High School Exam Study Tips

As your kids approach high school final exams (especially with the latest changes by the Ontario government), here are some tips that students can follow to make sure they are fully prepared. 

​

• Ask about the exam format, not just "are you ready?". Open-ended check-ins rarely surface useful information. Asking whether the final is cumulative, multiple-choice, or free-response — and whether the teacher has posted a study guide — helps parents gauge what kind of prep is actually needed, without needing to know the subject matter themselves.

​

• Help build a realistic study calendar, not a single study weekend. Teenagers tend to underestimate how many subjects need attention and default to cramming close to the exam. Sitting down together to block out review sessions across 2–3 weeks — even just 20 minutes to look at a calendar — often does more than any specific study advice.

​

• Protect study time from being swallowed by other things. High schoolers are frequently juggling extracurriculars, part-time jobs, and social commitments during finals week. Parents are often the only ones positioned to help scale back non-essential commitments for a short window.

​

• Encourage practice tests over re-reading notes. Parents don't need subject expertise to ask "can you show me how you'd solve this without your notes?" — prompting active recall is one of the most effective things a parent can do, even without knowing the material.

​

• Normalize asking teachers for help before it's urgent. Teenagers often hesitate to seek out a teacher or tutor until they're already behind. Parents can encourage this early, since teachers get harder to reach as finals get closer.​

​

• Guard sleep and downtime as non-negotiable, especially in the final week. It's common for households to let sleep slide as "the cost of finals." Research consistently shows sleep deprivation undermines the exact cognitive skills — memory, reasoning, focus — that finals require, making it one of the highest-leverage things a parent can protect.
   

Keep these high school exam study tips in mind to support your kids in obtaining their best grades possible! 

​

​

​