5 Steps That I used to Study for Finals and Got Me 4.0 CGPA

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My 5-step formula.

I followed these five steps throughout all my finals in every semester while I studied for my degree:

1. Gather all reading materials
2. Churn out your own bible
3. Plan out your study schedule
4. Remember abbreviations/ Practice makes perfect
5. Restart from page 1 once you’re done with a page/a chapter

Just a few words to dish out before we dig in:

• I’m by no means a guru. This is not a how-to guide, but rather a “How I did it” sharing + some non-professional advice, and hence,
• I can’t guarantee the same methods would work as effectively for you as they did for me :(
• I’m NOT a genius, but I’m hardworking. Apart from being very lucky to have good course mates and lecturers that helped me along the way, I studied really hard
• I usually spend no less than two days to cram one semester’s worth of content for each subject using this 5-step formula. If I only had 48 hours or lesser, study intensifies but I still made sure I ate well and got 6–8 hours of sleep per day (yes you read that right, per day. I cannot stress how important sleep is)
• If you’re in high school and you’re reading this, don’t get cheeky thinking you can also cram 1–2 years (or more) worth of study materials into 48 hours and expect to pass. Don’t push your luck too far fam

Alrighty, with that out of the way, let’s begin!

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1. Gather all reading materials

Reading materials can include your notes, slides, practicals, tutorials, books, mock exam papers, past year exam questions, etc. Gather them all in one space/folder on your mobile device or print them out, whichever helps you better to study.

I used to gather all materials for each module in that semester at least two weeks before my finals.

2. Churn out your own bible

When I had all my study materials in one folder, I still found it hard to start studying as the contents are still scattered across different documents even though they are sitting in the same folder.

For example, on the topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI),

• In my slides, I have points for detailing the different branches in AI such as machine learning
• In mock exam papers, there was a question on sample applications of AI in our daily lives
• Meanwhile, we also have clueless me who wouldn’t know how to properly answer a 2 marks question on the definition of AI, so I had to Google that

The way I went about this was to do my own notes. I made notes in the form that was easy for me to digest.

Using the sample AI topic example as above, I would structure it this way:

• What is AI (Answers from Google)
• Sample applications of AI (Answers from either lecturers who are kind enough to provide answers in past year papers or again Google)
• Different branches in AI (Answers from slides)

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It’s also very important that you only write things that you can understand in your notes. If the things you’re reading on Google doesn’t make much sense to you, don’t include those in your notes. It’ll just be a pain to remember them later on.

Repeat this until you’ve covered all of the more important topics for the module. You now have this one-stop reference for a particular subject where you can channel your focus onto.

Also, don’t procrastinate trying to make your notes look cute and colourful or artistic.

3. Plan out your study schedule

Here’s how my study schedule looked like for one of the semesters:

Study schedule that I’ve set for myself

I had a total of 5 subjects in that semester, and the dates for the finals were:

• 29 June: Subject 1
• 30 June: Subject 2, Subject 3
• 2 July: Subject 4
• 3 July: Subject 5

I’ll walk you through my thought process on how I came about this schedule.

1. First put down the dates for finals in red colour code in my Google Calendar
2. Figure out which subjects to study on which day

• Note that these time blockers are only for me to memorize and practise the notes I have already prepared (we’ll come to setting the blocker for notes prep in step 3)
• If I have finals for that subject(s) tomorrow, I’ll study for that subject(s) today.
• Allocate time for quick recap of what I’ve studied the day before
• Ensure that I at least have two blockers for the same subject at different days (I always needed more than one full day to cram for each subject)

3. Do notes a few days before I start the actual cramming (15–24 June)

By having comprehensive notes prepared beforehand, I can spend most of my time focusing on getting info to my head.

Feel free to stretch out the days or allocate more time to subjects that concerns you more. Having that peace of mind helps you to focus better too.

4. Remember abbreviations/ Practice makes perfect

If you’re on a subject that is full-on theory and requires nothing but your ability to regurgitate at finals, heed me on this (and point number 5).

Come up with abbreviations that could help you remember things better, and it’s okay if the abbreviation is weird or is something only you would understand.

Let’s say we have a test tomorrow that requires you to write a step-by-step guide on how to cook pasta. I’m no professional chef, so let’s hear it from chef Google:

1. Boil water
2. Add salt
3. Add the pasta
4. Stir
5. Taste the pasta
6. Drain
7. Add Sauce
8. Add pasta water
9. Serve

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How do you create abbreviations out of these 9 steps? It’s entirely up to your creativity.

Pick keywords in a sentence, choose the first letter of those keywords to form an abbreviation and try to make some funny things out of that abbreviation.

How would I come up with an abbreviation? Heads up: unintentional profanity

Abbreviation: BAASTDAAS (In this case, the first letter of each sentence)

Can be interpreted as:

• Bast*rd A** (which erm doesn’t really make sense?)
• Bada** (missing that “ST” in between)
• Best a** (I might go with this)

The abbreviation method works best with topics that don’t come naturally to you — i.e. historical events, how does photosynthesis work, etc. You can skip on abbreviations if the topic is as simple as cooking pasta to you 😉

However, if you’re on subjects like maths or programming, do not attempt to memorize!! Practise questions over and over to get the hang of it. Try to understand why it needs to be done in that way and just practise with all your might. Google answers, Google more questions, Google optimized solutions, just.. don’t bring Google to the exam hall.

5. Restart from page 1 once you’re done with a page/a chapter

I remember when I only had less than 24 hours to go before I step into the exam hall for a subject.

I had 6 pieces of A4 paper filled with notes on both the front and back. That’s okay, I got this. I had about 22 hours, minus off seven hours of sleep, one hour of bath, one hour to cook and eat, 30 minutes for me to walk to uni and 30 minutes more as buffer for me to check my seat number and have a super quick Q&A session with a few course mates (every semester without fail, at least one question from these quick Q&A rounds would appear in the final paper. We started and continued this ritual since sem one).

With that, I had a good 12 hours to devour the notes. I wasn’t too worried.

However, for some reason, things just wouldn’t register. I wasn’t sleepy, I don’t drink coffee (cue shocked expressions of literally everyone I know) and I’ve ran out of my usual pick-me-ups (chocolates).

Soon, it was dinner time. Six hours left to go, and I’d only just completed memorizing two pages of notes.

To top it off, during dinner, I couldn’t recall a thing about page one.

In your head, in your hea-a-ad

See, the more pressing issue wasn’t about time — I could sleep a couple of hours lesser to make up for lost time (an idea that I am strongly against). I was more concerned at the fact that I had spent 6 hours on two pages, but when I tried to recall my memories? 404.

My friend having sensed my devastation over dinner, offered me this piece of advice that would go on to save me from failing that subject, and eventually saving my entire degree (I’ve mentioned that I was lucky to have fantastic course mates at the start of this article).

Once you’re done memorizing one page, flip to the first page of your notes, and start recalling what you’ve memorized from the beginning

There should be some proper, fancier term to describe this memorization technique, to me, it’s called the “last minute 99% success rate holy grail memorizing method”.

This method is the remedy to those who suffer from “what did I memorize 2 seconds ago?” syndrome.

Basically, if you’re on page 2 of your notes and you’re ready to move on to page 3, flip your notes back to page 1, and try to recall the points under each topic you have in your notes.

On page 11? Flip back to page 1 and start recalling.

You would eventually find it effortless to recall what’s on page 1 as you’ve tried to recall contents under this page the most. If you’re struggling to now memorize the second half of your notes, you can start recalling from the second half instead of the very first page.

Try this, 99% success rate (percentage derived from two test subjects — me and my course mate).

I also want you to know that based on my personal experience, these methods I’ve shared are more on quick ways to get stuffs into brain, not really for memory retention — I study for finals, I go for finals, I end up forgetting >50% two days later.

A few advices I’d like to share:

1. Make sure you get enough sleep and eat well

Sleep for 6–8 hours, you really need that energy. I found myself not performing well when I lack sleep. I memorize things slower and I am more forgetful when I don’t sleep enough. Saying that you pulled an all nighter for finals is a glorified way of saying you signed up for resits/retakes. SLEEP.

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2. Writing helped me memorize better

I remembered things better when I wrote down the abbreviations for a topic and what each letter stood for in a paper, and I didn’t do it just once, I wrote them down every time I tried to recall my memories.

3. Restrict social media usage

I did not turn off my phone because I sometimes had questions that needed clarifications, I’d turn to Whatsapp or had quick calls with my course mates to discuss. I also watched Youtube to better understand certain topics.

If you can’t help but scroll through social media while studying, I suggest you to log out of all your social media accounts for the time being or even uninstalling the apps for a few days.

You won’t remember that you liked your friend’s cool/cringey dance moves on TikTok 3 years later, but you’d remember how that A you scored contributed to your 3.0 CGPA and above.

4. Chill out

I had no chills during my finals. As a result, I always start my first two days of finals every semester with a fever patch on my forehead.

Don’t wanna end up like me? Chill out when you’re feeling overwhelmed.

Don’t cry from stress, your eyes will get heavy and you’d feel like sleeping, which might stress you out more ‘cuz you can’t keep your eyes open now.

If you’ve really given your all, I assure you that you’ll do okay. You’ve worked so hard for this, YOU’RE NOT FAILING THIS. It’s okay if you can’t remember all the details. Just try your best.

I’m rooting for you. You can do this! All the best!!!

The only photo of my transcript that I could find from Google Photos 😂