With the holidays officially over, it’s time to stop stuffing our faces with leftovers and chocolate and get back down to business. For many of you, that probably means preparing for exams. There’s no way around it – this is going to be a stressful period. So today we’re highlighting a few tips for getting through exams. Pick the things which you think will work best for you and make a concerted effort at integrating them into your study routine. Remember that passing your exams is important, but coming out the other side with enough energy and brain power to start next semester on the right foot is going to help you out more in the long run.

The first suggestion for getting through exams is to study with others. This may sound obvious, but choosing who to study with can be a bit tricky. It might seem that working with those who are doing really well in a given subject is the clear way to go. And for some people, this could be the best way to go about group studying. After all, this gives you the chance to ask for clarification on things you don’t understand. But you could also give consideration to working with someone who isn’t doing as well. They’re more likely to ask you lots of questions, and this gives you the chance to explain concepts, facts and theories, thus testing yourself on how well you know the material. This can help highlight areas that you need to review in more detail before going in to take the exam.

If you’re considering doing group study sessions, another idea for getting through exams is to make a game of it. You can take turns being quiz master and asking questions of the others – maybe a different person is chosen to answer each question, or you all have to write down an answer on your own sheet of paper before you do a comparison. To make it a little more exciting and to create further incentive to do well, you can even come up with a scoring system and all chip in for a small prize. This type of activity can make studying a bit more fun, help remind you of potentially forgotten titbits of information and even help you to better recall that information when you’re actually taking the exam.

Another tip for getting through exams is to not get too bogged down in all the detail when you’re doing your review. As you go over your notes, you’ll probably find that you have way more information than you could ever hope to remember. Start off your studying by focusing on the things the lecturer has said multiple times or has suggested is likely to be on the exam. Then you can work your way out from there, trying to get a good grasp on the main themes, methods or calculations discussed in the lectures and readings. It’s only once you’ve got these covered and feel comfortable with them that you should really focus in more detail on the little bits that were mentioned only in passing. Often times these may be worth a few extra points but the bulk of your exam will be made up of the points that were covered in more detail.

All of this may seem obvious, but it’s easy to get a bit lost in your review sessions. Take regular breaks and try to switch up your study locales and methods every once in a while. Stay tuned, because in the next post we’ll highlight a few more tips for getting through exams.