How to study for college exams

Wondering how to study for college exams? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Behold, the secret to acing your college exams.

When I joined USIU-A in my freshman year in 2016, there were no resources online on how or what to do, and to date, there is still a culture of “find someone to ask” but that’s not fair is it?

Well I sure didn’t think so and now that I am in my final semester ever at USIU I feel like I know all the ins and out of navigating life at USIU and will have everything I know right here on my blog. You are welcome :).

Grades are easily a reflection of who you are as a person, perhaps not always, but definitely a majority of the time. Please keep in mind that USIU exams only account for about 60-70% [20%-midterms, 30%-end terms, 10-20%-CATs] so effective study habits should get you at least 60%-70%, the rest will have to do with your attendance and the quality of your assignments. On that note, here are tips on how to effectively help you study for your exams:

Attendance

You might be the smartest person in the class, however, USIU attendance policies are absolute across all the disciplines and faculties, six [6] absences, and you are guaranteed an F grade.

This is not supposed to instill fear or anything, you are an adult by virtue of which you should purpose to be responsible. The reason why attendance will contribute to you getting good grades is first that attendance automatically gives you 10% of your total grade.

Secondly, concepts explained during class will be explained using examples and several other devices, all of which contribute to making concepts easier to remember.

Attendance is also helpful because a perfect record will create a great rapport with your instructor and as such when you’re having challenges they will be more willing to help. After all, they can already see you’re making an effort.

Attitude

Attitude is everything in most things in life. If you have a negative attitude towards learning or school in general, then you will never have the drive to give it your all. If you have a negative attitude towards school, learning, or a course then you need to work on it, keeping your career goals and education goals in mind.

Use your slides

Ladies and gentlemen, at least review your slides/notes. However, kindly note that slides availed to you by lecturers are only meant to act as a guide.

Your instructors are using multiple course books to create slides that are meant to help guide the class sessions, those slides are a very summarized version of the concepts, and as such do not overly rely on them but make sure you review them as you are studying for your exams.

Additional readings

This is something I have witnessed countless times during midterms and final examinations, an instructor will test a 20-point question purely on an additional reading that they know only a handful of students bothered with, let’s not go too far, my final marketing paper had such a question and because the results were posted on the WhatsApp class group I could see that over three-quarters of the class struggled to answer the question. Here is a secret from a veteran, always, always review those additional readings.

Take notes

When you are studying, it doesn’t have to be for exams, could be some routine study session, make sure you always take notes. Why is this important? Because when you are reviewing new information across multiple disciplines it becomes very easy to forget and as such, take notes, and explain a concept as if you are teaching it to yourself, this will make sure you don’t forget it.

Study frequently

Countless times I saw students being frustrated at their performance after studying all night but and after a little investigation I found out that they hadn’t bothered to study before the exams, so why were they disappointed? Beats the heck out of me.

Every semester you are taking new classes and until you start taking concentration classes, most times the general courses cut across various disciplines, that is a lot of information to try and cram a night before.

I guess this horrible, lazy technique works for some, but I assure you it only works for a fraction, of a fraction of the one percent, so review your material as frequently as weekly across the hard/challenging disciplines and at least biweekly for the disciplines that are easier for you to digest.

Hopefully, this comprehensively answers your “how to study for college exams” questions. I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this!