This December, all students at The Seven Hills High School participated in the semester exams this December. These exams happen twice in the period of one school year in both December and May. During this time, many students are studying hard and preparing themselves to excel on their exams as it was worth twenty percent of the semester grade. Many people stress and fold under the pressure of exams, but there are some exceptions that stand out from the rest and excel on their semester exams. Three people who performed well last semester are sophomore Brendan McLaughlin, sophomore Mikeal Choi, and sophomore Claire Bacheldor. These are bright individuals who clearly have the secret to how to excel on these exams. Here are the tips and tricks that they used.
Choi is a super smart individual. He performed extremely well on his French exam, scoring a 98%. Choi said, “It’s not easy, but you have to manage your time wisely and efficiently if you want to extract the best results.” Choi told me that the hardest part of studying was working through the difficult topics and ideas that he might have forgotten from earlier in the year. “It takes perseverance but eventually when you finish the topic you feel so much better.”
Some tips that Choi uses is the Pomodoro studying technique, which is when you study for a certain amount of time, and then take a short break to maximize the efficiency. Choi used 30 minute increments, and after the 3o minutes were up he would take a five minute break. “I studied for 2 days but I made sure to make time for other things that I liked such as swimming and tennis,” Choi said. Choi also stated that during the test his nerves got to him in moments, but he had a method to not let them affect him. “Deep breath in, and deep breath out,” he said. Choi said that he worked especially hard on the grammar and vocab concepts of his French exam, and he felt an amazing feeling of freedom when the exam was finally over.
Sophomore Brendan McLaughlin scored a 97.5% on his chemistry exam. Brendan’s studying journey for his chemistry went extremely differently from the traditional idea of studying people may have. “The most important thing that you can do is pay attention and take notes in class,” McLaughlin said. “It just makes you be able to do it exactly how the teacher wants.”
Even with this, McLaughlin told me that he goes on Youtube.com and watches a lesson and then rereads his notes to refresh his memories. During the test, McLaughlin said that “I was not nervous” because of his preparation and confidence in chemistry. McLaughlin said he spent about one hour studying, which is not a lot, but he made sure that every second counted. McLaughlin’s number one piece of advice is that you have to have confidence in what you know how to do. After receiving his chemistry grade back, McLaughlin was extremely happy and celebrated by eating ice cream with his family.
Lastly, I talked to sophomore Claire Bachelder who said that she performed her best on the English exam receiving an A. She credited the work that she did to reading the book, doing pre-writing exercises and meeting with her English teacher to help her create the best English exam possible. She admitted that her time management wasn’t great, and that she was all over the place at times, which led to an increased stress level. She said that sometimes switching from one subject to another helped her combat the stress that she was sometimes feeling over her English paper. Some tips that Bachelder recommends for others is “To take good notes and leave enough time to write a good paper.” All the hard work that Bachelder did paid off and she exclaimed how proud she was when she found out her grade.
Through three sophomores, we can see that success is possible during semester exams. We still have one more exam week coming in the spring. We can use these three students as inspiration to model our studying after as they have clearly found the secret that works for them. You also can find the success they did just by studying effectively in the way that works for you.
