By Mikey Vasquez
Testing isn’t really a test of your knowledge, it’s more a test of your ability to retain knowledge. My old schools wouldn’t let us use notes or have helpful formulas which isn’t really a good idea. My current school let’s us use notes which is honestly really smart. They are stressful because of how much input we get from our friends in older grades, parents, and teachers.
You can always prepare for test without having to spend 4 hours studying. In math it’s always good to write formulas on a piece of paper and keep this with you so you don’t have to memorize. In English it’s best to have examples of sentences and write down why you wrote them how you did. For example if you’re writing about subject vs clause or whatever, then write a few sentences and highlight the subject/clause and explain why it’s that. History tests is a little bit more difficult as it’s more memorizing. Writing down bullet points from what you’ve learned is always helpful. Science is a mixture of all of them. Writing down formulas, bullet points, and examples are useful.
While you can be prepped for a test, you may not be ready. If you study and stuff that’s good but you gotta make sure you yourself are ready. Getting good sleep is always important. Just for the night of the test, sleep 8 hours at least. Make sure to eat something in the morning, bring gum or a mint to chew on. These are things that’ll help you focus. Drink some coffee before the test to wake you up.
I don’t do all of these. I’ll usually write down formulas and sometimes bullet points. It helps me because I can focus on the more broad picture rather than having to memorize little bits of info that could throw me off and result in a lower score.
I hope I was able to help because testing is stressful and everyone has to go through it. Make sure to focus on your mind and relax. Don’t stress too much as it’s not the end of the world if you get a bad grade.
