Jessica Pacetti
Staff Writer
Midterms can be a time of stress for many students. There are tests to prepare for, projects to work on, or papers to write. Everyone wants to do well on their midterms. However, every once in a while a midterm does not go well and a student may end up getting a lower grade then they wanted. Yet there is nothing to fear because one bad midterm does not mean that all hope of passing a class is lost. Here are five helpful tips to keep you motivated and to help get your grade back up after a rough exam.
1. Know where you stand after the midterm
After getting back your midterm, do not jump straight into panic mode. Take the time to calculate or see on Blackboard where your grade stands after you take the test. Sometimes the midterm grade is bad, but the class grade may still be good. If it is, do not loose all motivation because of one bad grade. Learn from it and keep up the work in class to keep your good grades. If the midterm does affect your grade for the worse, do not worry there is still plenty of time to turn a grade around. There will be other projects or tests to do well on in the future to help bring your grade back up to where you want it to be.
2. Meet with your Professor
Professors on campus are here to assist students however they can whether it be a question about a lesson in class or helping students with their class schedules. Set up an office visit with your professor to talk about your midterm and what you need to know in the future. Professors can help clarify any problems you had with the midterm and give advice on how to improve from the midterm until finals.
3. Review and learn from the mistakes on the midterm
If your midterm was a test, see if you can get your midterm test from your professor and look it over. If it was a test with problems you had to work out, try to find where you went wrong. Also, copy down the problem and try to do it again in your free time. See if you can get it right. If it was a project or a paper, look at the professor’s feedback on it. Understand your mistakes and try to avoid or improve on them for future projects and papers to help you get a better grade the next time around.
4. Do not procrastinate in the future.
Whether it’s cramming for a test or writing a paper at the last minute, procrastination can be the culprit behind a bad midterm grade. Staying up all night before a test makes you completely exhausted the next day and makes everything really difficult to focus on. Writing a paper late at night is also bad because your mind becomes tired as well and more errors and typos can occur because your brain is unable to process it all. Avoid procrastination for future tests and papers in class. Instead plan ahead, take the time to create a plan of how to divide up a paper or make study time for an exam. Get ahead so you do not have to pull another long night of little sleep.
5. Seek tutoring assistance or study with classmates
If you feel as if you are still struggling in a class after the midterm, seek out assistance on campus. There are various tutoring services at North Central College that are fit for different needs to help students do their best in class. For example, if you are having trouble in a foreign language class, the Foreign Language Center in LAC can always offer the help you may need, whether it’s writing or speaking the language. Working with classmates can also be another helpful tool to help build you back up from a bad midterm. Meet once a week with a classmate to see how you both are doing in class and work with each other to answer questions either one of you may have. Work together to help understand the class lessons and help improve your grade over time. Working with classmates is a smart move because you both can work off of each other and understand what’s going on in your class.
