From Tuesday to Friday, Chaps will take their fall midterms. A little stress or anxiety is often involved in preparing for these tests, and Chaps have different methods for preparing from meditating, de-stressing and staying calm.
School-based therapists Katie Bryant and Brooke Anderson have a few tips and tricks they find helpful in the sometimes crammed, stressful period of finals.
“Having a daily routine is really important,” Anderson said. “There’s going to be a lot of additional things some kids are involved in, so make sure that each day, you really structure a routine.”
When preparing, Chaps need to remember the exam is only part of the battle.
“Positive self-talk is always important,” Bryant said. “I always tell students that your attitude is half the exam. Now, a little anxiety is good, too. If you’re totally calm, that means you’re really not engaged or locked in at all.”
As Chaps in the classroom are prepping for some significant test grades, a few students are trekking through obstacles in studying.
“For [AP Biology], I usually take my own notes,” junior Amna Motiwala said “I’ll go over my notes I’ve taken from previous units, and I’ll find YouTube videos based off that unit. But it does take a lot of time away from me having to go and find a bunch of different extra sources to help me study, whereas, my teacher could be posting stuff.”
Motiwala seems to rely on her big major assignments to keep her grades floating.
“It really just depends on the class, but I do feel like these last couple of weeks are going to have a lot of stress because of the fact that so many classes are cramming last minute major grades or big assignments at the end of the school year,” Motiwala said. “It is hard when there’s so many classes doing so many things on the same day.”
Principal Steve Ramsey helped push for a third exemption this fall semester for students who met testing criteria, and works to help students manage mental health in preparation for the upcoming finals week.
“We used to not have an exemption policy, and there’s still a lot of high schools who don’t have exemption policies,” Ramsey said. “We try to find the balance of making sure you have the experience of taking finals, and we don’t want it to damage mental health.”
Junior Elijah Horne is also concerned with studying for his rigorous AP exams and keeping his mental health in line doing so.
“I’m taking a lot of AP weighted classes, so I’ve tried to avoid the AP finals because they’re usually quite difficult,” Horne said. “But I think I’m managing quite well.”
Chaps in extracurricular activities seem to be busier than average in the holiday season. Sophomore Hailey Schumate balances club volleyball with honors and AP midterms.
“I like knowing what activities I have after school and making a plan of exactly what I’m going to do each day. I like making sure that I stay disciplined using every second that I have,” Schumate said. “Every minute really counts with all the course load, and making sure you get everything done right.”
Ramsey has discussed prep for some harder extracurriculars such as an AP English or AP math course.
“I think just because everything’s kind of done individually with kids, because I’ve had two grads,” Ramsey said. “For some of them, it may have actually been a little bit easier in one of their AP courses for an exam, because that’s something they love. So I think it becomes highly selective based upon the individual. Hopefully all the kids, when they do take the exam, feel like it was fair and that they were prepared for it.”
School therapists have recommended a few ways above on how to prepare for exam week, but they also have some advice on what to avoid.
“Not sleeping, staying up super late, is probably our number one: sleep impact,” Bryant said. “Your memory and your brain needs to recover, so definitely [make] sure you still have good sleep. And, those caffeine drinks can really make you agitated, which makes you more anxious, which makes you less likely to be able to focus.”
Chaps all use different ways, tips and tricks to prepare for finals week and should remember to stay calm if pressured when taking a test. Stay calm, meditate, practice positive self talk and rely on your knowledge.
“Putting pressure on yourself and freaking out about it doesn’t help,” Ramsey said. “I think the best way to feel good about any test you’re going into is to prepare, and you realize hopefully you’ve taken care of business all semester long.”
