Final advice please

mitchsmom · May 7, 2005

The only way I can minimize my nervousness is to really know the material... which it sounds like you are doing that :) If I really feel like I know it then taking the test is almost like a jeopardy game to me (I usually get really good grades, I'm a nerd). Plus, I just tell myself, I've studied, this is it, just gotta do my best and nothing can change anything at this point anyway so no use in worrying now.

Alot of people say not to study right before the test, etc. etc.... but I have ALWAYS studied right up to the very last minute. And I usually don't have enough sleep the night before either. Maybe it's just different for different people... as I think alot of study techniques are.

For exams, I usually make a study sheet. Just re-reading is not enough for me to internalize it like I need to. Often I do the study sheet in Word with a column on the left with the "questions" and a column on the right with the "answers", that I can fold over to hide & reveal the answers.

If I don't do that, I use my little voice recorder and do it out loud. Then I listen to it on the way to the test and whenever else I can (I have a two hour commute to school). Then it really IS almost like jeopardy.. I actually ask questions and leave a pause for me to answer myself! LOL... but it works very well for me! The process of making the sheet or the recording is half of the studying in itself.

When I get bored or sleepy with the notes and text materials that I already have I sometimes look stuff up on the internet, just for variety & to keep my interest going.

I think study groups are great if you are in one with students who are serious/ smart/ get good grades.

I don't feel like I know my stuff unless I can explain it to someone else (I don't actually do that, well ok occasionally I torture my husband with it, but I know if I could explain it). Don't know if that helps, but that's some of my routine! Good luck! :) Let us know how it goes!

PS.. why not shoot for the 'A'??!!

grinnurse, RN · May 8, 2005

I am in the same boat. I have my final final tomorrow and am getting a bit nervous too!

I have always made these sheets out to study with that list S/S, causes, test and labs, interventions, and meds. Then the past couple of days I have been going over them again and made a new sheet b/c we were told to study only S/S and interventions for the final. If I write several times I know it and things that I thought i had forgotten are coming back to me.

As far as when to stop studying, I myself will study alone a couple of days and make my papers out, then get together with my awesome study group and we will quiz each other. We usually do this on the Sat & Sun before the test. We usually stop about 4 on Sunday afternoons. Then if there is something that I am having a particular problem with, I will look at it just prior to going to bed and for some reason it usually sticks. After 4, I usually don't look at again except as mentioned above. Then I usually don't look at it again unless it is lab values on the morning of the test. I figure if I don't know it by now, I don't think that I am going to learn it in the next 30 minutes.

Our sophmore instructor let's us scream right before the test :uhoh3: (sounds like a bunch bawling cows). Then I sit in my seat, say a prayer for all of my peers and instructors, take a couple of deep breaths in my "happy place" and begin the test. When I get a question that I have no clue what the answer is I skip it and come back to it at the end. I too have implemented the "no changing answer policy" and this has helped tremendously unless another question later on proves it truly needs to be changed.

I try to get in bed no later than 9 except Grays Anatomy has been a problem this semester :chuckle which will give me 8 hours of sleep. I leave early enough to stop by Mickey D's in the a.m. to get a sauasage biscuit and a Dr. Pepper to get my brain going.

Hope some of this helps. Good luck on your final!!