This is from the point of view of an IB year 2 student, so I can’t speak for University right now, though I think a lot of the same skills will be applicable! I currently take HL Chemistry and SL Physics, and I did provincial Biology 12 last year!

| Make Flashcards After Each Class | This is the perfect way to revise after every single class, as it isn’s to time consuming (I suppose depending on how detailed your flashcards are), and it is a good, interactive way to ensure you are retaining material. What I do is the night after every class, I will jot down key points from the lesson, while looking at my notes, onto flashcards. Then, I will practice with them for about 10 minutes. The next morning, I will review them once more, until I have each card down. Then, the next class, I will do the same thing, until my flashcard pile becomes larger and larger, and eventually, before I even start studying for the test, every important point will be memorized!

| Practice Problems | Practice questions are key, and must be done throughout the unit, not just before the test. After every lesson, do your best to do a few problems, and make sure to mark them afterwards! If you are unsure of why you got one wrong, or why the method isn’t working for you, talk to your teacher before the test!

| Teach it Yourself | Science is a group of subjects where it is vital you understand what you are saying — memorization won’t get you far! In order to ensure that you comprehend the concepts, teach someone (whether it be your best friend, a dog, or your stuffed animal). Not only will you be able to test your own knowledge and memorization of the concepts, but you will realize if you actually understand the science behind them.

| Note Progressions | Note progressions are extremely  helpful in science, and they will narrow your notes from pages and pages of writing you are afraid to even begin looking through, to a single pages of vital information and keywords. As you begin to learn concepts, start new notes pages where you condense and remove material you are comfortable with and have memorized, instead writing only a keyword next them. For example, for Lewis Acids and Bases (chemistry), say you understand the concepts behind them, and what they are, on your new notes page, just write “Lewis”, thus condensing the entire part into one key word. This key word will then act as a trigger for the rest of the material, and, if you practice explaining it based off of the one word, will work in the same way on the test.

| Acronyms and Pseudonyms | These can be extremely helpful for little things you have to memorization, like which are the strong acids and bases, or what the chemical formula for different compounds. Ever since grade 9, when I had to memorize phosphate, nitrate, sulphate, and carbonate and there formulas, I have used the saying “Please Stop Chemistry Now”, which has both charge and subscript decreasing from ‘Phosphate’ to ‘Nitrate’ (If you’re curious how it works I can totally show you)! Plus now many different kids in my school use it which makes me feel pretty snazzy. Another example if “Leo the Lion says Ger” for Redox where Leo = Lose Electrons is Oxidation and Ger = Gain Electrons is Reduction (But I can’t take credit, that one is my chemistry teachers).

| Don’t Cram the Day Of | The truth is, if you are learning and trying to memorization material the day of, it won’t stick in your brain, and it will do nothing but stress you out. Don’t worry about that tiny little sentence on page 742 that wasn’t mentioned in class at all, because if you haven’t learned it now, it will only fog up your brain before the test.

| Hallway Jitters | Try to avoid standing in the hallway or talking to a bunch of people right before the test, as all they will do is stress you out and make you feel unsure of your own knowledge. Instead, take your condensed keywords and read over them a few times, before, for the 5 minutes before your test, closing your eyes, and taking deep breaths. At this point, a little extra cramming won’t help your grade, so just breathe!

| Ace it! | Go into that test knowing you have studied hard, and don’t talk too much about it afterwards! At that point, you can’t change your grade, so comparing answers to the 100th decimal place with your friends will only make you nervous.