As the school year winds down, the energy at Green Hope has shifted. The library fills up earlier, backpacks get heavier and late nights are becoming the norm for a lot of students. Final exam season is here, and students are definitely feeling the weight of it.
The pressure is real. Tests and projects keep coming right up until exam week, forcing students to balance everything at once. Some are buying prep courses, hiring tutors or spending hours on Youtube trying to piece together a semester’s worth of material. Teachers have been doing their part too, handing out review packets and holding extra help sessions in the weeks leading up to exams.
It’s worth noting that not every student has to take every final. At Green Hope, students with a B or higher and with ten or fewer absences in a class, can opt out of that exam. But certain classes, like state-required EOCs, are mandatory regardless. For those students, there’s no way out of taking the final.
Freshman Aarav Gupta (‘29) is one of them. He’s preparing for his Math 3 final and has been putting in serious work to get ready. “Math 3 is no joke,” Gupta said. “There’s a lot from the whole year you have to remember. I’ve been going back through old quizzes and redoing problems I got wrong.”
He said the hardest part isn’t the material itself, it’s the time. “With math you can’t just read your notes and be done. You actually have to sit down and work through problems, and that takes a while when you’re trying to keep up with other classes.”
Sophomore Kavin Muralitharan (‘28) is gearing up for his English 2 EOC, another required exam with no exemption option. His approach has been less about memorizing and more about sharpening his skills going into the test.
“The EOC is all reading and analysis, so cramming the night before doesn’t really do much,” Muralitharan said. “I’ve been doing practice passages and working on how I break down the questions. That’s what actually helps.”
Managing the mental side of it has been just as important for him. “If I study so long without stopping I just stop retaining stuff. I try to take breaks and come back to it.”
That kind of approach lines up with what study experts recommend. According to a Rowan University student blog on preparing for finals, building a schedule with dedicated blocks for each subject and planned breaks is one of the most effective strategies. Planning sessions ahead of time, the article notes, helps students stay consistent and focus on one subject at a time rather than jumping around.
With exam week right around the corner, the advice from students who are in the middle of preparing is pretty straightforward.
“Don’t wait until the last minute to start preparing,” Gupta said. “I learned that the hard way.”
