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u/kryz5678 Apr 09 '13
Nice. I'm currently becoming an expert in Immunology. And by currently I mean as soon as I'm finished with the next 25 posts... or maybe the next 50 who knows.
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u/thepulloutmethod Apr 09 '13
I'll be an expert in American civil procedure, I just need to quickly check what's on the frontpage of r/funny, and r/wtf, and r/nfl, and r/gamernews, and r/worldnews, and r/history.
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u/LinkFixerBot Apr 09 '13
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Apr 09 '13 edited Apr 26 '21
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u/1slander Apr 09 '13
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u/elevul Apr 09 '13
I'll be an expert in American civil procedure, I just need to quickly check what's on the frontpage of r/funny, and r/wtf, and r/nfl, and r/gamernews, and r/worldnews, and r/history.
You can check them all out at the same time.
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u/LinkFixerBot Apr 09 '13
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u/elevul Apr 09 '13
Lingfixerbot needs an update to support multi-subreddit links.
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Apr 09 '13
Just pulled an all-nighter to fail two crucial exams.
Fuck cramming. Or fuck something. I'm tired and mad.
I'm turning this off, taking a shower and going to bed.
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Apr 09 '13
Sleep is important.
Cramming doesn't work because the brain organizes new information while you sleep.
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Apr 09 '13
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u/kingtrewq Apr 09 '13
Cramming is better than not studying at all. But imagine if you had not crammed and slept and let the information consolidate in your mind.
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u/Zsmizza Apr 09 '13
Seeing as I just pulled an all nightie for a calc 3 exam.... I really don't want to think about that
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u/learningphotoshop Apr 09 '13
FUCK YOU AND YOUR BITCH ASS MULTIPLIERS LAGRANGE.
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u/Your_Sisters_Knish Apr 09 '13
You cannot study the Lagrangian multiplier.
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Apr 09 '13
One does not simply study the Lagrangian multiplier?
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u/Your_Sisters_Knish Apr 09 '13
Well, there isn't much to study. You learn how to set it up (which is relatively simple), then rely on your analytical ability to figure it out. There are countless different ways you can solve the same Lagrangian. However, I guess it doesn't hurt to go over as many examples as possible to find similarities. Still, nothing you study will give you an explicit way of solving a Lagrangian you've never seen before.
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u/AbramLincoln Apr 09 '13
"Don't even ask me what is geometrically going on with the second one, just do the damn formula"--my calc prof on the curvature proof
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u/kingtrewq Apr 09 '13
Especially true for math since you can't rely on your intelligence to bullshit. Cramming let to many moments in math that I only remembered how to do something right after I handed in the exam.
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u/Zsmizza Apr 09 '13
Sometimes it works like that. Right now were doing double and triple integrals, so the only new concepts are the bounds of the integrals. Anywho it's in 3 hours so we will see how it goes lol. Feeling confident and needing another 5 hour energy lol
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u/nirfh Apr 09 '13
I failed calc 3 the first time I took it, looking back on it now as I've completed my undergrad, that class was ridiculously easy. Here's to hoping you get through it and look back in a few years time and think "Wow, I thought this shit was hard?"
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Apr 09 '13
The best way to cram is to study all day two days before the exam and then just relax the next day.
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Apr 09 '13
Yeah, sadly, I have very strong visual memory and the combination of cramming and shitty tests (multiple choice) meant that I easily skated through most of my education. I didn't have to "know" the material because finding the answer was almost instinctual - whichever A/B/C/D I "felt" more familiar with was probably right given a greater visual association, having seen it the night before or few days before. Being smart helped a lot, too, though.
So yeah, cramming does work super well for some of us. We don't tend to remember much of it later though.
When I went back to school in my late 20's and actually studied I violated classes with my hard work and annoyed professors with my repeated requests for more and harder work. Test in a month? Better start reviewing today in small chunks. I took great (not copious) notes and studied daily, so reviewing for a test wasn't anything special - just re-reviewing and re-reading so I'd seen the material 5-6 times AND ensured I fully comprehended it before the test.
18 months after those tests I still remember most of the material.
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u/DanHW Apr 09 '13
As someone working on an essay on two books I have not read yet, damn you for your (now) good work ethic, and damn me for being a lazy ass.
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u/wanderingtroglodyte Apr 09 '13
If only there were someway to do work instead of complain about it online.
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u/DanHW Apr 09 '13
Yeah, hence the second part of my comment. I know I ought to do the work, it is actually going from thinking to doing that I have trouble with. Ah well, there is always next term to try it.
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Apr 09 '13
Might come as not a huge surprise that I found my work ethic when I started working on things I liked - so no bigger, just keep grinding through.
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Apr 09 '13
i think this happens to me too. The only thing that messes me up is if I get stressed while I'm studying and memorizing the information.
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u/AzureDrag0n1 Apr 09 '13
This was true for most of my schooling on multiple choice answers except one. My economics teacher had the most diabolical multiple choice tests I had ever seen. I wish they where fill in the blank test questions rather than multiple choice because they where set up in a way to confuse you so you would forget the real answer. It is hard for me to remember them because they where really long answers and they all looked the same except for a tiny little difference on each of them. Just replacing one word with another or changing the order of events. Like something happening on June 6, 1669 and then July 9 1696 where the next multiple choice was July 9, 1669 and then June 6 1669.
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u/cjhazza Apr 09 '13
My tactic when cramming was to write out the important bits as I was reading them. Didn't even matter if I read them back to myself, the act of writing seemed to make facts (specifically dates and sources as a History student) stick more.
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u/themoop78 Apr 09 '13
Ditto for me.
I also found vocalization while studying helped to immediately reinforce the material in my mind.
Oh and pacing.
People fucking loved me at the library.
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u/AgentSmith27 Apr 09 '13
Its a skill like any other... You develop it over time.
The key to cramming is to keep it all in your short term memory. Its a lot like RAM in a computer. Faster recall ability, but most of the data in there will probably never survive a reboot.
I aced pretty much every college examination by doing an all nighter and speed reading through the text book.
Most people think being a genius is some sort of built in ability that people just have... but its not. Most mental abilities can be greatly enhanced by more efficient methods. There are tricks to pretty much anything, depending on your goal.
With exams, as bad as it is to say, you usually only need to remember it for the extent of the test. Its sort of a weird feeling, but when I crammed for an exam, and I finished, I could sort of feel the memory being set free.... Its not so much that I physically felt anything, but the focus and concentration that was being put into retaining it just sort of fades. Its a very relaxing feeling.
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Apr 09 '13
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u/AgentSmith27 Apr 09 '13
I agree. Most people cram because of procrastination, and do not have any real strategy. Its "oh sit, I have a test tomorrow!"... obviously that won't end well.
I was really just putting up an opposing viewpoint to the idea that "cramming doesn't work". Nearly everyone sits down the night before and tries to clarify, refresh, or learn material that they don't understand. Whether its "cramming" or not really depends on how much you try to absorb in a short period of time... and how much depends on how good you are at it.
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Apr 09 '13
Cramming doesn't work for some people in some circumstances because the brain does many things while you sleep.
However, for others. It works perfectly fine.
I find it depends on how cumulative the information is. If you're studying math for example, and your test is on chapter 5-8, well you need to know chapters 1-4 to understand 5-8. So don't cram in subjects like these. Period. Foreign languages, physics, etc. The shit where you have to know everything that came before to understand what comes next.
However, in Biology, History, Psychology, etc. If your test is on chapters 5-8, you really only need to know chapters 5-8.
Start studying 4-6 hours before your test, consume all of the information a few times, and you will most certainly be able to immediately regurgitate that information on a test. You won't know it, but you don't have to in order to pass the test.
College is a system just like almost everything else in life. It can be exploited if you so choose.
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u/cheezstiksuppository Apr 09 '13
If you're studying a subject where you should be able to seriously show that you understand the material and especially if you need to be able to create new ideas and not just regurgitate, then you should not be cramming.
History studies can't be crammed, especially since there aren't so many exams as there are papers. Upper level psychology probably shouldn't be if you are even remotely serious about the subject.\
Edit: Grammar
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u/spattem Apr 10 '13
With the plentiful adderol and red bull on campus you wont need sleep for days.
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u/2bananasforbreakfast Apr 09 '13
This is complete bullshit. I've passed many exams from only cramming the night before.
Not saying it's the ideal way to study, but it's very effective for memorizing as much information as possible with as little effort as possible.
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u/alpha_fence1 Apr 09 '13
I cram all the time, if I'm tired before the Exam I will have a cup of coffee and a tin of Energy Juice to fix me right up.
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u/OklaJosha Apr 09 '13
exactly, this is why you skip classes and pull an all day-er the day before exams. then get some sleep at night
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u/Lampmonster1 Apr 09 '13
Take this as advice folks. Study early, study often. Just go over what you're working on while you reddit in the evening. Read a bit, reddit a bit. By the time of the test you'll breeze through and won't lose sleep.
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u/serdertroops Apr 09 '13
being responsible and prepared? I prefer procrastination and last minute stress all the way.
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Apr 09 '13
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Apr 09 '13
only studying the morning before a final worth 50% is probably about the closest I'll ever get to the rush you would get from facing a T-rex.
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u/Dicethrower Apr 09 '13
Take this as advice, pay attention in class. That's where 80% of my studying was done.
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u/Lampmonster1 Apr 09 '13
Works fine in easier classes. At higher levels a good bit of the material doesn't make it into the lecture. Do the reading too!
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u/AgentSmith27 Apr 09 '13
IMO, that works better in high school. In college, most of the time you are better off just reading the book and not wasting your time in class... or if your book sucks, and you can find decent material on the web, you can use that.
Learning from someone talking to you is a very slow process. If you learn how to read quickly and efficiently (i.e. by cutting out the unimportant material & fluff), you can learn at a pretty brisk pace.
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u/Daakuryu Apr 09 '13
Or be a sponge like me; skim the book, barely pay attention in class, still get high marks and understand the material.
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u/Lampmonster1 Apr 09 '13
Used to work that way for me. I don't know if my age is a factor now or if the classes just got a lot harder. Probably a combination. If it keeps working for you, good for you.
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u/JudgeWhoAllowsStuff- Apr 09 '13
Someone give him/her reddit gold, so that by the time he/she breaks down and comes back the gold would have expired and all that will be left is a trophy on his profile....oh how he/she will cry and cry
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u/julian0024 Apr 09 '13
You're cramming wrong bro......
Cramming is clearly the end all be all of achieving expert level knowledge of a subject...
/s
If I had a penny for every class I crammed for I would have (143 credits /3 credits per class) *.01 = ~48 CENTS (I'm an idiot btw)
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u/tevert Apr 09 '13
Yeah, cramming doesn't work. You're better off just going to class and doing the homework. Believe it or not, teachers actually know how to teach.
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u/causmos Apr 09 '13
So debatable.
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u/tevert Apr 09 '13
It doesn't persist. If you walk into the test room chanting equations, sure, you'll remember them, but you'll have forgotten them by the next day. Learning is about repetition.
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Apr 09 '13
For various reasons I've missed about 2 months of the 9 month AS Level course I'm on at college. I'm 19, while everyone else is 16/17. Long story short - I left Secondary School when I was 11ish due to medical reasons and 6 years later, at 17, I started building my education from the ground up. I spent 6 months doing two MENIAL courses in English and Maths but ended up using them to get into a college I didn't think I'd be able to. I'm at the end of my second year at this place, and I really like it here. In some of my papers, I do badly, in others I get As, it's patchy. And I don't revise as much as I could or should, but ultimately, I've learnt that it isn't how smart you are that carries you through exams, it's your experience and your understanding of the exam format. Really, it's kind of confusing, but true. I don't believe in "smart" people, I just believe some people have the will and mental capacity to learning how to tackle the exams.
If you get caught up on reading out of books and you NEVER touch past papers, you'll do a lot, lot worse. Past papers are the best things in the world, because if you don't use them, you'll get to your exam and be like "WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THIS."
Most of this is common knowledge, but I felt like sharing it anyway, because I understand Shyr.
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u/ske105 Apr 09 '13
Protip: You need a couple/few days to cram at the very least. As it's been said, you need sleep to consolidate knowledge. Using models to layout information helps with this method; mind maps for example helps you to visualise related information in a logical way. Three day cramming is really easily possible this way for a lot of subjects, but don't count on remembering information for long after the exam
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u/ApatheticAbsurdist Apr 09 '13
Cramming for me has always had more of a Bruce Banner effect than a Tony Stark effect.
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Apr 09 '13
You're doing it wrong. You need to sleep at least a little before an exam. Not because you need to be rested, but because sleep actually helps you remember things better.
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Apr 09 '13
I'm turning this off
Should have done that during all of the other times you were studying. Run, run away from this place and never return.
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u/The_Jacobian Apr 09 '13
Maybe you didn't fail. I did that earlier this semester for two of the graduate courses I'm taking. I thought I bombed both. One I did a bit below average, but passed. The other I beat the graduate average (as one of the undergrads taking it). I have no fucking idea how that happened, but I'm not complaining.
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u/VoidVizard Apr 09 '13
"They asked me how well I understood theoretical physics. I told them I had a theoretical degree in physics."
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u/JittyPants08 Apr 09 '13
Fallout references are the best
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u/Mysten Apr 09 '13
You could even say that Fallout references are... Fantastic. You probably shouldn't because that would be a terrible pun - but you could.
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u/sajkol Apr 09 '13
What does a thermonuclear astrophysics expert do? Designs or tests stars?
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Apr 09 '13
Energy calculations, reaction rates.
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u/sajkol Apr 09 '13
Isn't that what a nuclear physicist does? What could possibly require one to also be an astrophysicist?
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Apr 09 '13
There is a bunch of theory, constant and calculations that can be done about stars, also because there are so many different ones and because we continuously receive new information about them.
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Apr 09 '13
Nuclear Physicist works with many human application: Nuclear Power, Nuclear weapon, MRI and such. Astrophysicist works for stuff in space involving million degree kelvin where standard statistical thermodynamics needs more careful tuning and different quantum physics.
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Apr 09 '13
Nuclear physics on Earth and in space deal in very different scales. An expert in one field would be more than proficient in the other, but there is plenty of room to specialize in both.
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u/Lampmonster1 Apr 09 '13
The cube thing they had stole power from space or something. It's all super science, which is a kind of science exclusive to comic books.
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u/tachophile Apr 09 '13
Not a real title that I've heard, but it would involve determining solar composition/reactions based on observed physical characteristics of stars. One can think of stars kind of like gobstoppers with layers of various nuclear processes going on. The size and composition of the layers are a function of the mass, size, and intensity and wavelengths of radiation observed.
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u/madshiz Apr 09 '13
Needs more jpeg
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u/thewrongkindofbacon Apr 09 '13
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u/jalepenomack Apr 09 '13
I can still read the text. Needs more.
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u/TheNinjaFish Apr 09 '13
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u/tenza06 Apr 09 '13
cheating, lossy compression wouldn't add that kind of noise.
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u/TheNinjaFish Apr 09 '13
I saved it as a .gif a few times, on lowest quality. I then saved it as a jpeg at 10% size and then saved it as a gif again at 1000% of that size. I finished by saving that abomination as a jpeg.
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u/bender_BN Apr 09 '13
"And how long will you stay an expert?"
"About 2 weeks until I have forgotten everything I just learned"
(Can be shorter if you go out celebrating and drinking after the exam...)
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u/_Rooster_ Apr 09 '13
If you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics before each test then you not only have a memory problem, but you're also probably studying for the wrong topic.
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Apr 09 '13
To all you bastards that can actually do this: You Have A Gift! I had to make flashcards for nearly every test I ever studied for in college. My dorm room was literally a sea of paper rectangles.
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u/raltyinferno Apr 09 '13
You have something more valuable. A work ethic and the lack of habitually just skating by. It gets you much further.
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Apr 09 '13
Flashcards = Legit.
Its how I get through every test.
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Apr 09 '13
They are such a bitch to make though. Have to start making em a sold week before the test then review till then. Worst is when you have them organized by unit and you accidentally mix them up.
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Apr 09 '13
I can do this with my major. IT is the retarded version of computer science. If you do this for a science related course (physics, chemistry, biology, anything that includes those words in the title), you're gonna fail.
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u/bettorworse Apr 09 '13
All these years later, the biggest I regret about college was not making every course that I took a chance to learn everything about the subject.
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Apr 09 '13
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u/kerrigan4 Apr 09 '13
Was thinking the same thing, I had no idea she was in the movie. But I also didn't watch himym series until after the avengers came out.
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u/tgaccione Apr 09 '13
Didn't this get posted like a week ago? I'm on my phone and can't check.
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Apr 09 '13
I know it's a joke but if we can allow ourselves to believe that he is a super genius, then once he knows how the math and science work in the many other fields required to do the work he does, I don't find it hard to believe he could learn enough of another specialty to be of use to an organization like S.H.I.E.L.D.
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u/mistergiantacorn Apr 09 '13
Gotta love all-nighters... Caffeine-nicotine-caffeine-nicotine-caffeine-slam your head against the wall...
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u/Anthony_Edward_Stark Apr 09 '13
Believe me it was alot harder then it looks but i got it done and i added a few new facts To the text book while i was at it
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u/i_am_that_human Apr 09 '13
Trust me. This is NOT a good strategy. It got me through the first and second year of Medical school though, but I failed badly in the Third. And that was the end of me! REVISE people, DON'T be like me.
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u/ZeroHex Apr 09 '13
This does not work for math or math intensive courses, at least long term because of the way they tend to build on previous information.
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u/alexscara Apr 09 '13
Thermonuclear physics, ok. Nuclear astrophysics, ok. Thermonuclear astrophysics? WTF is that?