I must say I'm totes in love with the spreeder and other links you mentioned about speed reading. Gosh I wish I'd had them in college! I would have wikipedia-ed what I needed to know and then sat there staring at my screen with my mouth agape.

Maulleigh

Cramming is the only way I study. Going to classes and doing homework is a waste of my time...professors are limited by having to deal with incompetent students. I basically just teach myself the material a day or two before the exam. Every once in a while, I come across a tough exam that I don't do very well on, but all the time I save by not going to class is definitely worth it.

Eric1285

As far as I could tell, there were some classes I could easily cram for and others that were impossible to cram for.

There were some classes I knew that if I had walked out of lecture confused, I was doomed for the remainder of the course since I would have been lost during all subsequent instruction.

There were other classes where you could simply move on and review the puzzling parts at a later date, or hope that your lack of knowledge would not drag down your overall grade too much.

Be mindful of how you do apply last-minute cramming or you will end up retaking certain classes.

Good luck.

Deprong Mori

I'm thankfully done with college, but I used to wake up early and cram on the morning of the exam. It worked well, but when you cram for exams, you forget it all after a day or two. Not retaining anything of what you've learned in college may or may not be a problem, depending on your goals.

vered

I recommend making an outline of your classes throughout the semester/quarter so you have a condensed version of all the relevant info in an easy to read format. It makes cramming and general studying easier.

jonny6pak

@delightt: I disagree that going to lecture is necessary to make cramming work. Most lectures that I've gone to have been absolutely abysmal. The professor wastes half the lecture going over very simple concepts that are clearly laid out in the textbook or other course materials. It just amazes me that even at a school that bills itself as an "elite" academic institution, we have students that cannot grasp very, very simple concepts, even on the second or third try.

I (my parents) am not paying tuition to sit and watch the professor instruct incompetent students. If they can't keep up with the pace of the course, they don't belong here. I attribute most of these problems to affirmative action, since it promotes incompetence and brings in under-qualified students. These students are the same ones who have trouble following the material in class and ultimately slow down the course for everyone, causing us to miss material that we otherwise would have had time to cover. Going to lecture nowadays is like going to office hours with the dumbest kid in class. I have better things to do with my time, and classes are easy enough where an intelligent person can easily teach him or herself everything they need to do without setting foot in lecture.

Eric1285

Thought I'd contribute some helpful studying tips instead of just bragging about my ability to absorb information from textbooks.

The article is pretty much spot on. You have to budget your time (I personally find that most exams require a minimum of 4 hours of cramming...more difficult exams require up to 12 hours). Making an outline is also a great idea, but I'm not sure if I would order things by how well you know them. The article recommends going through what you don't know first, and then reviewing what you already know. This would work well for any class that doesn't continually build off of previous material. This method would probably work well for most liberal arts classes, although at my University, most of those classes have essays and papers instead of exams.

For math and science type classes (I'm an engineer, so I've got lots of experience here) you may be better off studying the material in the original order it was presented to you. This will help you when you get to the more difficult stuff, as the material in engineering classes tends to build on itself. Of course, if you find that your professor spent the first 2 weeks reviewing stuff you already know (say, something like the exponential distribution, which I have 'learned' in no fewer than 5 different classes) don't waste your time studying it intensely. If you know and understand the concepts, move on to something you don't know.

All that being said, budgeting your time and creating a study guide are absolutely crucial to cramming successfully. Most professors hold a review session or distribute review materials, so use that to create your outline. Best of luck studying! I know I can't wait to get out of here!

Eric1285

Cramming works if/when you've attended (and understood what was going on at) lectures and tutorials. It's worked for me (am now a grad student and TA, and there's a general positive relation of attendance to marks), it's working for my students.

Having a good command of the language you're required to write your exam in also helps. Once you know what's going on, and you're able to communicate effectively the answer to the question, you're set. Can't fail.

delightt

Lectures work well as a study tool; you can always read ahead during a lecture. The harmful lectures are ones where a professor decides to tell tangental stories for most of the hour and assume the class will do all of the learning outside of the class because then, if you show up, it's challenging to study through a life story.

floatinglist

@Eric1285: I disagree that lectures are a complete waste of time. I found lectures to be a study opportunity. I tended to remember all of the easy things the prof talked about (sometimes repeating several times) which meant that I had that much less to study. If you get past all of the basic terms and concepts, now you realistically have 1 night of study material.

My biggest tip to make cramming efficient is to figure out what kind of questions the professor tends to ask. You can do this by looking at old exams, what they say during reviews, wait until after the first test, or simply ask them during office hours. Could you pass the test if you only knew vocabulary, should you focus on the figures, will the test be on everything in the text that was not lectured on? Once you figured out how the professor writes the test, studying becomes easy.

I also found group study to be helpful, even for cram sessions (if you have the right people). What we would do was find a classroom and then one person would get up a lecture to the rest of us about one topic, and then we would rotate. There is something about having to verbalize what you are studying to others that seems to cement things.

joe reader

@floatinglist: I have to disagree there. The most valuable lectures by far are the ones where the professor tells anecdotes or life stories. The concepts and the rest of the course material are in the textbooks. I'd rather have the professor tell me about real world examples of the concepts, rather than have him rehash what's already in the book. What's the point of going to class if the professor just reads from the book?

On another note, if you use your time in class productively, lectures aren't such a waste of time. If I have to go to class, I bring other work to do while I'm there so it's not a complete waste. Of course, not going altogether saves me the 20 minute travel time and another 5-10 minutes of 'settling in' time.

Eric1285

I find that lectures are very worthwhile for me, but reading the book is almost always a waste of time. I'll skim the book so I can have a little bit of an understanding before class, but I learn best from the lecture, which is almost always a repeat of everything you read in the book.

BethanyBoo

I agree with a lot of the article. Much of the cramming process includes organization. You need to prioritize what needs to be studied.

Anyways, here's been my experience. Bear in mind though that I come from a science-heavy background, and I'm not certain how well this applies to courses in other disciplines.

On lectures:

Whether or not lectures are important depends on the professor. I recommend going to the first few classes. If the professor distributes a study guide of some sort before hand, you need to gauge how much important information the professor adds to the study guide during lecture. If he/she adds a bunch of useless info and you feel the distributed notes are organized well enough for you to learn independently of lecture, then you don't have to attend them. On the other hand, if the professor adds information that will be tested on, the most efficient use of your time would be to attend lecture. If the professor does not distribute notes beforehand, you can always try studying off of the text. It just depends on what kind of a learner you are. The risk here is spending too much time on information the professor skimmed over in class. Just because it's in the text doesn't mean the professor thinks it's important.

For wrote memorization classes:

I convert important aspects of my notes into Q&A flashcard form using jmemorize and go over everything as much as possible.

Mathematics:

If it's time to cram for mathematics sorts of courses such as epidemiology, I do as many practice problems as possible. I also convert important definitions and formulas into flashcard form.

CndnsdAlan

I find it helpful to announce to my friends that I'm studying on a particular night. (We all do this). If they want to go out they know not to call me!

I also like to unplug my television and Internet connection. No distractions!

DePaulBlueDemon

Graduate Student - Neuropsychology

Tip 1 - Adderall

Tip 2 - Cramming, while you might have to do it on one test, is going to F-you in the final if you don't go back over it and study like a champ.

Tip 3 - Review previous exams

Tip 4 - Read it, write it down, say it, wait like 2 minutes, and try to remember it. The more sensory modalities you encode the information into, the more likely you are to learn it. Re-potentiating a neuron after several minutes will better ensure that it goes from short term memory to long term memory.

Tip 5 - Focus on the leitmotif. Find the core topic objectives, the rest is just supporting information.

Tip 6 - Do the practice questions in the book. Professors don't usually have that much time to prepare exams, and an easy shortcut for them is slightly change the questions in the book.

Tip 7 - Pretend you are making up the exam. What questions would you ask...

Tip 8 - Wake up at least 2 hours before your exam. Different parts of your brain wake up at different rates.

Tip 9 - If you can use a programmable calculator. Cheat.

Tip 10 - If you cannot use a programmable calculator, store an equation or two using the Memory + button

Tip 11 - Go to the doctor, pretend you are really sick. They will give you a doctors note.

Tip 12 - Ask the teacher lots of questions during the exam. They will usually get frustraited and give you enough information to answer some questions.

Tip 13 - Don't cram you lazy bastard. Figure out what classes you are going to take next semester. You will either have summer or winter break in the meantime. Buy the books then. Start reading. If you read 1 chapter a week before the semester starts, you will know what the teacher is talking about in lecture, and you will Ace the first exam no problem.

Tip 14 - If you teacher grades on a curve, encourage your idiot friends to show up, even if they plan on dropping the course, and even if they think they will get a terrible score, the teacher will usually drop 0's and people's grades that didn't show up, from the curve, imagine what a couple of 30% would do to the curve - YOUR BENEFIT.

-peace

entropysounds

Of course lectures are a waste of time if you are either in a huge lecture class or go to a sub-par school where you are surrounded by incompetent students. In smaller classes and in harder universities, however, the lectures are actually quite essential.

Lux Aeterna

Yeah, if the test is fact-memorization based, and you are going to cram overnight, be like Bonds and take some aderall. It will give you about a 10 point bump. But aderall will not help you learn how to solve problems or understand concepts.

djanes1

Lol, funny this is here...I'm actually cramming for mid-terms right now!

If you have to read (English majors) this works for long essays. Read the first paragraph, then read just the first sentence or two of each subsequent paragraph, then read the conclusion. You will be able to get the "gist" of the essay/paper/etc.

Study in 15-30 minute intervals then take a short break. You will retain the information better. Listening to classical music (low volume) also helps and there have actually been studies on this.

As stated above, wake up a little earlier...AND EAT SOMETHING! Yes, this is probably the most important. Your body and brain need energy--you will feel 100 times better than if you just showed up to class on an empty stomach. That being said, don't eat a lot, or you will feel sleepy during the test!

SLEEP!! Your brain needs to organize what you just crammed! Even an hour of sleep will help. Studies done by the military prove this. SLEEP!

Lastly...you've procrastinated this long...START CRAMMING. Turn your cell off, T.V. off, anything that will distract you. And get off your computer and stop blogging!! Oh wait, thats me....d'oh

rarfuls

Don't try cramming for a science course. It just doesn't work. Trust me, I've tried (and failed). I'm on the Natural Sciences Tripos, and the end of years is put in such a way that if you don't truly understand what you are learning, you get screwed over by the exam. Best to start early for these things.

dragontail

nootropics! take em all! piracetam helps. - play the memory card flip game to honestly figure out what you know and dont know (really good for Organic Chem Molecules).

Kevin V

This link pretty much sums it up:

[thelastpsychiatrist.com]

Jeff

JeffinVA

John Ratey - of Harvard Medical School and the co-author of, among other things, the best books on ADD for the lay audience, has just published a book summarizing the state of research on the effects of exercise on brain function. He posits a sharp short-term effect of exercise on memory. The short version is - if you're going to cram - start at the gym for 0.5 to 1.0 hours - it's likely to have a salutary effect on memory. Ratey's new book is called (if memory serves)"Spark - The New Science of Exercise and the Brain."

jonathan.soroko

Cramming for the Sciences:

I've had a fair bit of experience cramming for things like Physics; Mathematics; Programming; Computer Graphics... all sciences in their own right. And dirty. Dirty. Dirty. Do a wiki of Ray Tracing and you will see what I'm getting at here.

The best way I have found to cram: for a start, you are going to need Red Bull. This very much applies if you are not used to taking caffeine on a regular basis (like me). I specifically avoid caffeine so that when emergencies like this crop up, I can rely on a dose of JooJooJuice to keep me wired and focused for hours beyond the point of exhaustion. Don't eat anything solid either else you will get sleepy.

The best time to start is after you've had a fair amount of time to sleep, and YOU MUST SLEEP. Keeps the brain chemistry in check, so that you can remember the good bits. Sleep that Day, before the exam. When you wake up in the evening have a big breakfast and get started shortly. Eat nothing else.

The idea behind this is the old theory that you retain more information after waking than you do just before sleep. So now what you are doing, is doing all the learning/cramming after you wake. This also gives you 12 hours of cram time if you work right through the night.

By the time the exam starts you are about 10-14 hours awake, yes, but you have just re-absorbed all of the information. At this point mild fatigue and your body adapting to caffeine will actually keep you quite calm and level-headed for the actual exam. And then shortly after: you go home, crash for 12 hours or so, and repeat for the next one.

As for actual syllabus technique I buy lots of Refill pads, write a condensed version of each section and then move on. If there is something extremely important it goes on to a single A4 summary sheet which is brought with you: that page is the last thing you read before you sit the exam and should quickly re-jolt you on everything else it refers to as you've covered it all in the last few hours.

Overheal

@Eric1285: I agree with you, bringing homework to lecture is very good; especially homework for that class. That way in the event that you do have questions about something, you can ask during class and won't have to waste time later.

Also, I find that making a separate sheet for equations as you go through the class. Go to lecture and whenever the teacher mentions an equation, look up from your homework, and write it down on your equation sheet. These are usually the equations that are used on the exams.

Ferguson1015

I've found that the best way to cram for exams is to draft up a quick review sheet with only the essential info, then spend the rest of the time doing practice problems. It depends on the class, but if Cornell notes are appropriate then I might just review those instead. When I start to get the hang of the questions, I take the review sheet/notes away and then do a few more problems.

lmath

I've found a good use for TextEdit.app as far as speed reading is concerned. I paste a large block of text (from wikipedia, or ocr'd from a textbook), and then on the `Services' menu I chose `Summarize.' The Summary Service lets you whittle down the selected text into some key points. One might have to have the Developer tools installed for this to work.

filahacker

Whoops.

3. Memorize everything on the list. Go over it and over it until you can recite everything just by looking at a blank study guide.

And that's it. I aced most of my classes that way.

Jarick

Here was my method:

1. Make or attain a study guide. A lot of prof's will either give you one or go over what you need to know prior to the exam. Otherwise make one based off key points in lectures and the textbook(s).

2. Answer or define everything on that study guide. Usually, you'll have definitions, short answer, and essay. Have clear, concise answers for definitions, memorizing key words AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. That's what teachers look for. Short answer is usually just stringing along a couple definitions AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE, and essay is being able to step back further and look at the larger picture of a bunch of related definitions.

Jarick

Pretend your teaching the material to your mom. That'll show you how well you can articulate and where trouble spots are, then just focus there.

Gener4l_Ts0