A&M students have a well-known tradition of putting a penny on Sully to gain luck with test-taking, but A&M professors have some tips to take luck out of the equation.
James Herman, clinical professor in the Department of Physiology, has a master’s degree in educational psychology. He said the ideal student should prepare for finals well before the actual test date. At the very least, students should break material into sections they can manage.
“Read before you come to class each day, at this point for finals it’s a little late for that,” Herman said. “Break it down into manageable sections. Your brain can’t stay focused for as long as you may like it.”
Reviewing content before class works with what Bill Klemm, senior professor of neuroscience, calls the three important times for learning.
“I have sort of a rule that is based on a very fundamental idea in learning,” Klemm said. “It’s that there are three important times for learning — immediately before, immediately after and during the learning experience. So when you go to a class, try to review the subject that is going to be covered that day. That primes you to get the most out of that class that day.”
Klemm said this technique helps students pay more attention while in class, but the learning continues after dismissal.
 “Ask yourself, ‘Now what did I just learn today?’ and it only takes five minutes to cement it right then and there,” Klemm said. “So these are vulnerable times, and you need to protect that narrow window when the memory is forming. If you don’t then you just have to go learn it later.”
Even after classes end, there are ways students can maximize their final push to make the grade — sleep and eat more, Klemm said. 
“Your memory is setting up when you sleep,” Klemm said. “That’s one of the benefits of sleep that they didn’t know about 10 years ago. The day’s events are being consolidated in memory that night when you sleep. And even naps will do the same thing, if you take a nap in the afternoon it’ll help you remember what you learned in the morning.”
Shailen Singh, director of the Byrne Student Success Center in the College of Education and Human Development, said students should not push themselves so hard when it comes to finals.  
“Make sure that you are taking care of yourself, because finals can kind of become a competition of who gets the least sleep or who can eat the least,” Singh said. “Basically whoever can look the most miserable, and those are the people who are going to do the best on their finals. Your brain is a muscle just like anything else. It needs fuel, and fuel is food, fuel is sleep. It’s important to take care of those basic needs.”