As the first semester is wrapping up and finals are quickly approaching, almost the whole student body is left stressing over their exams and cramming 4 months of material into their memory before the time is up. Although there are many students worried about all their classes, it seems like there’s a few that cause more anxiety than others. Science seems to be an especially intimidating subject with 44 students saying that it will be their hardest final this month, although with almost 40% of the data being collected by freshmen we can assume that Biology seems to be the class they are most worried about, but there’s no doubt that Chemistry, APES, and AP Physics all have their students as anxious those taking Biology.

And of all the science classes, APES seems to be on a lot of minds as well. Mary Stampfi, a senior taking the class reports, “I’m not really stressed about it but there is a lot of content so I know it’s going to be difficult.”

Despite these intimidating classes we all must carry on studying and hope it will be enough when exams finally arrive. Bella Swartz (sophomore) has a personal favorite way of studying, “ I play something called The Cookie Game where you set an overall goal then break it into smaller more achievable goals and everytime you complete a small goal then you get a cookie.”

It can be hard to make yourself sit down and focus on tedious work, especially when nothing you do can make it stick, but here are some studying habits that other students here have used and found effective;

•  Reviewing old work, notes, and teacher Powerpoints: All of these are great because they follow your own way of thinking back when the material was fresh in your mind, and puts you into a place where you can relearn easily.
• Flashcards: Highly recommended and definitely effective, especially for vocab that needs to be memorized.
•  Study guides: Teach-provided study guides are a helpful, convenient way to review a summary of everything the final is going to cover, but they don’t help if you’re struggling with one particular topic.
•  Grind: Sitting down and getting your studying done fast is useful, especially if you can fall into the zone, but doing last-minute can take away from necessary rest before your test. Studying is important but some teachers don’t grade study guides so don’t end up cramming and stressing if it’s not going to be worth it for your grade on the test or overall.

 But overall, once finals are over make sure to take some time to yourself, enjoy Winter Ball, and good luck with finals!