The week of finals for a number of local schools is finally upon us and many students are scrambling, studying and stressing to make that last ditch effort to either improve their grades or make sure to keep them up. With all of this last minute studying and cramming for tests students will often time resort to eating and drinking whatever they can to keep them going and continue studying. However drinking three Red Bulls, two trenta vanilla lattes, eating an entire bag of cheetos and a Chipotle burrito to make it through an all night cram session is not the best strategy for succeeding on finals and keeping your body functioning at peak performance. While it may taste good and keep you going for the day, after this week is over the students bodies will be screaming in utter dismay at the stress and torture that students put themselves through during finals. Because we cannot climate the stress from the actual taking of the tests on ourselves, we need to make sure that everything else happening to our body is making it feel good and strong. To accomplish this the students need to eat balanced meals throughout the day and limit the caffeine intake , especially eating some kind of breakfast each morning before the days of the test because you wouldn’t be able to drive your car without fuel so what would make it possible to use your brain without the necessary fuel.

Another major problem taking away from students ability to do well on finals is the increase in internet use. With all the new social media and internet sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. students have so many new things to distract them from their studies than there was even 5 years ago. While it may not be effective to completely restrict the student from the internet because there are so many useful learning and study tools, it would be extremely beneficial to even just deactivate ones Facebook for the week of finals or even better the week before through finals to keep focus on the studying as opposed to their social internet lives. Finals can be a stressful week for everyone from students, parents, teachers and tutors, but by taking necessary and beneficial steps in preparing we can make it a little easier for us all and hopefully earn A’s

It’s mid January, which means all of our students have shaken off the long winter break – and it’s all-encompassing mental freeze- and are gearing up for their finals. Here at Study Hut, we’ve extended our hours and expanded our tutoring capacity to help our students tackle their logarithmic functions, combustion reactions, and preterit tenses before they’re tested on it for the last time this semester. We’ve brought out the big guns this finals season to make sure they’re reviewing what they know, filling in any gaps in knowledge, and gaining confidence in subjects ranging from Pre-Algebra to AP Biology, but are doing so in a comfortable environment. This past week, I’ve personally logged over 50 hours of just finals tutoring, complete with much needed Goldfish cracker and Oreos breaks.

Obviously students should be studying all semester long to keep up with all relevant concepts, but there is no substitute for getting some extra one-on-one tutoring right before the test. Our tutors are experts in many different fields of study, so the instruction the students get in here is second only to what they get in class (and sometimes even better).

I always make certain that building confidence is a focal point in tutoring my students, as well as emphasizing the importance of working a little every day. Tutoring is a lot like baseball practice: you don’t skip practice and then do a six-hour scrimmage the day before a tournament and hope to win. You practice your plays day-by-day and BAM! The day of the game you’re ready. Finals are the same – with daily practice, paying attention to homework assignments (those questions WILL be on the final), and then a solid review of the semester’s teachings (whether or not the teacher provides a study guide), you will be game-day ready. So, study up for finals, kids, and come into Study Hut for some awesome one-on-one tutoring to make sure you’ll hit it out of the park!

The year of 2011 has been great for year for all us at The Study Hut and we hope to make 2012 even better! The students and tutors both had our 2 week break for the holidays to relax and recharge our batteries, but starting today everyone is back to the grindstone to work hard and even start putting a dent in accomplishing our New Years resolutions. Yet even more important for the students going back to classes tomorrow is the upcoming finals in the next few weeks. Finals are the time when students can really make or break their grades for the whole semesters so no matter what how much or how little work the students have put in the past 4 months a great showing on finals or totally bomb them can alter a students grade by almost a full letter grade. So that means for the couple weeks until the end of the semesters the students need to be on top of their game and working diligently towards scoring fantastically on their finals.

No matter what has gone on for the last 4 months of the semester, its time for the students to turn it up a notch and power through finals. That means taking great notes finding out as much as they can about what is going to be on the finals and what the best way to study them Hopefully the teachers will each give out study guides or at least give the students ideas of the material, but if they do not figuring out what is going to be on the end of the year test is not that tough. All that needs to be done is to go through all the the previous tests and quizzes for the whole semester and pick out the most important points that seem to show up constantly. I can guarantee most of the material on the finals will be repeated and seen before. Finals do not need to be a nerve-wracking crazy time, because with the right preparation and the right attitude finals should be thought or the last way to boost your grade easily with all old material. So for the next few weeks it would serve the students best to instead of always focusing on the future and new information, but to reflect back on all that they have learned in 2011 and make sure they can apply it all to the finals and ace them all.