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Winning is Living How to Cram for a College Exam
If you haven't cracked a book before now or if you just want to be as prepared as possible, cramming the night before an exam is a must. This how-to will guide you through the process
Don't Freak Out
Panicking isn't going to help at this point, so don't bother. Instead, take a few deep breaths and calmly assess the situation. You need to determine four things:
1. What You Need to Study
Knowing how much information you have to cover to be prepared for an exam is essential. Be realistic and make a list. Put the things you already know at the bottom and the things you are clueless about at the top.
2. How Many Hours You Have to Cram
Since it's the night before the exam, your cram session is sure to be limited. Determine how much time you have. Again, be realistic. If you are confident in your ability to successfully pull an all-nighter, by all means do so. But if you know you can't function without sleep, you're better off setting aside time to get some zzz's.
3. Where You Will Study
You'll need to find a quiet, well-lit place that's completely devoid of distractions. This may mean leaving your room, your house and possibly even your town.
4. Your Plan of Attack
Coming up with some sort of game plan before you get started will save valuable time. To start, decide what study techniques you'll be employing and what you'll need to accomplish your goal. Then, make a schedule or a to-do list to help you execute your plan in a timely manner.
Gather a Few Essentials
Before you begin, gather up everything you think you might need to cram for the exam. These items may include:
Computer Textbooks or other books Class notes or other study materials Blank paper, index cards or something else to write on Multicolored pens and highlighters Post-it notes or sticky flags Voice recorder Water and several caffeinated beverages Finger food snacks that don't make a mess
Study Techniques
The study technique you should use will depend heavily on what kind of learner you are and what kind of test you're studying for. Here are a few techniques to pick from:
Using Notes
Hopefully you have class notes. If not, it's time to think about making photocopies of someone else's--preferably someone who takes good notes. If the professor made a specific point of emphasizing specific subject matter in class, it's likely that at least some of this subject matter will appear on the exam.
A few ways to use your notes:
Look through the notes and try to find things that have been underlined or highlighted in some other way. This information is probably important. Scan the notes and look for key information that you can highlight or flag with post-it notes for easy reference later on. Rewrite key information from your notes. This will help you memorize and comprehend important points. Read some of your notes aloud into a voice recorder and replay them later.
Using a Textbook
Reading an entire textbook is not an effective way to cram for an exam. Instead, try concentrating on the summaries that appear at the beginning and end of each chapter. Chapter end questions, illustrative examples and other sections that are located throughout the book may also prove helpful.
A few other techniques to try include:
Looking for bolded words. Words in a bold or italicized font are probably important. Take note of these words by writing them down, highlighting them or flagging them in some other way. Knowing how to answer chapter end questions. Lazy professors pull their exam questions straight from the back of the book. Using the table of contents, the glossary and other overlooked parts of the textbook to get an overview of key information. Reading introductions and conclusions. These parts always include important points.
Using Cliff Notes and Study Guides
Reading or re-reading a book overnight is no easy feat. You may want to consider using Cliff Notes or other types of study guides. These materials usually include plot summaries, character information and step-by-step instructions to help you get through it all. It's not a perfect trade-off, but when you're in a crunch it works. You can find Cliff Notes and study guides online and in book stores.
A few examples:
Cliff Notes - Can be bought in book form or downloaded to your iPod Spark Notes - Can be bought in book form or downloaded to your iPod Book Rags - Free ebooks and text viewable online Pink Monkey - Free study guides and chapter summaries viewable online Grade Saver - Free online study guides viewable online (downloadable PDF)
Using Other Study Materials
Some professors are kind enough to hand out study materials prior to an exam. If your professor does that, you should use what you are given. The information within these materials will almost certainly be woven into the exam.
Other study materials you may be able to use:
Workbooks or Student Manuals - A lot of college textbooks have accompanying student manuals or workbooks that contain sample essays or quizzes. These are great to study from because some professors take exam questions right out of them. Past Assignments, Tests and Quizzes - A good way to review for an exam is to focus on what you've already been tested on. You can do this by pulling out any past assignments, tests or quizzes that include the subject you're currently studying.
Using a Voice Recorder
Reading information into a voice recorder or mp3 player is a great way to study because you can listen to everything later on. When you hear something over and over again, it's bound to sink in just a little bit. If you decide to use this steady technique, you can replay what you recorded:
While you sleep (can't hurt, right?) While you're brushing your teeth and getting ready to go in the morning While you eat breakfast While you travel to class or the exam center While you wait for the exam to be handed out
Using Memorization Techniques
There are tons of different memorization techniques that you can use to cram for an exam. A few of the best include:
Repeating information over and over again. (Do this until you can easily repeat something ten minutes later.) Rewriting information that you want to retain. (Rewrite at least three times for maximum retention.) Acting it out. (Make up a dance or hand signals to remember whole sentences.) Making rhymes and songs out of important dates and facts. (Who can forget that in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue?) Using acronyms to remember facts. (SIM translates to Sedimentary, Igneous and Metamorphic--the three basic rock types.) Using acrostics to remember words in a specific order. (My Dear Aunt Sally = Multiply and Divide before you Add and Subtract)
Quizzing Yourself
It's a good idea to quiz yourself midway through your cram session to see how well you're retaining information. This way you still have time to switch up your study technique if it isn't working for you. A few ways to quiz yourself:
Use a voice recorder with pre-recorded questions Use index cards that have questions written on one side and answers on the other Use chapter-end questions from your textbook Use questions from past quizzes, tests or assignments Ask someone else to quiz you
Bonus Study Techniques
A few exam-specific study techniques that might help you through your cram session:
Essay Exams
You can try studying for essay exams like you would study for any other exam, but you'll be better off memorizing a few important points for every bit of subject matter you may be tested on. As long as you know the basics, you should be able to elaborate enough to competently answer the average essay question.
You may also want to think about taking 20 minutes to brush up on your essay writing skills. The inability to write a decent sentence or paragraph could work against you even if you know the exam material. Good places to read up on essay writing include:
Purdue University Online Writing Lab - Writing essay exams Tulane University - Answering essay questions Paradigm - Basic punctuation and sentence concepts
Multiple Choice Exams
You might be able to pass your exam by marking 'C' as the answer to every question, but it's highly unlikely. You will be much better off employing one of these methods:
Focus on details while studying. (Multiple choice exams always focus on details.) Memorize vocabulary words and definitions. (Multiple choice exams test your knowledge of concepts by structuring questions around vocabulary words.) Understand multi-step processes and event sequences. (Multiple choice exams almost always include questions about groupings and similarities.)
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10 Exercises for Better Focus and Concentration
You can find strong powers of concentration in yourself. When you are decisive and sincerely want to excel in your studies, pass an important exam, or playing one of your favorite games; the power of concentration becomes available to you. This kind of concentration is raised because of some need, or desire. Increasing it in a systematic way, brings it under your control, and grants you the ability to use it easily, with no exertion whenever you need it. Real and good concentration is developed slowly, through daily work, and with special exercises. It has to be approached in a reasonable and practical way.
When starting to learn to concentrate you have to find a suitable place where you can be alone and undisturbed. You can sit crossed legged on the floor if you can, or on a chair. Sit with spine erect. Take a few calm deep breaths and then relax your body. In your mind go through each muscle and part of the body and relax it. The following exercises should help you develop concentration skills:
Exercise 1:Select some thought and see how long you can hold your mind on it. It is nice to have a clock at first and keep track of the time.Suppose you decide to think about health, think of health as being a great blessing in the world. Do not let any other thought drift in. Just the moment one starts to obtrude, make it go away. Make it a daily habit of concentrating on this thought for, maybe ten minutes. Practice doing this until you can hold it to the exclusion of everything else. You might have to do this exercise regularly for 10 days or more in order to sharpen your concentration skills.
Exercise 2Take a book and count the words in any paragraph. Count them again to be sure that it was correct. Start with one paragraph and when it becomes easier count all the words on the page. Perform the counting mentally and only with your eyes
Exercise 3Take a small simple object such as a spoon, a fork or a glass. Concentrate on it and watch the object from all sides without verbalisation, that is, with no words in your mind. Just watch the object without thinking with words about it
Exercise 4Draw a small geometrical figure, about 3 inches in size, such as a triangle, a rectangle or a circle. Paint it with any colour you wish and concentrate on it. Only see the figure. Do not think any words, only the figure exists. Watch the figure in front of you and try not to strain your eyes.
Exercise 5Concentrate on the Within. Lie down and thoroughly relax your muscles. Concentrate on the beating of your heart. Do not pay any attention to anything else. Think how this great organ is pumping the blood to every part of the body; try to actually picture the blood leaving the great reservoir and going in one stream right down to the toes. Picture another going down the arms to the tips of the fingers. After a little practice you can actually feel the blood passing through your system.
Exercise 6Watch Concentration. Sit in a chair and place a clock with a second hand on the table. Follow the second hand with your eyes as it goes around. Keep this up for five minutes, thinking of nothing else but the second hand, This is a very good exercise when you only have a few minutes to spare, if you are able to keep every other thought in the stream of consciousness subordinate to it. As there is little that is particularly interesting about the second hand, it is hard to do this, but in the extra effort of will power required to make it successful lies its value. Always try to keep as still as possible during these exercises.
Exercise 7Close your eyes and start to visualize the number one in front of you and say “one” in your head when you see it clearly. Allow the one to disappear and start to visualize the number two and say “two” loud in your head when you see it. Repeat this procedure up to 100 if you can.
Exercise 8Select an object like a half eaten cookie, a coin, a pen - anything - try to relax every muscle in your body and concentrate on the object. Start thinking about its shape, color, material etc and try to memorize its form. Then close your eyes and try to visualize it in front of you. If you can’t, open your eyes again and start over.
Exercise 8Write a dream log each morning when you remember a dream and every night before you go to sleep, review your day in reverse. This exercise will help you remember your dreams.
Exercise 9Choose a spot on the wall and look at it - do not focus too much on it though. Erase all thought from your mind and concentrate as hard as you can on your breathing. Hold on as long as you can.
Exercise 10When You Read. No one can think without first concentrating his thoughts on the subject on hand. Every man and woman should train himself to think clearly. An excellent exercise is to read an article in a newspaper, and see in how few words you can express it. Reading an article to get only the essentials requires the closest concentration. If you are unable to write out what you read, you will know you are weak in concentration. Instead of writing it out you can express it orally if you wish. Go to your room and deliver it as if you were talking to some one. You willfind exercises like this of the greatest value in developing concentration and learning to think.
The Benefits of Developing Concentration:
• Control of thoughts
• Peace of mind
• Self-confidence
• Inner strength
• Will power
• The ability to focus your mind
• Better memory
• The ability to decide and carry on your decisions
• Better functioning in daily life, whether at home or work
• The ability to study and comprehend more quickly
• Stop being carried away with every passing thought
• Freedom from needless and annoying thoughts
• Think when you want to, about what you want to think
• Inner happiness
• Help in developing psychic abilities
• More powerful and efficient creative visualisations and guided imagination
• True meditation
• Spiritual enlightenment
Put your whole attention into the exercises. Do not think about anything else. Be careful not to fall asleep, daydream or think about other matters. The moment you find yourself thinking about something else, stop the exercise and start again. When you become proficient, lengthen the time and, if possible, include another session in the afternoon. Do not attempt too much at the start. You may think the exercises are too simple and easy and try to perform them all at once. Go slowly, do not overdo or tense you brain. Try to reach perfection before you move on to next exercise.
If you find it too difficult, or thoughts distract you and make you think about other matters, do not worry. Everyone encounters difficulties along the way. The successful ones are those who go on and never give up. If you persist in spite of difficulties and disturbances, success will crown your efforts.
Salute to women pioneers : March 8: Women's Day Special
Power of pen: One of the renowned novelist of India. Shobaa De is often called India's Jackie Collins. She has left the mark with her writing skills among the readers. The socialite has account of works like 'Speedpost', 'Starry Nights', 'Spouse' and many more to her credit.
Time to celebrate: Sushmita Sen former Miss Universe 1994 and Aishwarya Rai former Miss World 1994 made the country proud after wining their respective titles.
Winning moment: Sushmita Sen left the whole universe spellbound when she clinched the Ms. Universe crown in 1994. A well-known Bollywood actress, and a single mother of an adopted girl child Renee. Sushmita likes to pen down poetry in her spare time.
World at her feet: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is an internationally renowned Indian actress. Before starting her acting career, she gained fame and won acccolades for the country after winning the Miss World contest in 1994. Last year got married to Abhishek Bachchan of the famous Bachchan clan of Bollywood, Aish has another feather in her cap being a "Bachchan Bahu". Glorious glory: Priyanka Chopra made the nation proud when she was crowned Miss World in 2000. She became the fifth Indian woman to win the title, and the fourth Indian woman to win in a span of seven years. Priyanka later went on to deliver commercial success with films like 'Mujhse Shaadi Karogi', 'Krrish' and 'Don', establishing herself as a popular actress.
Big achiever: Shilpa Shetty started her filmi career with Baazigar. Her big success came after taking part in the British Celebrity 'Big Brother' TV show in 2007, Shetty was crowned the winner with 63% of the final vote. She has been recognized as a global figure since then. On her agenda next, is a cookery book titled 'Soul Curry' and role of Sita in Uru Patel's international venture 'Hanuman.'
Smile of victory: Lara Dutta was crowned Femina Miss India Universe. She brought laurels to the country by winning Miss Universe in 2000. Lara is a renowned bollywood actress and also UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador.
Musical maestro: Asha Bhosle is a best known as a Bollywood playback singer, although she has a much wider repertoire. Her career started in 1943 and has spanned over six decades. She has done playback singing for over 950 Bollywood movies. She is believed to have sung over 12,000 songsOn cloud 9: Kalpana Chawla was an Indian-American astronaut and space shuttle mission specialist. She was one of seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. She was the first Indian-born woman and the second person of Indian origin to fly in space, following cosmonaut Rakesh SharmaBold lady: Kiran Bedi is a social activist and a retired IPS. She became the first woman to join the Indian Police Service in 1972, and was last posted as Director General , Bureau of Police Research and Development, Ministry of Home Affairs. During her service, she also remained the Inspector General Prisons of Tihar Jail, - one of world's largest prison and her prison reforms policies lead to her winning, the 1994 Ramon Magsaysay Award
Young Achievers:Aaron SohackiLike a lot of kids, Aaron Sohacki’s dad took him to watch airplanes take off and land at the airport. Like some kids, his love for watching planes turned into a love of flying, and he got his pilot’s license before his driver’s license. Uniquely, his love for flying turned into a passion for running a business that flies other people.When Sohacki was 20, he started ImagineAir. It’s a regional company that lets regular folks fly privately. Along the way, he has flown some not-so-regular people like one of his first clients, the former mayor of Augusta, Georgia, who needed to fly to have dinner with Rudy Giuliani.The charter service takes people 300-500 miles from the headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Considered a new version of a taxi service, the “air taxi” often costs less than commercial travel. Now age 24, the CEO still flies customers and often gets asked, “Are you even old enough to fly this plane?”
Genevieve ThiersGenevieve Thiers was the oldest of seven kids, which meant she started baby-sitting almost as soon as she was born. But all the diapers, Friday nights in and lousy tips eventually paid off with millions.In college, Thiers saw a pregnant woman posting fliers around campus for a baby-sitter. It was cheaper than going through an agency, which could cost in the thousands of dollars. After meeting her future husband online, Thiers thought that there had to be a better way. So she started sittercity.com, her real-life version of the “Baby-sitters Club” of young adult fiction.The site launched in 2001 and has grown beyond connecting parents and sitters to bring together people in search of elder care and pet care with the caregivers of their choice. And now, at 29, Thiers gets to go out on Friday nights!
Blake TaylorYes, he set fire to the dinner table with contact lens solution. Yes, he stayed in on the weekends because he had no friends. Yes, he had to clean the urinals as punishment for acting out in class. But Blake Taylor is done being punished and finally ready to proudly say to the world, “Yes, I have ADHD.”According to the CDC, 4.7 million Americans 18 or under have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Now 18, Taylor is the youngest person to write a memoir about living with it. He says his book, “ADHD & Me,” is the guidebook he never had growing up – a way to deal with the daily struggles from someone who has actually been there and not just studied the disorder.Taylor is now a freshman molecular biology major at the University of California, Berkeley, where his book is used in the curriculum. Professors tout it because it’s the first time academia and the general public can see the once-taboo disorder being tackled with candor, since diagnosis only really started to spike in the 1990s. Through anecdotes about taking tests and dealing with tics, Taylor aims to tackle the often-stigmatized side effects of the disorder, which if left untreated, he says, only worsen when someone gets older. “You wouldn’t want to set fire to a table ever, but especially not when you’re 30, right?”
Jason RaeNot too many kids tell their parents who to vote for when they are 5 years old or ask their fourth-grade teacher to watch the presidential inauguration. But what would you expect from a 21-year-old superdelegate?Jason Rae went from being a U.S. Senate page to the youngest elected representative of the Democratic National Committee while he was in high school. He actually couldn’t vote when he was first elected because he was six months shy of 18. But he wanted to represent what he calls “America’s next generation.” So, he and his friends hand-painted posters with the slogan “A ray of hope for the future.” It worked.What about his future? Rae says, “I remember back in kindergarten saying I wanted to run for president, but I’ll settle for an elected office.” These days he is relishing the fact he’s being wooed by both sides for his coveted vote in the close Democratic race for the 2008 presidential nomination — dining with Sen. Hillary Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, meeting with Sen. Barack Obama and chatting with the highest-profile politicians from across the country.How will he vote? He hasn’t said, but we’ll try to get it out of him.
Stephanie MocklerIn real life, her first car was a Volkswagen bug when she was 16. In her racing life, Stephanie Mockler was driving quarter midget cars, tiny racecars that children can drive, at the age of 6. Now at 20, she is a record-setting driver.Mockler became the first female to win a USAC Ford Focus Midget Series when she finished at the Indianapolis Speedrome. She is also the eighth woman in the United States Auto Club’s history to win a feature race. And she is the youngest female to ever win a USAC main event.She gets the whole “Danica Patrick” thing a lot. Patrick is a 25-year-old Indy Racing League driver. Mockler is quick to point out that not all racing is the same and that she hopes to take the NASCAR track. But one thing between them is the same, “When you put on the helmet, you’re just another racer.”