How to Cram for an Exam In 24 Hours (2 Step System)

okay so let me guess you've clicked on this video because you have an exam coming up but you're in a bit of trouble right now because you haven't prepared enough and what you're trying to do right now is cram as much information into your mind as possible before your exam and do you know what I'm not even judging you because I have been there and I have done that many many times before but over the last few years of kind of repeating this really bad behavior I have built up the skill of being able to

cram really really well so in this video I'm going to be getting straight to the point and telling you my two-step system on how to cram as effectively as possible the first and most important step to cramming effectively is identifying The Core Concepts of your subject when you are cramming for an exam you physically do not have enough time to go over every single topic in detail and although this may seem like a really bad thing or hindrance it actually isn't a massive issue as one thing that you may have noticed through all of your

years of studying is that a lot of the time when it comes to exams the questions in exams are often based on only a few key Concepts that are applied in different ways this is more forly known as the 8020 rule or praus principle but it's really really important here as what it means is that when you are studying and cramming for an exam you want to identify and focus on these few Core Concepts not everything just these corol Concepts as this will make sure that your cramming is as productive as possible the issue here

is that people are always talking about how you need to identify these high yielding topics and then focus on them but no one seems to talk about how you actually identify them and I understand because it is a bit tricky it can be a bit hard but here is what I want you to do to try and help you identify these Core Concepts or high yielding topics first up whenever you are going through your study book or your notes there will always be key takeaways or things that you remember your teacher emphasizing I want you

to remember these things as these will likely be your core topics second whenever you are studying there will often be chapter introductions or chapter summaries I really really want you to focus on these as they give you information on a really high and broad level but they will also give you Clues on what your core topics will be and third if you have enough time what I want you to do is go through your past papers don't really do them but just read them and skim through them and see what kind of topics kind of

pop up or what kind of questions pop up as once again this will give you Clues on what your Core Concepts and the high yielding topics are that you need to focus on the second step is to use active learning to our advantage okay so now that we've kind of identified the high yielding and Core Concepts that we need to be focusing on what we now want to focus on is actually learning these Topics in the most productive way possible and to do this we need to make sure that we are using active learning strategies

as once again we have limited time and we want to make the most out of the limited time that we have the idea here is that when we are cramming we want to learn in a way that helps us understand and digest the information well enough to be able to go into an exam and perform well and for us to essentially achieve this we need to be studying in a way that makes us uncomfortable our brains need to hurt when we are cramming as this is a good sign that you are learning but also applying

your your knowledge that is why when you are cramming I don't want you to use passive learning techniques like writing notes or rereading notes or highlighting but instead I want you to use Active Learning techniques that will help you actually absorb the information well enough and quickly enough to get a good grade in your exam and for me personally these are the five strategies that I would recommend for cramming first up I would say do practice problems correct these practice problems understand why you went wrong and then do all of this again do it again

that's what I want you to do as by going through this iterative process you will very very quickly understand what the examiners are looking for and understand the Core Concepts the second thing I would say is to dumb it down as much as possible so try your best to explain these really really complex topics to yourself in the simplest way possible the third thing I want you to do is draw I don't care if you can draw or not I don't care if you're an artist or not what I need you to draw is draw

messy diagrams to help you visualize relationships between different topics as trust me this will help your recall and your understanding be 10 times better and it doesn't even take that long so I need you to draw my fourth strategy is interleaving so when you are studying it is natural that you will lose focus over time and that's why it's so important to regularly switch between topics and that is what interleaving is and it may seem like really chaotic but I swear to God interleaving is one of the things that has saved me on so many

occasions so I love interleaving and you need to inter leave fifth would be using pneumonics or acronyms to help you remember stuff so these are more so memorization AIDS rather than Active Learning techniques but they are incredibly helpful as there inevitably will be information that you just have to remember you just have to remember it and that is when these memorization AIDS are really helpful as they help you remember things quite easily and finally this isn't an active learning technique but I need you to have at least a few hours of sleep as sleep will

having at least a few hours of sleep is really really helpful and beneficial for recall of information so you don't need to do all nighter unless you really have to but at least getting like an hour or two or 3 hours of sleep will really really be beneficial for you thank you for watching this video and good luck with your exam