High School can always be difficult, but stress begins to take over students during midterms and finals week. Do you find yourself forgetting all the information you learned right after you walk out of a unit exam? How are you supposed to remember all this information for a cumulative test? Here are some tips and tricks to help you out.

Studying is not easy, especially for tests covering half a year’s worth of curriculum. One great way to relieve some study pressure for midterms is to always keep your notebooks organized. Invest in dividers, and section off your notes by unit. Make sure to never take notes for one subject in a notebook for another subject. This can cause major disorganization, and you may forget you left those notes there, so they will be excluded from your studying. “I used to keep all my notes in one binder, and it started to get super disorganized and frustrating. Now that I have separate notebooks for each subject my studying is a lot easier to tackle” said Junior, Keira Gould. Organization is the key to study success.

Another great way to make sure you cover every topic in a subject before going into a midterm, is by going over old tests. This can help jog your memory about what types of questions were asked for each unit. Additionally, looking at questions that you got wrong is a great opportunity to focus on the topics you have trouble with to prevent making the same errors again. “I keep all my tests in a separate folder, so that when midterms roll around, I can easily access them and go over the mistakes I made during each unit.” said Junior, Geordan Sparber.

New York State Regents exams are another cumulative test that can be extremely overwhelming for students. Luckily, there are a lot of resources available online and in person to provide aid for these exams. Programs such as “Ace the Regents” are put in place all over Long Island, to help students review. These programs provide review classes for specific subjects that require a regents exam, that can span from a couple of hours, to a full day course. The class is led by an expert on the subject, and filled with other students who are able to ask questions. “I’ve experienced a full day regents review course, and it was the best thing I could have done to succeed on the test” said Junior Eliana Salloum. In addition to attending review courses, another great way to study for the regents is to look online for practice regents questions. Often, these questions are very similar to the ones asked on the real test, as they are from previous years. This can help with really getting to know the content, and getting accustomed to the language that New York State uses.

When studying for tests in subjects such as math and science, where you apply what you learn, the best way to study is by doing practice problems. “When I’ve studied for a big math test, I like to use online resources to find practice problems, and I use my old homeworks to review as well.” said Junior, Ava DeMarzo. Using old worksheets can be a great way to really beat formulas and equations into your brain, in order to ensure success.

For subjects that require more memorization, such as social studies or psychology, a helpful study method could be rewriting your notes. Not all of them, of course, but rewriting the main ideas for each unit could be extremely helpful for recall purposes. It is scientifically proven that people remember facts better when they write them down. “Whenever I studied for AP World last year, what helped me most was watching “Crash Course” youtube videos to go over the entire unit” said Junior, Layla Hershkowitz. Watching review videos online is another great way to study, and help get the whole picture in your head of historical timelines.

There’s always people out there to help you, and you are not alone. Everyone here at Schreiber has the worry of studying and taking major tests, but we can all work together to succeed. Never be afraid to ask teachers and friends for help, and good luck!—