So you’ve survived most of the semester. You’ve got three or more courses on your plate and exams are coming up faster than you’d like. You’re feeling the signs of oncoming stress and panic, and in your head, you’re already pulling all-nighters. How do you make it through alive, or even better, with good grades? Here are some tips that’ll help you rock your exams!

If freebies involved, make sure you get them!

A lot of courses reward hard working students with a (small) bonus: some extra points on the exam or 5% extra on your final grade. For some courses you’ll need to attend all (or nearly all) lectures or tutorials to get those sweet bonus points, other courses ask that you turn in extra assignments during the semester. That may sound like a lot of work of now, but come exam time, you’ll be glad you’ve got some points in your pocket already.

Talk to yourself!

Yes, you’ll probably sound weird to other people when you’re mumbling the finer details of thermodynamics to yourself. However, not just reading the material, but repeating it to yourself aloud is a great way to help you to remember it later, and it also helps you to see what you don’t quite understand yet. Alternatively, write out a summary of the material for yourself. The act of writing it out helps you focus on material a lot better.

Discuss with a friend

One of the things that helps me a lot in assessing how much of the material I understand is to talk it over with a friend who’s taking the same course. Discussing study material is a much better way to ensure you remember it than just reading it, and it’s easier to find out if you misunderstood something if you review the material with someone else. In addition, I find that it’s easier to keep my concentration up this way, which goes a long way to help me actually remember the material come exam time.

Get some sushi (or Nutella)!

Eating well is always important, but doubly so when you need to concentrate. Hunger is a good way to be distracted from what you need to doing (and by that I mean studying, not aimlessly clicking around on youtube!). However, did you know that some foods actually boost your studying even more? If you’re like me and you love sushi, you’re in luck! Raw fish contains certain acids that help improve your memory and concentration. Not a fan of sushi? Nuts and dark chocolate work great as well.

Make up stories and chew gum

Sadly, humans are terrible at remembering random facts. Trying to remember lists of things without knowing what they mean, or why they are in a certain order is very hard. However, sometimes you do just need to remember seemingly random stuff. To make that easier, create stories or rhymes about it and you’ll find it a lot easier to remember. You can also use objects that you’ll also be using on your exam (gum, you pen, an eraser) and review the material while keeping these objects in mind. When you look at the same pen during your exam, of when you taste the same gum, you’re more likely to remember what you’ve studied.