7 Ways to Make Your Textbook Your Best Friend for Finals

By Chelsea Jackson on March 26, 2017

While finals are over a month away for most students, it is never too early to start studying. Naturally, your course textbook is your best study asset. In order to optimize your finals study strategies, you should do more than read and reread your textbook and course notes.

Image via pixabay.com

1. Conduct a group study session

Whether or not you’ve had a study group the whole semester, group study sessions are essential to successful finals grades. However, it’s important that you don’t form a study group with your friends. While it might seem entertaining to study with friends, that entertainment will eventually be your downfall. After all, it can be onerous to prevent your friend group from getting distracted. Find a group of reliable people in your class to form your study group. This way, you can help one another interpret concepts within your textbook.

Likewise, study groups can act as a support group during your final exams woes. After all, you all are preparing for the same exam. Beyond getting together to cram, your study group can provide periodic check-ins to see where you are with your practice exams and to pressure you into staying on task.

2. Curate quality annotations

Dissecting relevant chapters of your textbook is vital to preparing for any exam, especially finals. While you don’t need to write notes about every single word in your book, you should practice rewriting terms and concepts in your own vernacular. It’s difficult for anyone to memorize definitions, and otherwise, when it is written in scholarly diction. You are more likely to remember a concept on an exam if you learn to translate it into your own words beforehand.

Annotation is also helpful for jotting down any pressing questions before your finals. Just scribble down any questions or concerns on a sticky note. Make sure you place your sticky notes on any appropriate pages, so you remember to consult your study group the next you see them (or your professor).

Also, quality annotations will help you organize your textbook material and your course notes. Using a color-coded system with your sticky notes will help you recognize where certain subjects appear in both your textbook and supplemental study material. After all, who wants to sift through hundreds of pages just to find a specific topic or term?

3. Put your knowledge to the test

Typically textbooks have helpful practice questions and equations at the end of a chapter or section. Even if these example problems were never assigned during class, they will help you prepare for any possible questions on your final. However, there are other methods to test your knowledge.

If your final exam will have primarily multiple-choice questions, whereas your textbook mostly has long form (or short form) questions, you might benefit from creating your own practice questions. After you have created your own preparatory quiz, you should wait a few hours to fill it out. Otherwise, you run the risk of using your short term memory to complete your practice questions (whereas you should be working on transmuting your short term memory to long term).

If your professor was kind enough to create a practice exam for your course, then you should utilize this resource as well.

4. Optimize your study environment

Television might distract you while you review your notes and coursework; however, the right background noises can help you study more efficiently. Opening your dorm door to listen to people walk and chatter down the hall will help mimic your testing environment. Although your testing center will likely be rather quiet during your final, there will be a healthy amount of noise coming from the halls outside your lecture hall.

Likewise, wearing the same perfume, body mist, or cologne each time you study (and on your exam day) will help you associate that smell with particular memories. If you have a sensitive sniffer, you can also replace any scent with chewing a specific flavor of gum.

Using your sense of smell and hearing will help you recollect specific study material. However, your sense of touch can also help you retain some information. According to Business Insider, touching your paper or desk while studying or writing can also help you remember key concepts and definitions for nearly any exam.

5. Teach your roommates

Even if your roommate isn’t in the same course as you, or doesn’t want to learn about the course itself, being able to teach a subject to someone is a great way to know if you’re knowledgeable of that subject. Simply ask your roommate or a friend if you can explain some cumulative course material to them. If you find that you are having issues verbalizing any concepts’ vocabulary, then you should make note of this so you can go back and review this material more thoroughly.

If your roommate doesn’t want to listen to a miniature monolog about art history or chordate anatomy, then you can opt to practice your lecture in front of a mirror. Focus on the topics you’ve discussed in class. Your speech doesn’t have to be perfect unless, of course, your final is giving a speech.

6. Study in threes

The key to both comprehending and learning any subject matter is being about to read, write, and vocalize it. Whether you’re a visual, tactile, or auditory learner, it is critical that you practice rereading your textbook and study material, rewriting your notes, and uttering the concepts aloud.

7. Make a game out of it

Although most students don’t enjoy finals or exams in general, you can make a game or incentive plan to encourage you to stay on track with your studies. If you’re studying with a group you can create a trivia game to help everyone learn some definitions. The competitive nature of trivia will also make studying more interesting. You can also create an incentive system to encourage yourself to study more efficiently. Whether you give yourself a candy bar after rewriting five pages of notes or a 10-minute nap for getting a 90 percent on a practice exam, a reward system will prevent you from experiencing finals burnout.

It is also important that you remember to take periodic, but scheduled breaks, so you don’t get discouraged from studying. Likewise, you should rotate which subjects you study each day. Because studying more than one subject in a given day can fry anyone’s concentration, it is important that you study a different subject each day. Not only will this maintain your interest in studying for finals, it will also help you determine if you have actually retained information from previous study sessions. After all, consolidating information from short-term memory to long-term memory doesn’t just require repetition, it also needs time.

Follow Uloop

Apply to Write for Uloop News

Join the Uloop News Team

Discuss This Article

Get Top Stories Delivered Weekly

Back to Top

Log In

Contact Us

Upload An Image

Please select an image to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
OR
Provide URL where image can be downloaded
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format

By clicking this button,
you agree to the terms of use

By clicking "Create Alert" I agree to the Uloop Terms of Use.

Image not available.

Add a Photo

Please select a photo to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format