Ugh. My brain is toast. I’ve spent this past week trying to get ready for my mid-term tomorrow. I’m still very happy that my teacher is letting me proctor myself. I think the only thing that would make me happier is if he announces that it will be open book. I’m not anticipating that, so I’ve been studying all week. Well, kinda. I have a hard time staying focused on my textbook for long periods of time. There are just so many other interesting things to do, like clean the kitchen. And organize the electronics cupboard. And go through all the stuff I’ve saved for scrapbooking from each country I’ve visited.
So, needless to say, I haven’t studied all of the materials we’ve covered these past weeks. Thank goodness my exam is only worth 5% of my grade. That’s still a big chunk, but at least it’s not 50% of my grade. Tomorrow, I’m going to go through all my previous quizzes and review them all. My teacher is going to be sending me the exam password sometimes Thursday evening his time, which will be mid-morning Friday for me. That will give me a few hours in the morning to review the quizzes before he sends me the password. I may also spend a few hours reading my textbook against instead of doing all the notes.
What I’ve been doing to study is make an outline of each chapter. Each section of the chapter is a bullet point and I make additional notes about what’s in each paragraph of the section. I think that’s why it’s taking me so long to study. I wish I’d decided to do that earlier in the semester. But, it will help me when it gets closer to the final, so I’m going to keep doing it for the rest of the semester. I’ve got several pages worth of notes and I’m fairly pleased with my progress.
I thought about staying up late tonight and working on it, but I only stay focused for an hour and a half at a time. I don’t have ADD, I just have a hard time making myself sit and study for long periods. I get headaches sometimes and my hand cramps up from all the writing. I tore a bunch of tendons in my wrist when I was in 5th grade, so writing for a long time without breaks gets painful after a while. Today I’ve been following Troy’s suggestion of studying for an hour and then taking a break for a while, study for another hour, take another break. I set the alarm on my phone for an hour and then after it goes off, I finish up the chapter I’m working on and then putter around the house or play on the computer for 45 minutes or so. Today has been my best study day all week. I think I will keep using this method because it seems to work really well for me.
*sigh* Even so, I’m still not entirely ready for my mid-term. I haven’t even read some of the reading assignments that were previously assigned at all. I should have, but with doing Myanmar and Thailand back-to-back, I just didn’t have time. I’ve still done well on my quizzes. I’ve always done well in English classes. So, I will read through my quizzes a few times and make sure I’ve read all the reading assignments at least once before I start my final tomorrow. And I’m going to bed early(ish) tonight so I can be all rested and ready to get studying after the gym. Wish me luck!
