The Wick
To Study or Not to Study?Saturday, December 18, 2010 By Calie Gihl
If you haven't complained about it, you've heard your friends complain about it. Every school in the Chicagoland area gives finals before Christmas- except for Fenwick. However, seeing as Friday was the last day before Christmas break, finals before Christmas is a moot point, at least for this year. So the big question on everyone's minds is now this: to study or not to study over break. I know there are the extremists. To the seniors who've received their acceptance letters, don't worry about it. Slide by with that B. And then there are the perfectionists, like myself, who might venture to crack the books around the 30th of December even though we may not need to. Keep up the good work, trust me, it pays off in the end. To the middle sixty percent of you speculative Friars, what will your plans be this break? It's a loaded decision to make, because ultimately no one knows how much this studying will actually pay off come Finals week. However, my philosophy- and I believe it's a good one- is that you're always better safe than sorry. Studying over break doesn't have to be like pulling teeth. It's not like anyone's asking you to study on Christmas day, or give up your New Year's celebrations for a night of fun calculus problems. Getting together with a few kids from your chemistry class to go over old tests for an hour, or making joint study guides and sharing them with other students are good ways to keep the material fresh and keep you from feeling like you're back in school. Later, when you actually sit down to study for that chemistry or Spanish exam, you won't be looking at new material. You will remember seeing that material, or have memories of your friends talking about it. Instead of spending 3 hours memorizing your ions, formulas, or immense amount of vocab words, only 1 or 1 and a half hours will be necessary, which will leave more time for relaxing and resting up for the exam. So, until Fenwick decides to get with the times and let us take our finals pre-break, don't sit and mope about it. Sit down, study for just a little while, and then laugh at those who are struggling to cram in ridiculous amounts of information into their heads the night (or morning) before the test. As a final note, check out those study guides you were given last Friday. Teachers usually spend a lot of time making accurate study guides too, so use them to your advantage. It may not be Santa quality, but it is a Christmas present from the faculty nonetheless. Merry Christmas Friars! |