Tuesday, March 30, 2010

I remember back at school they used to tell us not to cram for exams. I didn't listen then. I don't listen these days either. Cramming worked for me for the Leaving cert, and so far it's working for me for the degree.

See, cramming works by stuffing all the required info into your brain so it's near the surface, so you can reach it when required (during the exam). The downside is that it has a tendency to leak due to being overfilled, so whatever is learned during cramming is most likely forgotten again a few weeks or months later. That's ok though, because by then the exam is over.

Cramming doesn't work for everything, obviously. Like in psychology, I actually do have to understand it a little bit. Therefore, if there are any questions on factor analysis, I shall be ignoring them, as that's too complicated for me to comprehend. However, as long as I understand something to some extent, I can cram in the info that goes along with it - the name of the guy (yeah, it's usually a guy, but give it time) who came up with a theory, or the year the theory was first published, etc.

So cramming wins. Probably doesn't work for everyone, but for me it has always proven an effective method of passing exams. The key to cramming is not to start too early. So that's my excuse for not having started yet...today though, it is snowing, I don't feel like doing any more spring cleaning since it no longer feels like Spring...so I might as well go ahead and start writing up some notes that I can read in a frantic panic come exam day in mid May.

1 comment:

Em said...
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