Cramming: What's your experience?

It's finals week for me and other students across the U.S. I'm interested in learning if you all crammed for a test and what the results were from doing so.

I crammed for some classes, usually did well on tests.

The only time I remember cramming didn't work for me was on a math final; the chapters seemed easy so I studied a day before and felt confident. I saw the test the next day and nothing I studied happened to be on the test. I ended up barely passing that final.

Looking forward to your experiences!

3 Comments
 

Cramming is good if you don't know how to study or it's the only study method that works for you. Just be aware that you need to plan how much you're going to cram.

Cramming is good for theory but you need to practice if it's math or whatever.

 
Best Response

I was an avid crammer, to mixed success. I would echo the above points: - Very ineffective for mathematical or practical subjects. Sometimes you think you understand things, as you have a grasp of the general premise, but when you go to execute you realise there was more to it that you didn't account for. This always ends in me trying to derive a formula myself during an exam. As you can imagine, it never works, and am leaking time. - Scope slip. Proper study gives you a broad understanding of the topic, so you are far less pigeonholed into set areas. I've had a few colossal fails where what I studied during cramming only eventuated to about 5% of the marks, and the remainder I was wholly unprepared for.

On the flipside, ive had subjects were I was the top of the class/school despite learning the entire subject mater hours before the exam (and i really mean learning for the first time, not revising). Like others on here, I probably fall into the 'bright but lazy' bucket, at least compared to my peers.

Overall though, unless you are like me and laziness is a deep-rooted personality flaw which you are unable to overcome, I would recommend to study normally!!

 

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