Preparing for AP testing includes staying hydrated, prioritizing time

Finals and AP tests are fast approaching. These exams can strike fear into the heart of every teenager are often the main cause of stress before the summer break. Regardless of whether your GPA is a 4.5 or a 2, these six tips are sure to make finals week and AP tests go off without a hitch.

1. Stay hydrated and full: Your brain can’t run on nothing. Most of us are dehydrated anyway, causing dry skin, bad breath, and general not-fun times. Get a water bottle and use it. It doesn’t have to be a big, expensive, insulated one; I just refill the same Dasani water bottle every day. The important thing is that you’re running on a full tank. Which means now is not the time to start a diet. Though you aren’t doing much physical work, thinking hard takes energy. Not to mention, eating releases dopamine, the pleasure chemical in your mind, so it might even calm you down if you’re nervous about next period’s test.
2. Prioritize your soonest test for studying: If you have a math test tomorrow, don’t study for your English test tonight. If you have weeks before any of your tests, go ahead and study for all you can, but, at this point that isn’t the case. Each night of finals week, do at least a little studying for your tests the next day. After that, if there’s an exam you’re particularly anxious for, cover that. Effective studying is all in prioritization.
3. Don’t pull all-nighters: Whatever you do, do not stay up until 4 a.m. studying. I know it’s stressful and I know sometimes it seems like it’s the only thing you can do, but pulling an all-nighter is the worst thing you can do. Sleep helps with concentration, memory, brain function and not feeling dead. Anything you study past 11 won’t be in your brain the next morning. It’s in your best interest to get to bed and get some rest.
4. Communicate with classmates: Sometimes, things just don’t make sense. But, chances are, it makes sense to someone else. Make sure you know the phone number of at least one person in each class, even if it’s that one kid you did a project with first semester. Hopefully, they understand those tricky equations and that one part of Tale of Two Cities that was too complicated. And, who knows, maybe you can help them out, too.
5. Don’t stress out: I know for some of you there’s a lot riding on these tests, and you should definitely take them seriously. But stressing out too much will just clutter your mind so none of the curriculum comes out. Find ways to calm down: music, friends, a stress ball anything that helps. When test time comes, you can’t freak out. Take a deep breath and ace it.