Dear Joe,

I have been struggling to study for my midterms and I was wondering what I should do in order to be ready for midterms.

Sincerely,

Anonymous

Dear Anonymous, 

As we come back into the swing of things in the new decade, there are a few important things coming up. The main thing being midterms. Many people stress over midterms because besides the PSAT, SAT, and of course finals, these are some of the longest and hardest tests of the year. I am here to tell you how I study for midterms and how to make things a little easier.  

First, I usually like to go by what classes I have first, second, third, and fourth periods because that is the first half of all classes. Once I have that settled out I take into account what each class is and divide what I’ve been learning in that class into multiple areas. For example, if I have an English exam first period, I will figure out that I may have an essay on the midterm most likely. That will take up some time. There is also going to be vocab and others. So, for me, I usually make a document that has a table with each thing I want to study. One row will have vocab. Another will have reading involved. I will make a document for each class so that I can divide each class up into different sections that I know I need to study. Once the first half of my classes are all set I will then start to create the second half of my classes in documents so that everything is set. 

Now, during this process I also like to get rid of stuff that I already know by heart in a sense. Those things that you learn in class and you couldn’t forget if you tried. Don’t sweat on those things and only work on the stuff that you didn’t remember from the beginning of the year. As you are dividing your classes, you will find there are actually many things that you learned earlier in the year that just can’t be forgotten so you can leave them out of your table. This will leave your table having a specific amount of topics that you need to study. This now has your classes all planned out on what you need to study and you will be way more organized for midterms. 

The next thing is, I don’t like to worry that much about studying for every class before midterms. I only really stress and study about the first two classes.  Maybe first three classes depending on how hard the third class is but, I really don’t like to stress about the next day. The reason being is because on midterms, we only have half days, so that leaves a whole bunch of time for studying. I make midterms week easy in a sense of how I’m not doing homework for other classes that would get me distracted off of my midterm studies. You also don’t have a huge workload besides studying so that makes a lot of time for studying and taking things easy in a sense. 

Lastly, time management is probably the biggest of all worries. Many ask the questions of how they will get a certain amount of studying in a couple of days before their exams. The truth is, it’s not that hard and this is because you have these tips. One, the midterm isn’t going to affect your grade as much as you think it’s going to. Second, stop working on other things for classes a couple days before midterms. This will allow you to be able to set time to study for what you need to. This is kind of where you need to see what you can lose in grades at least if you are really stressing about midterms. Formative assignments will only cost a little bit whereas, your midterm will cost a lot more grade wise compared to a homework assignment. Now, I’m not saying don’t do your work, but at some point close to midterms, you have to worry more about the first couple of classes of exams so that you will be ready. Usually, your teachers already know this so they will try to give you as much of a break as they can. So these are my tips for how you will do great during midterms this year. Remember, don’t stress and midterms won’t get the best of you. 

Sincerely, 

Joe