How to Study

What special studying do I have to do? It’s one thing to
review notes and practice with a study group, but if you need
to sit in a language lab and listen to hours of tapes or run the
slower group of gerbils through the alphabet once more, 
plan accordingly. 
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Organize the materials you need to study, pace 
yourself, and check to see how much material you 
have covered in the first hour of review. How does this
compare to what you have left to study? Not every hour will
be equally productive, but you should be able to project the
time you need based on what you are able to accomplish in 
an hour. 
Why Cramming Doesn’t Work
We’ve all done it at one time or another, with one excuse or another—
waited until the last minute and then tried to cram a week’s or
month’s or entire semester’s worth of work into a single night 
or weekend. Did it work for you? Didn’t think so.
How to Study
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The reality is that cramming works—on one level—for a small minor-
ity of students. Somehow, they’re able to shove more “stuff ” into
short-term memory than the rest of us and actually remember it, at
least for 24 hours. After those 24 hours? Gone with the wind. Which
means if they managed to do well on a weekly quiz, all that cramming
didn’t do them a bit of good for the upcoming midterm or final.
The rest of us don’t even get that smidgen of good news—after a
night of no sleep and too much coffee, we’re lucky if we remember
where the test is the next morning. A couple of hours later, trying to
stay awake long enough to make it back to bed, we not only haven’t
learned anything, we haven’t even done very well on the test we
crammed for!
That’s probably the best reason of all not to cram—it just doesn’t
work!