Thing Of The Week: Finals

Anyone who has attended school – grade school, high school, or college – know finals well. It is a horrible series of tests that culminate the quarter or semester of classes. I remember having an easy time with my grade school finals, and even my high school finals. For some reason, taking finals in college is hard. Well, it should be because the depth of concepts and materials in college classes are more complex. But, could there be other things involved that could affect one’s performance?

This Friday was the start of finals week. I’m currently taking four classes this school quarter. In high school, I regularly took seven. That means also had to take seven final tests in high school compared to four this quarter and that’s including the take-home final for my writing class. Yet, my chances for failing each other my finals is high.

Why you ask? It’s not because I’ve been slacking off the entire quarter. It can’t be. I’m a working machine during the school year. But when that last week of school hits, I falter. You can’t study for finals. You CRAM for finals, and that is one thing that I can’t do. My attention span is too short and my patience is too momentary to sit for hours on end to re-memorize, or for some memorize for the first time, ideas that my professors spent many class periods lecturing.

In my opinion, my finals schedule has so many gaps in-between my tests that it’s impossible for me to stay focused for each and every test. There comes a point when you stop studying completely and take the tests without any preparation so that you can just have the feeling of being finished them. I know that I’m only taking three tests along with a take-home final, but even one is a lot.

For those that do spend days studying for each final, how do you ever know if you’ve fully prepared yourself for it? If there is a point of readiness, what is it? Maybe I just haven’t ever reached it.

And I would be remiss to not mention the current NBA finals that is taking place now. When I originally started thinking about my final tests, I didn’t think about the NBA finals. But it does relate in some way.