It’s exam week. You’ve spent all semester watching Netflix and scrolling through social media and now your final exam is just a few short days away – or maybe worse, it’s tomorrow. Although this isn’t an ideal position to be in, there’s still a lot that you can do in this short time to be successful on exam day.
Here’s how to cram for your exams effectively.
1 | Come Up with a Plan
First, come up with a plan.
When preparing for a big exam, it can feel like every little detail is important, but this is far from the truth. Most classes follow the 80/20 rule, meaning that 80% of the material you’re tested on comes from only 20% of the content. Not all information is created equal. To be efficient with your cramming, you need to focus the bulk of your time learning high-yield information and limit the amount of time spent on lower-yield information. If you try to learn everything in a short amount of time, you’re only setting yourself up for failure.
To determine what information is high yield, start by looking at any study materials or resources that your teacher has provided. Study guides, practice questions, or previous exams can be a great place to start when determining what information you need to know and what information is less important.
Next, review your notes and see what information your instructors focused on most during class. Look for clues like bolded or italicized terms or diagrams. If you didn’t take detailed notes during your lectures, consider asking a classmate or colleague to see what topics they recommend prioritizing.
Lastly, consider asking your professor. Although this can be intimidating for some students, most teachers want to see their students succeed and are more than happy to provide guidance to students who put in the effort to reach out.
Once you’ve determined the highest yield topics, consider your familiarity with each one and use it to guide how much time you spend on each section. If you know a topic well, allocate less time to it. On the other hand, if you know that you struggle with a particular topic, allocate more time to it.
Although it may be tempting to spend a lot of time creating a study schedule, remember that you’re already limited on study time. You don’t want to spend so much time planning out how you’ll study that it starts cutting into your study time. That said, spending 15-20 minutes planning out what topics you need to cover and how much time you’ll allocate to them can be incredibly valuable.
2 | Choose Your Study Strategies Wisely
Once you have your plan, the next step is to choose your study strategies. How you study is often just as important as what you study, so you need to focus on techniques that maximize your retention.
Most students, even when cramming, spend too much time using passive learning techniques. This includes rewatching lectures and reading through lecture notes or textbooks. If you’ve followed this channel for a while, you’ll know that passive study strategies are the worst bang for your buck when it comes to studying techniques.
In fact, research shows that rereading material does not significantly improve test-day performance compared to reading the same material only once. Instead, you want to prioritize active study techniques such as flashcards, practice questions, the Feynman Technique, and more.
Although switching from any kind of passive studying to any kind of active studying is likely to yield positive results, you should further optimize your study strategies depending on the type of material you’re trying to learn.
We can broadly categorize classes into 2 different categories: conceptual classes, which focus on deep understanding and application of the material, and memorization-heavy classes which focus more on rote memorization. While every class is sure to be a combination of both, most will lean heavily toward one side. For instance, classes such as history or psychology tend to prioritize rote memorization whereas classes such as math, physics, or chemistry prioritize deep understanding of the material.
For classes that focus more on conceptual understanding, you should use strategies such as practice questions, mind maps, and the Feynman Technique. These study strategies will help you understand the big picture and make connections between different pieces of information.
Practice questions challenge you to make connections and apply information in different ways than you’ll see in your lecture slides or notes. The trick is to make sure you fully understand the question completely. Not only should you know why the correct answer is correct, but also why the incorrect answers are incorrect. Although this may seem unnecessary, especially when you’re cramming for an exam and time is limited, going through practice questions in this way will help you understand the material more quickly and completely.
Next, mind maps are great for conceptual classes as they help make connections between concepts. When students have large amounts of information to study, sometimes they “miss the forest for the trees.” They focus so much on learning the minute details that they fail to see the bigger picture. Mind maps help organize all of the seemingly unrelated details and give you a broad overview of a topic. This, in turn, helps you understand the information more deeply.
Lastly, the Feynman technique is great for breaking down complex topics into simpler, more digestible parts. When you force yourself to explain something in your own words using simple language, it makes the material much more digestible.
For topics that focus more on rote memorization, you’ll need to employ a different approach. The most effective strategy for rote memorization is flashcards. You can create flashcards during your first pass through the information and then use the flashcards to reinforce that information for subsequent exposures. That being said, you’ll have to weigh the benefits of spending time creating flashcards against how long you have to study. If you spend all of your allotted study time creating flashcards, you may not have time to use them.
Another approach is to make a summary page containing only the most important information from your lectures. The goal is to distill the most important information into the least amount of text possible, then use that summary sheet as a form of active recall.
Lastly, there’s the memory palace technique, otherwise known as the “method of loci” technique. This particular technique pairs well with the summary page method and involves envisioning a familiar location, such as your home, and associating information you want to memorize with distinct features within that familiar location. This is a common strategy used by memory athletes, allowing them to accomplish incredible feats of memory. It can be an incredibly powerful tool if you learn to utilize it well.
Once you’ve determined which study techniques are best suited for the material that you’re studying, all that’s left to do is to start studying. That being said, there are some additional factors you should keep in mind.
3 | Take Breaks
Although it can be tempting to grind out hours upon hours of studying, this is not the most efficient approach. Believe it or not, taking breaks is still an important part of cramming. If you try to study relentlessly for hours, you’re bound to burn out and become less effective. Instead, if you take strategic breaks, you’ll be able to maintain much higher levels of focus and efficiency for much longer periods of time.
When cramming, your brain needs time to process all of the information coming in. In one animal study, researchers found that mice who took spaced breaks between tasks improved the part of the brain responsible for memory. In another human study, researchers found that taking short breaks can help boost your overall performance and well-being.
That being said, taking breaks whenever you feel like it is a poor approach. Doing so will often lead you to take breaks either too early or too late. For your breaks to be most effective, you need to plan them out ahead of time.
One approach is the Pomodoro Method, which breaks down your studying into timed intervals. The idea is that you work for 25 minutes followed by a 5-minute break and then repeat this process for a total of 4 cycles before taking a longer 20-minute break. The frequent breaks help ensure that you’re always fresh and focused.
Another important consideration is how you spend your breaks. Instead of scrolling through social media, use your breaks as an opportunity to get away from your desk and move around. Grab a snack, use the restroom, walk around, or even take a nap. Research has shown that both napping and exercise have positive effects on memory, attention, and understanding. If you want to maximize your efficiency when cramming, taking frequent and productive breaks is a must.
4 | Sleep
Lastly, don’t neglect your sleep. Although it may be tempting to pull an all-nighter to get in extra study time, it’s often not worth it. Getting a good night’s sleep is crucial for memory consolidation and acute sleep deprivation has been shown to negatively impact cognitive performance. Research shows that all-nighters can lead to as much cognitive impairment as being intoxicated and are comparable to having a 0.05 blood alcohol concentration in your body. Although 8 hours of sleep before your exam is ideal, you may not have the time to do so. You still want to give yourself enough rest so that you can wake up feeling refreshed and ready for your exam. The last thing you want is to go into your exam exhausted after spending the last 24 hours awake.
Although it’s possible to cram for an exam and still do well in your classes, the most sustainable approach to doing well academically is to avoid cramming altogether. Although it may feel nice in the short term to put off studying and enjoy your free time throughout the semester, it’s important to develop your work ethic and put in the effort consistently.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – William Durant
If you believe yourself to be a good student, you have to do what a good student would do and consistently put in the work. Cramming will only get you so far academically. Whether it happens in high school, college, or medical school, you will inevitably reach a point where cramming is no longer a viable option. Developing your work ethic and being able to put in the effort consistently for long periods of time is crucial for success, and the earlier you develop that skill the better.
If you enjoyed this article, check out Why You’re Not a Straight-A Student (& How to Become One).
