The last stretch of the semester can feel like someone hit the fast‑forward button. Suddenly, studying shifts from, “I’ve got this” to, “This is happening.”
Because CLAS students move between very different areas of study, finals week can feel especially demanding. A little structure now can make a big difference later. Below are a few practical tips to help you stay focused and grounded through finals.
1. Know what you’re walking into
For each class, find out how much the final weights your overall grade,and what format to expect. Those answers shape how you spend your time.
Double check and make sure you know the correct day, time, and location for each of your final exams. Set a reminder now, so you don’t panic later.
Keep showing up this week —professors often share information that ends up on the exam.
2. Take advantage of “the spacing effect”
Learning and memorizing work better over time, not all at once. Instead of trying to cover everything in one long session, it helps to return to the material in shorter stretches across several days. Each time you come back, your brain does a little work to remember, and that effort strengthens the memory.
But this isn’t just for tests. This applies to papers as well.
For papers, the same pattern improves both thinking and clarity of writing. Drafting, stepping away, and revisiting the work later makes it easier to catch gaps, refine ideas, and make clearer choices. In both cases, spreading the work out leads to stronger understanding and better results than trying to do everything at once.
3. Practice first, then refine
Re-reading notes is one of the most common (and least effective) study methods among college students. Students who use practice tests, even before they feel ready, consistently perform better than those who don’t.
The same goes for writing—waiting until everything feels clear before you start can slow you down. Students who begin with a rough draft, even before they feel ready, tend to produce stronger papers than those who don’t.
4. Protect your sleep
Studies show that the sleep you get in the days leading up to a test or deadline has more impact on your grade than the sleep you get the night before.
For tests, that sleep helps you hold on to what you’ve studied. For papers, it helps you think clearly, make stronger decisions, and improve your draft when you come back to it. All-nighters still tend to backfire and are best avoided.
5. Move with purpose
Take a few extra moments to read through the directions or questions carefully—slowing down now can help you avoid missing an important step.
It’s okay to skip questions you’re stuck on and come back to them. When you’re unsure, take the question at face value rather than overthinking it.
For multiple-choice and essay exams, watch out for words like “usually” or “always”—they often signal a false statement.
6. Release the noise
Research from the University of Chicago found that students who spent a few minutes writing out their worries before an exam outperformed similarly anxious students who didn't—by up to 15%.
Consider this your official permission slip to do a brain dump. Getting the noise out of your head makes room for the good stuff.
Don't forget...
Here’s an important reminder during finals: your exam performance does not define you. It says nothing about your character, intelligence, or value as a person. Get in there, show what you know, and take the rest for what it is: information for the future and one more step toward graduation.