As finals approach, students check their dwindling bank accounts to find they burned all of their dining dollars on Sushic, Chick-Fil-A and Starbucks. Those who spent it all said they wished they had saved properly throughout the semester after realizing they had nothing left. Now with a minimal budget, they seek creative ways to spend their money on food.
Browsing: final exams
Finding the perfect study method looks different for every student, so here are three well-researched methods that are shown to promote learning and memory recall.
Handwriting notes is proven to be psychologically beneficial for memory retention and study habits. So this finals season, experts suggest closing that laptop, getting out the notebook and writing between the lines.
As studying kicks up in the next couple of weeks in an attempt to save your GPA this semester, it’s important to remember to take a break every once in a while. Here are our recommendations for a relaxing study break.
Saturday exams should not be allowed. The weekend is meant for rest and relaxation, not taking the most important test of the semester.
Picture this: You study all night long for your final the next morning. You go into the test, make a mad attempt to regurgitate all the information that you were supposed to have absorbed, finish right on time and are left feeling like someone just played kickball with your tired, weary brain.
I am writing to comment on “Comprehensive finals get an F for effectiveness”, published April 4.
With my personal experience as a junior in college, as well as a transfer student, I feel that the issue at hand with regards to the comprehensive final should begin with the first quiz at the beginning of the semester.
In response to the April 4 editorial “Comprehensive finals get an F for effectiveness,” I would encourage the author of the editorial to dig deeper and consider research about the effectiveness of comprehensive exams. For instance, findings of two recent studies by Natalie Lawrence (2013) and Szpunar, McDermott, and Roediger (2007) indicate that simply preparing for cumulative finals results in improved retention of material, especially if students have already been tested on that material in a midterm examination earlier in the semester. Indeed, this “retesting” method discourages cramming for a one-time “brain dump” because the student knows that he or she will see the material again on a cumulative exam. Moreover, the repetition improves long-term retention.
I am writing to comment on “Comprehensive finals get an F for effectiveness,” published April 4, based on my 19 years of experience as a student and 43 years of experience as a professor of mechanical engineering. When I was a student, my most challenging study was done for comprehensive final exams, which most in engineering are. I am certain that my most significant learning took place putting the whole course together, and this capstone learning experience was when the concepts were finally tattooed onto my brain.
I read with interest your editorial “Comprehensive finals get an F for effectiveness,” on April 4. I have no doubt you are right when you say students complain about them, and that many students consider college simply as a means to employment. You are also correct that some students do poorly on final exams because “students never learned the material in the first place.” You are exactly and completely wrong, however, in your conclusion that final exams contribute to this “instrumentalism.”