How to Study

How to Cram Anyway
Nevertheless, despite your resolve, best intentions, and firm con -
viction that cramming is a losing proposition, you may well find 
yourself—though hopefully not too often— in the position of need-
ing to do something the night before a test you haven’t studied for 
at all. If so, here’s some advice that will make your night of cramming
at least marginally successful:
Be realistic about what you can do. You absolutely cannot 
master an entire semester’s worth of work in a single night, especially
if your class attendance has been sporadic (or nonexistent) and you’ve
skimmed two books out of a syllabus of two dozen. The more infor-
mation you try to cram in, the less effective you will be.
Being realistic means soberly assessing your situation— you’re hang-
ing by your thumbs and are just trying to avoid falling into the boiling
oil. Avoiding the oil, saving the damsel in distress, and inheriting the
kingdom (“acing” the test) is a bit too much to ask for, no matter
whom your Fairy Godmother is.
Chapter 8
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How to Study for Tests
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Be selective and study in depth. The more classes you’ve 
managed to miss, the more selective you need to be in organizing your
cram session. You can’t study it all. So you must identify—as best 
you can—what topics you are sure will be on the test. Then study
only those. It’s better in this case to know a lot about a little rather
than a little about a lot. You may get lucky and pick the three topics
the three essays cover!
Massage your memory. Use every memory technique you’ve
learned (and the additional ones in Improve Your Memory) to maximize
what you’re able to retain in your short-term memory.
Know when to give up. When you can’t remember your name or
focus on the book in front of you, give up and get some sleep.