Surviving Your Midterms

According to Ms. Kempff, “very few students study at all or they wait until the night before”.

Every student has done it. They stay up very late and maybe all night in an attempt to cram in as much material as they can into their minds. With midterms coming up for Milford students, it is important to realize that cramming may not work out in your favor.

According to UCLA’s researchers who wrote an online edition in the journal Child Development explaining that an all-nighter is not worth it. Everyone knows that studying helps you perform better in school. People forget that studying is not the only thing that impacts exam grades, getting the proper amount of sleep is also very important. Regardless of the amount of time a student spends time studying, if they give up sleep to do more studying than they usually would, it is likely that they will have more academic problems the next day.

Your teachers also agree with this research and they are your test makers, so you should probably listen to them. “I tell them to not study all at one time,” said Mr. Eichbauer. ¨Incremental studying is way more effective.”

According to Oxfordlearning.com the information that you cram is stored in your short-term memory. Learning only for a test is going to be useless when you think about what you will be taught next unit even next year. When it comes to cramming for exams it is useless if you are after long-time learning that you can use in the future. Because of this students should take the time to really learn and understand concepts.

The best approach for long-term memory of concepts is called “Spacing effect”. Studying in this way does not require more time or more deep session. This technique means students spread out their review time. Studying in hour increments, with breaks in between, is a more long-lasting technique to studying.

“Pull out your old material, start from the beginning, and always do the review packets,¨ advised Kempff. ¨Remember they are not the exams but they are good review. Do the review in advance so you have time to ask the teacher questions”.

When he was asked about how he teaches his students Eichbauer replied “Survival.”

“Do what you have to do to pass,” said Sara Vaccarino, a Sophomore. This is a strategy that a large portion of students put to use.

“I study for every final the night before I have it,¨ said Mackenzie Hewitt, a Junior. “I’m too busy to study any other time so I have to make do with the time I have”. She is not alone, as this is the truth for many students with extracurricular activities and an intense course load.

Cramming can be useful in emergency situations but can be bad for long time learning. If you cram, come time for the next unit you can forget the last unit which might leave you confused.

Some people are notecard people, some people review their notes, and some people reread their text books. Studying is studying and learning is learning, do what works for you. If something doesn’t work try another technique next time.

If you can help it avoid cramming especially for midterms, because there is so much material, you will not retain a large amount of the information. Also it may be a good idea to give the “spacing effect” technique a try. If that is not a possibility due to your schedule the survival method is a good backup alternate plan.

To do well on your midterms begin studying as soon as you can. Get at least seven and a half hours of sleep the night before your exams. Eat a healthy breakfast. Relax.