Ohio by Nicholas

Ohio by Nicholas - May 2016 Scholarship Essay

During my exam week the only exams that I needed to budget a fair amount of time for were my Macroeconomics and Applied Calculus II exams. My other classes I was either out of the final or I was already prepared enough to do well on the exams. The difficulty with my Macroeconomics and Applied Calculus II exams was that they required completely different preparation methods. The macro final consisted of around three hundred to four hundred vocab words from throughout the year, while the calculus final consisted of concepts and problems from throughout the year. For macro I used one of my favorite study materials, Quizlet. I had been using different sets on Quizlet throughout the year for other midterms and for the final I simply had to study all of my sets for the final. I went through each of the three sets until I achieved 100% correctness on them, and then after I got 100% I went over it two more times for each. It was a long and quite tedious endeavor but when you're working with almost four hundred terms the only way to retain them all is repetition. For my calculus final we were lucky enough to be given two different practice tests that reflected the way the actual final was structured. One copy of the test had answers and the other did not. At first I read through each question and then the answer in order to refresh my memory on material from past chapters. Once I felt I had properly reviewed past material I then went through the tests without the answers and did every single problem. Once I completed each problem I checked with the answer key to see whether or not I performed it correctly. If I performed it correctly I simply moved on but if I found myself struggling with it I would look over my notes on the problem until I was sure I would be able to do that type of problem on the final. While I enjoy going through problems one by one to make sure I understand them, it leads to wasting time by referencing your textbook or notes in order to fully understand. I ended up doing well on both finals but I would say the most helpful method of studying for myself is through Quizlet.
Ever since I discovered Quizlet back in high school I have constantly used it for different classes to retain definitions and vocab. The amount of time Quizlet saves students is staggering. In my macroeconomics class, if I were going to make four hundred physical flash cards on my own that would take me at least two hours, but because I was able to study one of my classmate's Quizlet notes online I was able to spend those two hours studying instead. No matter what level students’ lives are always hectic and filled with due dates, but Quizlet helps to free up some time in order to budget the necessary time to complete all your work. Having multiple significant tests in one week, every hour counts when trying to prepare, and because Quizlet gives you some breathing room when budgeting time it is the most helpful for me.