and the notes I took in those classes. The best way I think to study is making sure you get enough sleep, along with looking at the material at hand. The sleep one is honestly the most important, as I felt I have benefitted from it as of recently. I used to have a pretty bad sleep schedule even in high school for a point, and I would slack and not do my work and would do poorly on tests because of it. I’ve since learned and now that I have a better sleep schedule and I put time and effort into studying I’m actually getting decent grades without having to pull an all-nighter the day before a big assignment is due. If you’re still in hs (or younger), don’t be like me. Actually try in what you do, effort is the most important thing. However, even if you put in effort and it doesn’t seem like you’re getting the result you want, it doesn’t hurt to ask a friend for help, especially before a test. Even just in class. I ask questions all the time in class because I get confused easily, so don’t be afraid to do that. All-in-all, finals aren’t as bad as people say if you put in the time and effort to complete them. I wish everyone good luck on the rest of the semester!