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 talking the shortcut, and shortcuts never produce any real
worthwhile results. Also, when you take shortcuts, you feel rather rotten
knowing that you could have done better but didn’t. Shortcuts 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 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment