Anticipate Your Next Test

E arly December is a chaotic time of the school year. Everything gets thrown out-of-whack the week of Thanksgiving, and it can take students and teachers alike most of the next week to get back in the school groove (or rut, depending on how you look at it).

That leaves two weeks until winter break, when everything will get thrown super out-of-whack again, for even longer.

Life-wise this is great, but school-wise it’s a disaster. At school the inexorable march of quizzes and tests must continue, meaning teachers are forced to either wedge a round of tests between Thanksgiving and winter break, or wait seven or eight weeks between tests. Both of these options are terrible, but what can students do it about it?

Anticipate your next test! If you’ve been using the Quarter Calendar or something like it, you’ve noticed how often your teachers like to give tests, and on which days. Think about each of your classes. Will there be one more test before winter break?

If there will be, it’ll probably be the last week before break. You only have one more weekend to review the material and make yourself a great study guide.

If there won’t be, you’ll probably have one in the second week back from winter break, and it’ll probably cover more material than usual. There’ll be too much stuff on the test to master in a single weekend once you’re back from break, so you’d better figure out a plan to review and make a study guide a little bit at a time over the next five weeks.

Either way, you’re gucci, as long as you’ve been using these three time-management tools and reviewing weekly all year. If you haven’t been, start with this To-Do List right now.

Like now now.