Whether you spent the past six weeks preparing or just opened your textbook for the first time the night before, failing a midterm can happen to anyone. So after receiving a low grade, keep in mind that you have only lost one battle, not the war, and by following some simple tips, you will do better on your final.
Positivity is key
Sometimes, procrastination is the culprit of a failing grade, and other times, no matter how hard you study, you still just cannot grasp certain concepts. Whichever reason applies to you, make it your business to stay positive. Improvement is both a mental and physical effort, so you have to first put yourself in the mindset to succeed, and then the physical work follows.
“In your life, negative things might happen to you, and you can’t control the negative things that happen to you, but you can control the way you react,” said April Coan, assistant director and academic success coach of the Office of Undergraduate Student Success. “The way you react is how you make things better.”
If you allow yourself to believe you cannot do something, you inhibit yourself by creating a barrier between you and achieving your goal. Break the barrier by telling yourself, “I can do better, and I will do better next time.”
Weeding by the root
Receiving a bad grade is hard for anyone to swallow, especially if it’s one that counts for a large portion of your grade. So after deciding to accept your grade and improve your efforts, your next step is getting to root of the problem.
“Instead of thinking of a bad grade negatively, think about how to make your academics better by learning from your mistakes,” Coan said.
Figuring out where you went wrong will be the ultimate tool in discovering what to do to ensure that this does not happen again. After the exam is graded, ask your professor if you can make a copy of the questions and answers that you got wrong so that you can later use them as a study tool. If you found that your problem was simply not studying enough, then for your next exam, you need to take it seriously and devote more time to studying. Studying the night before, in this case, will not suffice.
“It’s important to have realistic and attainable goals, and the biggest part of that is understanding what needs to be done to get there. So many students are unaware of the GPA and test score requirements they need [to earn honors or apply to graduate school] until much later in their undergraduate years,” said Victoria Myer, assistant director and academic coach of the Office of Undergraduate Student Success and College of Undergraduate Studies.
Understanding what you need to do to improve your academic performance will not only help you on your next exam but will give you the tools to succeed throughout your undergraduate career. Once you have made note of what the cause of your downfall was, you are ready for the next step.
Hard work never hurt anybody
You have mentally prepared yourself for your physical responsibility, and now your next step is to put that into action. After scoring low on your exam, you should take more notes, pay more attention and ask more questions. Do your best on every assignment and every chapter test because your performance on each individual assignment will help you gauge your performance on your cumulative exam.
If you do all of these things and still do not do as well on your exam as you would have liked to, then you need to review what you got wrong. Figure out all of the concepts that you find to be a challenge and write them down. Take this list of things to a tutor, or even your professor, and get extra help in understanding what these things mean. Make sure you write everything you are told in ways that will help you remember the material.
“You should always explore all of your options. Whether you decide to get a tutor, an academic coach or, as a last resort, withdraw, you should do whatever will guarantee your individual success,” said Coan.
Although these approaches stem from different problems, they have a common focus, which is putting in the time and effort to achieve academic success. It’s hard in college, especially with all the other things going on in your life, to study as much as you would like to, but you need to make sure that you study as much as you can. And if you find that studying is not enough, you need to figure out what the best next option is.
One small step for exam, one giant step for success
Always remember to remain focused and positive, and if you ever need a little encouragement, do not hesitate to ask a faculty member for help. Other resources on campus to visit for help are NSU’s Testing and Tutoring Center, located in the Student Affairs Building on the second floor, the Office of Student Success, located in the Rosenthal Student Center Room 104, and the writing center in the Parker building Room 127C .
Coan explained that the tutoring center and the Office of Student Success should always be your go-to resources if you are not earning the grades you would like or you feel you are not taking advantage of your full college campus experience.
She said another good option for students who have failed a midterm or received a bad grade is seeking an academic coach who can help guide them to a path of greater academic success.
“I like to say that academic coaches help students become better students,” Coan said.
After exhausting all of your resources, breathe because you not only survived a bad grade but you also allowed it to encourage you rather than bring you down. Yesterday’s failed midterm is in the past, and the final exam will be yours to conquer. You are a conqueror; after passing your final, place your flag into surface of your textbook and recite this phrase: “One small step for exam, one giant step for success.”
