With the final quarter of school upon us, most students would be cramming for their finals, but not Trinity Prep, which takes a different approach to prepare students for exams and doing well in school. Many teachers and seniors with loads of experience share their thoughts on what it takes to excel in high school.
When it comes to doing your homework, don’t do it. It won’t do too much damage to your grade as long as you do alright on the tests, hopefully. Instead of doing your homework do something useful like catching up on a show you’ve been putting off.
“To be honest, doing your homework should never be a priority, I don’t really like assigning homework because I don’t feel like grading all those assignments all the time,” Honors chemistry teacher Carrie Lopez said. “A piece of advice I would give to upcoming underclassmen is to not do your homework, it’s not like colleges will care.”
When it comes to tests and quizzes, it’s really all about luck. You can study all you want but at the end of the day, it is about getting lucky. Most teachers have a pattern of answers on their tests and quizzes.
“Usually I make my tests multiple choice and make the correct answers A for the first half and B for the second half, Lopez said. “However, on the final exam last year I switched it up because I thought it was getting too easy for the students, so I went ahead and made the correct answers B for the first half and A for the second half, I think it really threw them off guard.”
Once students realized this, they started to excel in their classes all throughout high school. This is what helped many seniors get accepted into their dream colleges.
“Essentially, all the teachers had a pattern on their tests and quizzes, so instead of studying for the test I would study the pattern of the layout,” senior Enzo Cunanan said. “Even though I never learned any of the material I still passed the class.”
Time management is one of the many skills students are required to learn all throughout high school. Time must be used wisely if you want to be successful in your career.
“The best way to manage your time is by going with the flow and by never having a plan,” Lopez said. “Make sure you do all the fun things first before you start doing your schoolwork, and if you run out of time, study for your test right before the test because then all the information is fresh in your head.”
Many seniors are ready for this year to end so that they can finally be free. Senior Gabriel Steinberg does not think his high school education will matter in college.
“When I was applying to colleges I looked for places with the best parties,” Steinberg said. “The only thing that kept me motivated to keep a certain GPA was so I could get into all the party schools.”
A lot of the things that are taught in classes today are not as useful as the curriculum says they are. Who is going to need math and science in the real world?
“All the math I teach is not really that important and I don’t think anyone really uses math in the real world,” mathematics teacher Patrick Reilly said.
“I don’t think I’ll be worried about the Pythagorean Theorem or how many planets are in our solar system, while I’m away at college without a care in the world about academics,” Senior Clara Dowdy said.
All in all, seniors and teachers have many wise words of wisdom for students looking to do well in high school and pursue a good career.
“Some advice I’d leave for my peers is that working hard is overrated, high school is not about doing your schoolwork, as long as you look like you know what you are doing, you will be fine,” Dowdy said.
