Cramming For Exams - Pros and Cons

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Cramming study sessions look to be predictable sometimes. Doesn’t matter what your age is, if you have enrollment in the class, there are chances that sometimes you do cramming at night before the exam. People who love strategy state that they study best when under pressure, whereas others just fall into the habit because of their confused schedules. Doesn’t matter what reasoning you have about the special late-night study sessions, you may wonder what are the pros and cons of cramming. Like other arguments, there are both good and bad while considering this approach.

Cramming: Best Friend of Students

Cramming is very important before the exams. For the majority of students, it is routine to stay alert all night to study before the exam. In the classes with multiple option tests, it looks to be quite easier to awake and cramming all night, because is the believed that if you can identify the question, then ruling out different options for the answers becomes really easy. It is seen that more than 33 % of the students cram during the night before the test.

Uniform Integrity
Although a lot of students do cramming, it is not assured whether it helps the students or not. There are diverse types of cramming, and each one looks to give different results while comes to achieving grades. The problem is that even though cramming can help for short-term memory, the memorizing of the study done after a few weeks once the course is completed looks to be going in vain! Certainly, when the cramming is used, it only makes some sense that the storage of information might be contained within the frontal lobe of your brain, whereas long-term memory exists and it would be related to studies which have happened over several weeks or, might be stored in the multiple sections of your brain.

Green Highlighted Region Represents the Anterior Lobe of your Brain
Different universities have revealed the health allegation that one can bring upon her or himself while cramming. However, it also shows that a definite time period of severe stress can be positive for a human body that cramming might look to fall underneath the acute stress category. With acute stress, our body increases fight (epinephrine & norepinephrine), stops reproductive systems, digestion, and boosts the metabolism. Vasodilatation and vasoconstriction also occur, so pumping of blood in definite areas of the brain and body during the regular day’s activities can’t get stimulated often.  Particularly throughout the fight, one becomes extra helpful that might look to help during study for the massive test.

Are there any Additional Effects than only Keeping Information?
Even though cramming can’t be perfect for some people, research should be continued for cramming, stress, and even studying styles. Some people are uncovered against more strain than others; therefore maybe the levels of stress are conciliated, leading to the decreased capability of studying and cramming the night prior to the exam.  Students carry on doing cramming as results are attained on finals and tests. It’s quite possible that cramming might do extra than only getting good grades to students in the exam and it might also assist in training the body with diverse stress activities which otherwise can’t be achieved.

Whatever the reasons might be, the time has come to think about the pros & cons of cramming. Let’s assume that you have some job or playing sports in school. You can argue that cramming is the only thing you can do in the available time. You’ve done that in the past and this has assisted you in maintaining reputation. Cramming can prove to be a useful way to study for the test. It gives birth to one trouble. Last-night cramming for the exams commits details for short-term memory while extending one’s study of material over the time is likely to outcome in maintaining the information in the long-term memory which is good for the overall education. Let’s take a look at the Pros and Cons of cramming: 

Some Advantages of Cramming 

  • Brain Remembers the Information Overnight: You might not have recognized it that when you fall asleep, your brain still continues to work. It indicates that you may study something just before going to sleep and still, your brain works to understand the details, cracking unanswered problems, as well as remembering facts when you go to sleep. The ploy here is getting sufficient night’s sleep with the intention that your brain does have the time to perform the hard work the next morning.
  • Helps to Concentrate: If you have faced hard times in reading the material, producing study sheets, and extracting facts, you can benefit from the last-minute study sessions. If the procrastination has given you a position whereas the cramming session is required, your mind can shift into a results-oriented mode of study. You may prolong keywords, write important facts and definitions, and practice those abbreviated details rapidly as resisted to struggle with the drawn-out procedure. Although it is uncommon, some students discover that self-discipline of time pushes them to maximize the usage of time and achieve better than they might if they had sufficient time available.

Some Disadvantages of Cramming

  • Lack of Timing will make you feel Stressed and Overwhelmed: Without a doubt, the last-minute study may prove overwhelming. The majority of people don’t feel ready if they’ve studied only once, just before the exam. It will make you feel stressed, making it hard to sleep or leave you more stressed than you might be regarding how you’ll do.
  • You won’t get Full Night: As declared above, the sleep is very important for the information processing. What's more, you don’t need to fall asleep or struggle to keep the eyes open, whereas you’re in your classroom the next day. You will feel miserable and you won’t be the sharpest. You can make careless mistakes which you’d never done in other positions if you become over-tired. Whereas every person’s sleep requirements are different, the experts normally recommend that the teenagers should have the sleep of 9 hours in the night, as well as adults, should have the sleep of around 7-8 hours at night.

According to AHD (American Heritage Dictionary), the cramming means study rapidly and concentrate on the examination. Probably, if you haven’t done cramming before, there can be a possibility to do cramming in the future. Why are you Cramming? Perhaps you’ve been unwell and missed the school. Possibly your additional commitments have adopted extra time than you have planned. Perhaps you may not be the most structured person or you may have mastered the ability of procrastination.

There is a physical side to cramming. Cramming gives stress to your entire body. Anxiety and sleeplessness are an awful combination for the final exams. In one study, researchers have found that if the stress lasts for only some hours, it can obstruct brain-cell communication with the areas related to memory and learning. Then what is its answer? Making a chart for study can be useful even with merely one-week preparation for the final exams. These are the skills that you may use for the life after graduation.

Here’s the procedure:

  • Take a paper with 8.5” x 11” size and turn that on its sides.
  • Use a ruler and pencil to divide this paper with 7 columns on the top crossways.
  • Use the ruler and pencil to divide this paper into rows for every class.
  • Label these columns within days of a week.
  • Label these rows with the class titles.
  • Write down the exam time and day for every class.
  • Cross out the remaining days in the chart when you take that exam.
  • Write down the study ideas and times in the remaining boxes. Now at the end of the semester, observe it! Make the study chart and follow it. You will get rewards for your hard work in the end.

How to Avoid the Crisis of Cramming?

The exam time comes every year in a student’s life. At the end of the semester, you face another set of exams. The attention of making preparation for these exams is sufficient to provide anybody a headache. Therefore, what to do for making it different this time? Here are some tips for helping you avoid the crisis of cramming and get ready for the life behind graduation!

Points to be kept in Mind

  • Always keep your graded papers and study as per teacher’s comments.
  • Be as particular as possible. Rather than writing the “study Bio” place “read using the study guide book and highlights the questions to inquire to the teacher.
  • Be prepared to try somewhat new. How you have studied in the middle or high school can’t be effective because the material that you are necessary to study increases in complexity.
  • Be sensible. Think about which classes require the most interest. These will perhaps not be the classes that you like the most however then concentrate on coming up with the ways of making study fun.
  • Correcting your own errors is a great way to study. Only throw away papers after you are sure you will not be tested on the information.
  • Recompense yourself! Nobody said that doing the study is easy. So write what you can do after completing the exams.
  • Stay updated. If you have to miss the class, ensure to bring somebody’s notes. Just rewrite them in selected format or reproduce them to add into your notebook in suitable places.
  • Set the time limits. Rather than writing the “read study handbook” tries “from 1:00 to 1:20 p.m. assessment vocabulary cards.”
  • When taking the chapter test, submit back to the notes and underline any details you memorize for that test. If that was vital enough to have a chapter test, this might come in the semester test.

Conclusion
Cramming is usually a fine approach while incorporated into a bigger study arrangement. Doing revision every day for the upcoming exam will help a lot. Revise the most significant facts at the night for the next day exam. If you are postponing as you are struggling with some topic or might not able to execute a sure short plan, you can hire a teacher to help you. A qualified teacher will help you understand the topic and find out ways of studying more effectively.