Dead week is upon us. Which leaves us to the question as to how are we going to salvage our grades and attempt to prepare for finals. Here’s some methods for reviewing the content in mass.

1. Make a study plan so you know what classes you need to study for and what classes you don’t have to worry about. There’s no point in studying for a gym class when you might need to be preparing for a physical science class.
   1. If it’s a class that takes a lot of notes, rewrite the notes to help give you a better understanding and a review of the content. Make the notes easy to read and organized for later review. If drawing visual queues next to a paragraph help you remember it better, do so! It’s your notes! This method works best for word heavy notes. Sometimes mind maps work best for people who like to combine visual and writing methods.
   2. If it’s a class that’s hard to study for, like varying math classes, go over your notes that were taken in class and do problems over again from your notes to help you get the steps right to the formulas. There are also some really great resources out there to help if you don’t understand the content.
      1. Go to learning hubs during lunch to get help from teachers.
      2. Ask your math teachers if they have this on their website, but some math teachers have digital copies of the notes on the websites where you can watch a tutorial of that day’s notes or any notes that have been archived.
      3. Websites like Khan Academy and Slader can be huge helps. They’re both free to use websites, but Khan Academy is more of teaching lessons in varying subjects whereas Slader is textbook answers worked out, which may be a help in checking your answers but not in teaching you the content.
   3. With science based classes in which you don’t understand the notes, a good resource for clarifying what you’re doing is Crash Courses through Science by Hank Green. It’s like the Crash Courses through History by John Green, but this time it’s science. As far as I know, they have a Crash Course series for Psychology. Another online resource is the Ameba Sisters, which is mostly biology based.
   4. For English classes and what not, one of the best things to do is to talk to your teachers in regards to what you’re learning and what you need to do to help you get your grades up.

One of the best things you can do before finals is to get your grades up as high as you can to have it act as a safety net. This helps balance out any changes that your finals might bring upon your grades. Another thing to do is know what might be on your test from your teachers, whether it’s something from the previous unit or if it’s over all of the content learned this semester. Good luck.