When to start studying for finals in high school
How to Crush Your Finals
so taking exams is a very stressful
experience for a lot of people and I've
noticed that many students don't
actually have very good strategies for
studying for these exams we're getting
ready for these exams a lot of people
kind of just you know read through all
of the notes they might do some practice
tests they might you know look at old
tests stuff like that but not a ton of
people have a really rigorous method
that helps them to succeed on all of
their finals and I was very lucky
because I had some really amazing
teachers at the beginning of high school
and my dad being one of them that gave
me strategies for how to approach tests
mentally and then also how to study for
them how to prepare so that you're ready
to just crush it on test day and I want
to share those strategies with you their
strategies that have helped me to be
pretty successful on that every final
that I've taken throughout high school
and now at Harvard so without further
ado here are the strategies that I use
to be successful on finals so the first
thing that I want to share is the
mindset that I found to be really
effective for getting ready to study for
finals for actually studying for finals
and then being in the final taking the
final itself the mindset that I have is
to always view it like it's game day
okay so think about all of the hard work
that you've been putting in all year
you've just been crushing it you know
you've been doing all your homework
you've been studying for every test
you've been doing everything now it's
time for all that hard work to pay off
okay it's time for you to show off what
you've learned to show off what you can
do it's game day like it's an
opportunity so it's okay to be nervous
but make sure that you're using that
nervous energy to excel to study harder
and and to be really sharp on test day
as opposed to you know holding yourself
back and procrastinating from studying
so think about it like it's game date
like it's it's time for you to show off
what you can do
[Applause]
so on debt actually studying what do I
actually do what I'm getting ready for
finals
well the first thing that I do is I'd go
through all of my notes in the order
that they appeared in the course and I
try and pick out the key concepts and
write them down into a cheat sheet now I
try and keep the cheat sheet down to
just one or two pages of paper front and
back and what this allows me to do is
basically write down a summary of the
course on just one or two pieces of
paper and then usually this is my main
studying tool this cheat sheet allows me
to see everything that I'm going to need
to know in the course so then with the
cheat sheet in hand what I can do is is
almost 4/10 like I'm a teacher so I'll
go through the course from start to
finish and just explain the summary I'll
go through every concept and explain it
from start to end and I don't have to go
super in-depth but if there's a concept
that I feel like I can't explain like
there's a missing piece or like I don't
fully understand it then I go back to my
notes or I go to the lecture notes or I
go online until I feel like I could
comfortably explain it to somebody else
and what this does is it ensures that
you've actually achieved mastery and all
the concepts that you're going to be
tested on because the most sure way to
to know that you've achieved mastery in
something is to be able to explain it to
somebody else so that's why having a
cheat sheet is so effective because you
can pick out the key concepts and if
you're able to explain them all then you
know that you have all of the material
that you're going to need to kill on the
test
once I feel like I can explain every
concept that's been taught in the course
that's when I start to do practice
problems and the first place that I look
for practice problems obviously is if
the teacher has posted practice exams or
if there are exams from previous years
available it's usually really useful to
do those because you'll have an idea of
what the structure of the exam will
actually look like and usually on these
if I feel really comfortable with it
with a certain type of question then
I'll usually only do it once or twice
because it's kind of a waste of energy
to do the same type of question with
just different numbers if you know how
to solve it you're not really learning
anything okay so I try and do a wide
variety of problems and sometimes the
best place to look for that because you
know you could redo tests and quizzes
from the year it might not be the
greatest though because again you're not
really getting that variety of problems
and developing a toolkit so there's a
resource that I mentioned at the end of
this video and there's a bunch of online
resources where you can usually find
applicable problems that I think is a
very very effective way for for building
a problem-solving tool kit which will
help you on an exam when new problems
show up so if you're at this point then
you've mastered all of the concepts in
the course you've gone through a
sufficient amount of practice problems
to feel comfortable with whatever
they're gonna throw at you you have no
reason to worry it's game day now and
you get to you get to show off the hard
work that you've been putting in you get
to just kill it
okay you just get to crush it and that's
really exciting so just make sure that
you take care of the little things make
sure that you're taking care of yourself
so get a good night's sleep the night
before okay eat bright so you've got
lots of energy for me I like to drink
coffee or green tea just so I've got a
little bit more energy you know so I'm
sharp and also exercise a little bit
okay just right body right mind if
you've seen my other videos like it's a
really important concept so just make
sure that you're taking care of yourself
in two hours and the days leading up to
the exam because your physical and your
mental well-being first of all is more
important than any grade effort but also
if you're not
mentally well then it's gonna be a lot
more difficult for you to do well in
your exams so take care of yourself all
right so if you're like me you need to
do problems in order to understand
concepts especially when studying for
finals tests or even quizzes ensure you
could redo the the homework problems
that you've been doing all year maybe
change the numbers a little bit but does
that really help you to get better at
solving problems and and building a
toolkit so that you can succeed in new
and different scenarios so for me one of
the best resources for finding problems
new and interesting ones has been the
sponsor of this video brilliant org so
I've been on brilliant since 2013 and
it's been a really cool resource because
it has a bunch of interesting math and
science problems and courses that have
helped me over the years to both
reinforce the concepts that I'm learning
in class and therefore help me on tests
and exams but all such as it's helped me
to build a problem-solving tool kit and
to get better at solving problems and I
think that that's one of the most
important skills that you can learn it's
totally free to sign up and if you're
one of the first 200 people that uses
the link in my description to sign up
and you decide to upgrade you'll get 20%
off their premium annual plan so thank
you so much for watching this video I
hope that if you're a student you got
some some test taking tips out of it
hopefully it'll help you if you have
final exams coming up soon or you know
in any tests that you have really in the
upcoming year future years whatever if
you enjoyed the video if you got some
value out of it I'd really appreciate if
you could leave a like it means a lot to
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so much for watching
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