It is that the time of year again when midterms are upon us. High school students around the country shudder in the thought of having to prepare for their midterm exams. English, science, history and math are just a few of the subjects that students may have tests in right before or right after break. Here are some tips to best prepare for these exams.
Eat Breakfast
You should be eating a healthy breakfast every day before school. Make sure that you are eating foods with protein and high fiber, so they will stick with you and keep you focused until lunch. Avoid eating high-sugar cereals and pastries. These foods come with a sugar high and a guaranteed crash before that noon bell rings, which can affect your performance in that class right before lunch period.
Get Plenty of Sleep
It is easy to stay up too late working on homework, chatting on Facebook or sending your friends snapchats, but sleep should be a priority. Research shows that sleep is not only important in making you alert and receptive to learning, but also that it helps consolidate and preserve memory of information learned during the day. During sleep, areas of the brain that acquire and control information continue to communicate with areas that help retain and organize information. You will retain information better when you are well-rested.
Study Consistently and Avoid Cramming
Cramming for your midterms doesn’t work. When you cram, the information is stored in your short term memory. Do you remember what you had for lunch last Tuesday? What color clothes did you wear last Friday? What were you doing at 3:47 yesterday? Can’t remember? That is because they were stored in your short-term memory.
If you want to be successful on your midterms, you need to transfer what you need to know for the exams from your short term memory to your long term memory. If you study consistently prior to the exam, you will not only be more relaxed, but your brain will literally remember the information better.
Know What to Prepare
If you want to be truly successful on your midterms, you must know what is going to be covered on them. Ask your teachers long enough in advance what you need to be studying for the test. If there is something that is going to be on the midterm that you struggle with, prepare accordingly.
Study in the Right Place
Be sure that you are studying for your midterms in an environment that will be similar to where you take your test. If your classroom is noisy during tests because your classroom is near the band room, you should practice with music in the background. If your classroom is very quiet, you should study in a similarly quiet room.
Hire a Tutor
Are you still struggling to learn the content? Is there something that just isn’t clicking? Sometimes working with a tutor is the perfect way to prepare for midterms. Your teacher may not be teaching the content in a way that works best for your learning style. A tutor will work with you to find out how you can best learn the content. Sometimes one-on-one, specialized attention can make all the difference.
