Exam cramming is good. You must be thinking how that can be? It’s right from our childhood we are taught to understand that exam cramming is an all negative word or concept. But I will counter suggest that it is the best thing to do when it is the right time and purpose to do so.
From the time written exams were invented and used for academic assessment processes, exam cramming has also existed on the side. But it is usually taken as a gesture of negativity or failure. From our teachers to parents all try to make their students and children understand that exam cramming is not supposed to be a good thing unless there is nothing that you can do to avoid it.
It is true that cramming is not an usual higher purpose concept and process for any kind of academic and career purposes. Still it is a process of brain input that can be used at times of need. Not only that, it can be used properly and effectively to contribute to your academic learning by visualizing and adopting certain strategies and processes.
What is cramming? Why is it also called exam cramming? Questions like this can arise on cramming. Without attempting and answering these questions it is not possible to understand the role and relevance of cramming in our learning and education process.
We see the Wikipedia definition of what we call exam cramming or just cramming for students. To start with, we can emphasize the two statements –
- Study with determination
- Working intensively to absorb large volumes of information in short amount of time
Any of these statements are not stating anything negative or wrong about cramming. So we know that cramming is not a totally wrong thing to do in our studies. It is always good to study with determination. That will give you more information acquisition and knowledge gain from your endeavours in studies. And exactly the similar declaration is done in the second statement. To absorb large volumes of information in a short amount of time is a pretty good idea for us. That shows how efficient our study endeavours are.
But there are more to the story. Let us now get into some other terms like, shallow recall, superficial examination protocol, hurried coverage of materials, poor long term retention. These terms are telling why cramming is usually considered as a negative activity in the realm of studies and academics.
When you absorb a large amount of information in a short period of time, then that becomes a major source of almost all troubles related to your studies and academics. Most of such information is stored in the short-term memory, ready to be recalled during the exams. But most of the information gets erased or forgotten at longer times. Also the information remembered usually goes without getting stored in the long-term memory and thus easily forgotten.
In spite of such loss of information and endeavour, absorbing a large amount of information in a small time can itself become a great advantage, once we really learn to turn that into an advantage.
Perfectly applied, cramming is indeed for exam times. But we can borrow it from exam times and use it for other situations and occasions. Many teachers acknowledge the purpose of cramming as exam saviour. Many students due to numerous reasons fail to study the whole of the syllabus properly. Even the best ones also sometimes leave some sections weak, unrevised or under prepared. All of them will usually need some extra assistance like home tutors who will help them to cope up with the lag behind and provide appropriate notes and study materials.
But what do with the study materials? CRAM…
There can be indeed no way out other than this. Afterall exam score is important for the whole of future academics and career. The issue of cramming and knowledge can be dealt later with convenience.
Cramming just stuff the information in our short term memory without much processing by our intellectual faculties. Thus the scope of any development of conception or knowledge gain remains very minimum. Moreover our short term memory gets erased at a very short span of time. Whatever endeavour and time has been invested to load that amount of information in the short term memory gets totally wasted for long term purposes. Yes, it can benefit you in your exams but it will not extend to any educational benefits. Though exams are a very important purpose, you cannot deny that the actual and best benefit of study is its educational benefits.
So how will it be for you if I say that you do your cramming before your exams, that’s not at all a problem. But I can give you tips and ideas to convert your cramming into real knowledge gaining advantages. This way you can save your exams and you also can save the huge amount of time and endeavors that took you for that amount of cramming from getting lost forever without any long term educational benefits.
Ok, for that you will need to understand a brief primer about our memory and knowledge acquisition mechanisms and how to make the best of it in case of cramming. I will discuss that right here but before that I will start with how to cram it better before your exams. I think that will be very useful for you in your next exam and also it will ensure better information stuffing so that we can achieve more knowledge gains from it using our special memory techniques.
1. Get Good Night Sleep
You must be wondering why I came up with this point when we are discussing cramming. Students actually think and do the opposite. They sleep minimum or spend sleepless nights and cram up stuff for the exam. They think that the time spent sleeping is a waste when cramming.
But this idea is not right, instead can turn out to be very wrong at times. It can make your short term memory malfunction, so that you will forget most of the stuff you crammed in the exam hall. Thus the whole of the endeavour can get into total waste. If that does not happen then you may lose your physical composure on the day of the exam. Then also your paper will not go much good despite the huge amount of effort and time you devoted for your cramming. None of these and similar situations are anyhow expectable and acceptable.
So what can be the way out to keep these possibilities away on the day of your exam? Sleep. Sleep well every night for at least 4 hours or more. I usually suggest a deep sleep of 6 hours or more for better academic development. But when you are cramming for exams then that suggests a degree of emergency that has been declared due to the forthcoming exam. Keeping in mind about that emergency I am willing to cut the budget of sleep from minimum 6 hours to minimum 4 hours every day. But that should be for a very short period of time, say a week for maximum. Prolonged sleep deprivation can lead to long term memory and cognitive disorders that can potentially ruin your shining academic career.
A day is made of 24 hours. If you spare just 4 hours for sleep still you are left with 20 more hours. Spare some more on daily chores. Then also I suppose you can easily find at least 16 to 18 hours for your cramming. Don’t you think that is more than enough in a period of 24 hours? Cram but keep limit on it and don’t lose your mental and physical composure over it.
So it will not be a big issue if you sleep for at least 4 hours. Still you can spend a huge amount of time in cramming but only with much better energy and effectiveness. Make sure that you sleep a minimum of 6 hours to 8 hours every other normal day. If you sleep well for the whole year then your short term memory will be so sharp that cramming will become a fun thing for you. You will enjoy your exam pressures.
2. Choose the Right Foods
Just like sleep, your food also determines a lot of the effectiveness of your studies as well as cramming. Right kind of food will give you a lot of fresh energy and nutrition that will help you to work hard, study more, remember more and even cope with all the exam stresses in a much better way. And any wrong choice of food can bring opposite results and I suppose that is not supposed to be desirable for you as you are already worried about your exams and having sleepless nights busy cramming your lessons.
Right kind of food is a big story. It is not possible to discuss the whole thing over here. Keep reading my blogs, articles and ebooks on diet and nutrition for more ideas and conceptions. Still to say in brief, your food should be packed with healthy nutrition, easily digestible and preferably contain some supplements that can assist you to study more and remember more.
By healthy nutrition I obviously mean the right amount of carbohydrates, proteins and fat. Many people would put the fat in the list of something like a villain in your diet. But the actual story is not the same. So don’t ignore it. Vitamins and minerals are also important as micronutrients. So you need to take all those kinds of food that can supply you with all these nutrients in a healthy proportion and easily digestible ways.
Choose more homemade food and avoid fast food and junk foods as much as possible. Processed foods taste better but have very low quality of nutrition and instead can generate many undesirable side-effects that can harm your body and brain. This will do no good for your studies, exams and career. Choose those foods that are rich in fiber and as less processed as possible.
If taste is a big factor for you then Indian spices have enough of that reserved for you. Homemade food with good use of healthy Indian spices can make your food taste better than junk and processed foods. Those spices usually have their own list of benefits if they are used intelligently and in appropriate proportions. Excess use of any spices can be not beneficial or even harmful. (Always prefer home-grinded spices, commercial processed powder spices are subject to contain harmful colours, flavours and possible adulterations)
As a student you should have included some food as your regular choice. Milk is one of the first choices. Any health drink with that can do even better. Fruits are very important for good health as well as optimum brain and memory functions. Pay some extra concern for your protein input. Too much is bad and less is also not good for the growth of the brain and body. Choose healthy protein sources, most preferable vegetarian proteins. Include foods like soybeans and corn, lentils and nuts for best quality proteins.
At times of cramming during exams, some type of food can prove to be especially useful for harder work and better alertness. Chocolates are one of the best choices for that. Coffee can give you a lot of energy, stamina and alertness that you will need badly during exams. Green tea will not only energize and refresh you from tiredness but also provide many extra nutrients and vitamins that can be good for your eyes and for fighting the effects of stress and strain you are already undergoing.
3. Make a list of readables
This is very important for effective cramming but ignored by almost all of us. We need to know how much we need to cram, and what time it can take to complete it. Before starting your exam cramming endeavour ensure that you get your list ready. All subjects, chapters, sections, topics, etc. everything should be properly listed and charted.
Once you have the list in your hand then try to figure out how much time it can tentatively take. Determine your rate of reading and remembering. Then basing on that reference rate you can easily get an approximate idea of the total time you may need to complete your cramming.
If you find that the number of available days are not sufficient for completing the job then you need to restructure your study. Many people will try to extend the cramming time in order to accommodate the total study amount. But that is not a good idea at all. You are already using your maximum available time for cramming. Extending that even more means you are about to compromise something, and that something is most probably your sleep.
The most important factor for the list you have just prepared is PRIORITY. You have to know the priority of your study topics and subjects for better and efficient cramming. Select and complete the high priority topics first and then you will be much confident on the rest of the stuff as well.
4. Revision is Important
Yes, even in cramming revision plays a crucial role. Otherwise you can face a tough time to recall all that information that you stuffed your brain with when you will need to write on them at your exam.
As you are already cramming the high priority topics early, you have to find some time to revise them also before you pack up for your exam. That revision will make you perform much better even though you have crammed them up. And also you will be having stress free exam sessions. So plan and keep time to revise whatever you cram.
5. Don’t Forget to Take Notes
Many will be surprised with this as they think or believe that cramming is all about reading or perhaps just eye-scanning the books and study materials. But the fact is different. You need to make your study notes on whatever you crammed. In the first place that will measure how much you really have covered and how much left to be done. Measurements are very important.
When you write as you read then your learning and memorizing goes to an upper level and makes you more clear and confident on whatever you read or learned. It will also help you revise faster and better than going it all over from the books again.