I know I sound like a crazy person, but hear me out. From worrying about what college I will attend, to being anxious over how well I will perform in volleyball, life’s many everyday surprises constantly leave me exhausted by sunset. With this exhaustion, naturally, come terrible sleep schedules and bags under my eyes that look like they could be used to make tea. But midterms pause all of these things. Midterms pause my college worries, my club volleyball season, and my constant cycle of exhaustion. Everything comes to a halt so I can focus on one thing: studying.
Approach
Christmas break had just ended. Midterms were right around the corner, and all my teachers were rushing to get one last unit done so they could cram it into their exams. As midterms got closer and closer, I put my study plan in the back of my mind, trying not to worry about it so much. When there was one week before midterms, I realized that I needed to put my plan in action. I planned on starting Wednesday, but something came up, so I planned on starting Thursday. When there was a snow day on Thursday, I gave myself a day off and planned on starting Friday. Am I the most productive student ever or what? When Friday came, I finally started studying by grazing over some economics and engineering.
Like many students, I like to procrastinate. Because of this, I know what it is like to work under pressure. When Saturday came, that familiar pressure really started to build. I remember the feeling of doing practice problems and memorizing material for hours on end. Between Saturday and Monday, I would wake up super late, study the whole day, and then go to bed at a reasonable hour. During these three days, I felt trapped like a bird in a cage, but at the same time, the cage was enormous. The sheer amount of boredom that I felt while studying allowed me to find things interesting that I never found interesting before. I would see a random item and be like, “Look at that chair! What material is it made of? It is so burnished and unblemished! How much did it cost someone to make this?”
Overall, midterm preparation was a very eye-opening experience.
The Exams
This year’s exams were rough, as most of them had their own twist that left a hole in my stomach after taking them. First off was my statistics exam. What was the twist? It was one of my worst subjects. I remember going into my exam room feeling like the world was about to end. Though the multiple choice went well, I felt unsure for the entire second part of the exam and barely ended up finishing. At least I got my worst subject done first.
Next was my engineering exam. This was sort of a wildcard, mainly because there was very little to study. My class was given two mini practice quizzes for reference, so I just studied that and looked over past homework. When the exam came around, it was not that bad until the final question, which had like ten parts and a topic that I swear I had never seen before.
My third exam was my economics exam, one that I was pretty confident about until I actually took it. The AP questions presented the most random scenarios, I swear. I ended up guessing on like, half of them.
My final exam was biology, a really long one. It is a good thing I like biology, or else studying for it would have felt terrible. I flew through it with confidence and ended up only feeling uncertain about a couple of questions.
After Exams
When exams had finally ended, of course there was relief, but there was also a sense of loss. I would be right back into the swing of things on Monday, worrying about homework and graduating in the near future. Though midterms were torturous, that single, beautifully defined purpose of studying that they gave me made me feel comfortable. Sometimes, especially with graduation approaching, I wish I could go back in time.