It's the most wonderful time of the year! The time when you freak out for 3-4 weeks

and feel more stressed than you ever have in your life. Yay?

Hey everyone, Laci Green here for DNews. I miss a lot of things about being in college,

but finals! Haha......noooo finals is not one of them. There are a lot of insane things

that people do to prepare for finals--but none of them are quite as effective as rolling

up your sleeves and studying *the right way*. Here are 5 scientifically backed ways to get

it in this finals season.

#1 - DO NOT CRAM. Yeah, everyone knows cramming sucks and they do it anyway. But hey, it's

gotta be said. The Association for Psychological Science asserts that cramming doesn't work(!),

in large part because of the all nighters that are pulled to cram. Keeping irregular

hours impairs your memory the next 4 DAYS! Scientists at NYU also found that a huge chunk

of what you take in while cramming is lost as soon as the next day. Generally, people

remember what they studied FIRST and LAST the most - and forget everything in between.

So, prioritize your information accordingly.

#2 - Practice tests. Forget highlighting, rereading, summarizing -- the APS has found

that even though they're the most common, they're amongst the WORST methods to help

you study. But practice tests do work. REALLY WELL, actually. When you force yourself to

repeatedly call information to the mind, you strengthen your knowledge of the material

and your ability to retrieve it. If you don't have a practice test, flash cards have similar

benefits.

#3 - Explain the material to someone else. Say you're studying the digestive system,

explain each step of the process to someone IN DETAIL. It's similar to a practice test

in that it helps you memorize and recall, but it also helps you find the missing gaps

in your knowledge and to get better at articulating the information. If you can accurately explain

something to someone out loud, you're in good shape!

#4 - When you're structuring your study schedule, study a subject in intervals. For instance,

bio on M/W/F and physics on T/Th/S instead of 3 days in a row. Distributing your study

into intervals over the course of several weeks will strengthen your retention of the

material. The longer you need to remember the information, the longer the intervals

should be.

#5 - Do the hardest part of your studying before bed. A good night's sleep helps to

consolidate your memory and scientists have found that the information taken in right

before bed is often the first to come back to you.

There you go my dears, good luck this finals season! The whole DNews team is rootin' for

ya. After you're all done, if you need a good book to unwind with I just finished "The Ocean

at the End of the Lane" by Neil Gaiman, which you can find on Audible. IT'S SUCH A GREAT

READ! I've been recommending it to everyone. And if you sign up at audiblepodcast.com/dnews,

you get a free audiobook-download of your choice AND you'll be helping the show out,

too. Let me know if you like it or if you have other book recommendations. Audible has

over 100,000 titles to choose from in every genre so you're bound to find something you

like. Thanks for watching, I'll see you next time!