As the semester draws to a close, students are finding it increasingly difficult to wake up early in the morning and drag themselves to school. Even though they are preoccupied with summative assessments and impending exams, students cannot help but spend time snuggling in their beds or daydreaming. There are two apps, Sleep If U Can and ExamTime, that could help students get their act back together and make their way through the few weeks that remain of this semester. While ExamTime is not available on the Android app store, it is accessible both on the Apple app store and online.

One of the biggest problems students run into is waking up on time—whether to school or to complete an assignment. Due to their desperate need for sleep, students ignore one alarm after another until it is too late to complete their assignments. This phenomenon is not just caused by a lack of willpower and motivation amongst students, but rather by ineffective alarms that can be turned off relatively easily. As its name implies, the Sleep If U Can app forces users out of bed, making it impossible for users to continue sleeping.

This cleverly developed app has users take a photo of something that cannot be reached easily from their beds; the alarm keeps ringing until a photo of the specified object is successfully taken. This prompts users to actually get out of their beds instead of passively remaining still, lying on their beds. By the time users are awake enough to take the photo, they should be ready to resume studying or fulfilling any other responsibilities.

The Sleep If U Can app is also well complemented by the app ExamTime. Because final assessments and exams are quickly approaching, many students are busy creating schedules, looking for their notes from the past several months and using different programs such as Quizlet. ExamTime combines all these functions and makes organization much easier for students to look organized. The calendar, which enables users to keep track of their schedule and all of their assignments, resembles Apple’s iCal app, a program many students are already familiar with. In addition, the advanced quiz functions enables users to add not only multiple choice questions but also true and false and short answer questions, thus simulating an actual exam.

Another useful feature of ExamTime is the amount of collaboration that it allows. With this app, there is no need to create the plethora of Google Docs that students tend to create in order to cooperate with their peers for notes. Through the ExamTime function, students can send notes to each other, form study groups and even participate in a private messaging system. The collaboration does not just end with acquaintances—the app equips users with global communication. When first creating an account, users are asked what status they are studying at. If one answers by clicking “student” and enters in his or her age, then the app gives the user a set of notes that could serve useful to him or her, including AP Chemistry notes, SAT exam tips and Spanish vocabulary. Such features allow students’ ease and convenience in studying.

While it is unhealthy and injurious to be obsessive and stressed over academics, Sleep If U Can and ExamTime can assist students with accomplishing their goals and motivating them before their long awaited winter break. Using such apps will help motivate students once again, preventing them from regretting their choices later.