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AlphaDogg

macrumors 68040
Original poster
May 20, 2010
3,417
7
Ypsilanti, MI
I am a freshman in high school and I have my first real midterms. Last year, because I was in honors algebra, I had a midterm. I am still in honors math (this year I am in honors geometry). On Wednesday, I have a World History midterm and then I have an honors geometry midterm. On Thursday, I have a biology midterm. On Friday, I have a Hebrew midterm and an English midterm. I would appreciate some study tips. Thanks!
 
Last edited:

stridemat

Moderator
Staff member
Apr 2, 2008
11,364
863
UK
I am still in honors math (this year I am in honors geometry). On Wednesday, I have a World History midterm and then I have an honors geometry midterm. On Thursday, I have a biology midterm. On Friday, I have a Hebrew midterm and an English midterm. I would appreciate some study tips. Thanks!

A_small_cup_of_coffee.JPG


Your going to need it!
 

AlphaDogg

macrumors 68040
Original poster
May 20, 2010
3,417
7
Ypsilanti, MI
I was asking for study tips, not suggestions of caffeine to consume. However, I do appreciate you guys taking the time to post on my thread.


Tl;dr: midterms/finals suck.
 

wordoflife

macrumors 604
Jul 6, 2009
7,564
37
I am a freshman in high school and I have my first real midterms. Last year, because I was in honors algebra, I had a midterm. I am still in honors math (this year I am in honors geometry). On Wednesday, I have a World History midterm and then I have an honors geometry midterm. On Thursday, I have a biology midterm. On Friday, I have a Hebrew midterm and an English midterm. I would appreciate some study tips. Thanks!

I had my APHG midterms on Monday, English + Biology today, APWH and APAH tomorrow and Spanish II on Friday.

Best to way to study .. turn off your computer! (Damn, I should take some of my own advice. :rolleyes:)

Thank goodness I exempted my Algebra II midterms. I should have exempted Biology and Spanish II too.
 

wordoflife

macrumors 604
Jul 6, 2009
7,564
37
Haha I have neer heard that before... :rolleyes:

I am going to print off my study guides and notes for biology and then set my computer aside, and study.

Good idea! I think I'm going to do that for World History right now (gosh I hate that class).:rolleyes:
 

impulse462

macrumors 68020
Jun 3, 2009
2,075
2,860
I would have to agree that turning off your computer is a pretty big one. Unless you are able to study from it without going on 50 different websites, I've found that studying from the computer gets me nowhere.

Also if its stuff that you have to memorize such as Biology, or History, I found that re-writing the things I need to memorize helps a great deal.
 

Rodimus Prime

macrumors G4
Oct 9, 2006
10,136
4
red_bull.jpeg

Or <insert energy drink here>

Loads of those are recommended.

come on do not get him going on the caffeine yet. He is a freshman in HS. That stuff is a joke compared to college. What is he going to do when he gets to college and needs the real help.
 

Hellhammer

Moderator emeritus
Dec 10, 2008
22,164
582
Finland
IMO avoid energy drinks and coffee. They will make you hyperactive for awhile but their effect is short-term, you will end up feeling even more tired.

I would exercise. It's something that makes you feel more awake, naturally. It doesn't have to be anything extra heavy, even a 30-min jog is enough. You get some fresh air and hopefully you will think something else than school (although it's great time to review things while exercising). You will feel like a new man after that. Heck, I often go to gym to study! People do look me in a strange way when I'm reading something while running on a treadmill though :p

Take a nap. Reading a book, especially something like biology can be extremely boring and makes you fall asleep. Instead of trying to read while your brain is basically asleep, take a short nap. 30 minutes maximum IMO. Longer than that will affect your night sleep but a good half an hour gives you some energy to concentrate on studying.

Make concept maps. They are VERY easy to understand and while making them, you have to understand what you are reading. This works extremely well if there is something you don't really get at all. Great way to squeeze pages and pages of information into one sheet of paper. Personally, I use CMap. Right before the holidays, I had to do a physics assignment. I chose dark energy as my subject and honestly, I had no idea what it was before I started. It was about 20-page article with lots of new words and concepts. Skimmed through it couple of times without understanding much of it. Then, I decided to turn it into a concept map. Sure it took awhile to go through the text and pick the most important words but in the end, I really understood what it was about. Just reading and reading isn't enough.

That is what I do. No guarantee that it will work for anyone else but I've found it to be good
 

TheShinyMac

macrumors 6502a
Apr 3, 2009
660
0
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)

You want a tip? Get off of macrumors
 

AlphaDogg

macrumors 68040
Original poster
May 20, 2010
3,417
7
Ypsilanti, MI
IMO avoid energy drinks and coffee. They will make you hyperactive for awhile but their effect is short-term, you will end up feeling even more tired.

I would exercise. It's something that makes you feel more awake, naturally. It doesn't have to be anything extra heavy, even a 30-min jog is enough. You get some fresh air and hopefully you will think something else than school (although it's great time to review things while exercising). You will feel like a new man after that. Heck, I often go to gym to study! People do look me in a strange way when I'm reading something while running on a treadmill though :p

Take a nap. Reading a book, especially something like biology can be extremely boring and makes you fall asleep. Instead of trying to read while your brain is basically asleep, take a short nap. 30 minutes maximum IMO. Longer than that will affect your night sleep but a good half an hour gives you some energy to concentrate on studying.

Make concept maps. They are VERY easy to understand and while making them, you have to understand what you are reading. This works extremely well if there is something you don't really get at all. Great way to squeeze pages and pages of information into one sheet of paper. Personally, I use CMap. Right before the holidays, I had to do a physics assignment. I chose dark energy as my subject and honestly, I had no idea what it was before I started. It was about 20-page article with lots of new words and concepts. Skimmed through it couple of times without understanding much of it. Then, I decided to turn it into a concept map. Sure it took awhile to go through the text and pick the most important words but in the end, I really understood what it was about. Just reading and reading isn't enough.

That is what I do. No guarantee that it will work for anyone else but I've found it to be good
Thank you for your very thoughtful and helpful post. I will just make one huge study guide that is basically all of my notes put together (I took them down electronically on my MBP, thank god for technology!)
Get off of macrumors
Will do.
 

Rodimus Prime

macrumors G4
Oct 9, 2006
10,136
4
Well one thing you have to keep in mind is avoid cramming and also make sure you get a good nights rest. The extra sleep is more important than the little extra time you spend studying. I have done the all night studying thing and yeah I remember some of the harder stuff but because I was so tired on test day my mind was shot on some of the basic stuff and I made tons of careless errors.

Trick is do your homework and keep up with it. Studying for test really should be a short review and to get the things you are not 100% on but not trying to learn the stuff.

Yes I learned many of these lessons the hard way. Oh yes I still will sometimes go weeks on ends being up late working on HW but I try to avoid cramming for a test.

Also you need to look at how well do you feel you know the material before you spend burning your time studying for it. If you feel like you know it pretty well and confirm it with a pretty short look over of the notes then just review it shortly before the test and you should be fine. These means you can spend more time on the harder stuff.
Since you are not in college yet your direct number grade is a bit more important. I know for finals I will figure out my grade and see how locked in it is. If it is a locked grade or a pretty locked grade the test will be reviewed for 20-30 mins before hand just to make sure I do not loose a letter grade. This lets me put more time on the ones that I can bring up a letter grade or am a lot closer to loosing a letter grade on.
 

AlphaDogg

macrumors 68040
Original poster
May 20, 2010
3,417
7
Ypsilanti, MI
Well one thing you have to keep in mind is avoid cramming and also make sure you get a good nights rest. The extra sleep is more important than the little extra time you spend studying. I have done the all night studying thing and yeah I remember some of the harder stuff but because I was so tired on test day my mind was shot on some of the basic stuff and I made tons of careless errors.

Trick is do your homework and keep up with it. Studying for test really should be a short review and to get the things you are not 100% on but not trying to learn the stuff.

Yes I learned many of these lessons the hard way. Oh yes I still will sometimes go weeks on ends being up late working on HW but I try to avoid cramming for a test.

Also you need to look at how well do you feel you know the material before you spend burning your time studying for it. If you feel like you know it pretty well and confirm it with a pretty short look over of the notes then just review it shortly before the test and you should be fine. These means you can spend more time on the harder stuff.
Since you are not in college yet your direct number grade is a bit more important. I know for finals I will figure out my grade and see how locked in it is. If it is a locked grade or a pretty locked grade the test will be reviewed for 20-30 mins before hand just to make sure I do not loose a letter grade. This lets me put more time on the ones that I can bring up a letter grade or am a lot closer to loosing a letter grade on.
This was a very helpful post. Thank you.

I always do my homework. I feel like I remember 85% of what I learned in biology this year. I have selected what I need to study out of my notes. I am studying that (but I am taking a break to post this). Biology is one of my best subjects. I have a 93 for quarter one, and a 94 for quarter 2. I think I will be fine on this final. Thanks again!

Edit: I calculated what I need to get for my biology midterm to get an 80% for the semester. I would need something like 22% on it...
 

stridemat

Moderator
Staff member
Apr 2, 2008
11,364
863
UK
When I was at University I would study the day before an exam. When the time got to 6 in the afternoon I would close my notes and not look at them again until the morning, where I would skim read them one more time.

I used the night before an exam to do something rewarding and that I enjoyed. Xbox, Watch a film, hang out with my housemates, basically anything to take my mind of the task at hand.

It seemed to work well for me.
 

AlphaDogg

macrumors 68040
Original poster
May 20, 2010
3,417
7
Ypsilanti, MI
I just got out of my biology midterm. I found that I was quite prepared after a one hour review last night, and a 5 minute review this morning. It was easier than I expected...
 

NickZac

macrumors 68000
Dec 11, 2010
1,758
8
Glad to hear.

The goofiest but best advice I can give you is to not study too much (really, you can) and if you are unsure of an answer, your first guess or estimation has a statistically higher chance of being correct than any answer thereafter.
 

AlphaDogg

macrumors 68040
Original poster
May 20, 2010
3,417
7
Ypsilanti, MI
Glad to hear.

The goofiest but best advice I can give you is to not study too much (really, you can) and if you are unsure of an answer, your first guess or estimation has a statistically higher chance of being correct than any answer thereafter.

Yeah my biology teacher told me that the best amount of time to study for is about an hour, because that is the longest period of time when your mind absorbs the information, rather than just glossing over it.


Also: my english midterm will be easy, because all I have to do for it is to read a short story, take a few notes about it on a notecard, bring the notes in to the midterm, and then answer some analytical questions about it.

And I think the hebrew midterm will be pretty easy. If I was an Israeli, I would have done the stuff that I am doing in hebrew class right now when I was in second grade. It is not the material that is hard, it is the fact that it is another language that is hard.
 

AlphaDogg

macrumors 68040
Original poster
May 20, 2010
3,417
7
Ypsilanti, MI
Midterms are finally over! I almost fell asleep during my advanced hebrew midterm... Good thing it wasn't that hard....
 

AlphaDogg

macrumors 68040
Original poster
May 20, 2010
3,417
7
Ypsilanti, MI
It's that time again. English final and hebrew final on Friday. Honors Geometry and World History final on Monday. Biology final on Tuesday, and then my entire school goes to the local amusement park!

The english final is an essay comparing/contrasting Gene and Finny from A Separate Peace. The hebrew final is just about the use of types of words (suffixes that change the subject of a verb, prefixes/suffixes that change the tense of a verb) and maybe some vocabulary (translating some hebrew words into english). The Honors Geometry final will be using the concepts/theorems/postulates in the latter 6 chapters of our textbook, and proving something using the theorems that we have learned throughout the year. The world history final will be some vocabulary words (defining), identifying personalities identified in our textbook, and a document based question (DBQ for short). The biology final will be a compilation of all of the tests that we have taken this semester, so I can just study from those tests.
 
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