Finals in full swing
SHS faculty gives advice on how to study for finals
Finals are this week, leading to ominous reminders from both parents and teachers. But finals are not the end-all grade of a semester. Instead, they are a resource for teachers to assess their classes and a way to tweak their lessons to focus on class weaknesses.
SHS pushes teachers to make students use recognition skills within finals instead of recall skills. While teachers have been doing this recently, the ability to identify and use recognition skills is a course taught to college students.
“They’re good tools for teachers to have to know what was mastered, what’s approaching mastery and what wasn’t hit at all,” assistant principal Joe Horvath said.
Horvath is a proponent of an unorthodox method of using flashcards to weed out what someone studying may know and what they may not, using randomness to keep their brain on their toes.
Some teachers put great emphasis on educating their students on the art of studying.
Chemistry teacher John Davis is one of these teachers, setting aside a week in the beginning of the school year to further his student’s understanding of their own learning processes.
“The best way to have been studying for finals so far has actually being in class, actively participating…” Davis said. “It’s impossible to remember anything you never experienced.”
Even though people who have done great things have done so through cramming, it is not advised for the average person. It is extremely depreciative towards a student’s learning in the long term. Making any future learning on the topics crammed that much harder.
Students should remember that every teacher is different, and that the finals that they give are unique in some way. All they can do is prepare as best as they can.
“I’d say it’s pretty difficult,” freshman Harjas Kaur said. “Every teacher gives out their own test.”
