Successful Students 9
9. Don’t cram for exams.
Successful students know that divided periods of study are more effective than
cram sessions, and they practice it.
If there
is one thing that study skills specialists agree on, it is that distributed
study is better than massed, late-night, last-ditch efforts known as cramming. You’ll
learn more, remember more, and earn a higher grade by studying in four, one
hour-a-night sessions for Friday’s exam than studying for four hours straight
on Thursday night. Short, concentrated preparatory efforts are more efficient
and rewarding than wasteful, inattentive, last moment marathons, yet so many students
fail to learn this lesson and end up repeating it over and over again until it
becomes a wasteful habit. Not too clever huh?
When
you cram, you are taking a shortcut, and shortcuts never produce any real
worthwhile results. Also, when you take shortcuts, you feel rather rotten
knowing that you could have done it better but didn’t. Short cuts cut you
short. You can’t plant watermelon seeds and harvest fresh watermelons the next
day. It takes time. Cramming for a test or project and expecting to make a high
score the next day is like planting watermelon seeds and expecting to harvest and
eat fresh watermelon the next day. Plus cramming for a test or project doesn’t help
you academically, so why even do it. Plan ahead, prepare ahead. Give yourself
plenty of days and weeks to prepare for upcoming accountability opportunities.
Choose The Right!!!
