When beginning college, learning to study for exams can be one of the biggest adjustments you have to make from high school. College history exams can be particularly challenging, especially since they will be very different from those you easily aced in high school. College history exams (as opposed to high school ones that usually just test your short-term memorization skills) often test your ability to link together course concepts across the semester and across the time period being discussed in the course. Because of this difference, there are some important adjustments that must be made to your study habits in order to ensure that you are well prepared for your exam.

1) Keep Up: Unlike in high school when you could simply memorize some key facts, definitions, and dates on note cards the night before your test, in college it is assumed that you know these details and therefore, you will not be tested on them. Instead you will be tested on how well you understand their importance and the implications that accompany them. Thus it is extremely important that you prepare early for your exams.

Do not fall behind on the readings or stop taking notes in lecture. Also, do not merely skim your readings. Instead, read closely and highlight or jot down passages of importance these will come in handy closer to exam time. Also make a note of anything you do not quite understand and do not be afraid to ask you professor to further explain.

2) Discuss: Since so many college history exams involve testing your understanding of key events and their legacy rather than just your knowledge that the events happened on a certain date, it is very important to think out and discuss details of these events with your classmates. Some colleges break down large lectures into smaller classes for the very purpose of discussing these things, but if your school does not, form a study group to talk about the material. If you do not know or plan to get to know anyone in the course, then at the very least you should stop by your professor's office hours and talk out things with him/her.

In this discussion process it is important that you learn to draw broad connections between ideas or concepts over the span of time being covered in your course. What implications does something that happened in the late 19th century have on an issue currently of contention? This is the kind of question (more narrowly focused of course) that is likely to appear on your exams.

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