How to Cram for a Psychology Exam

For most students, October doesn't just mean watching the leaves change colors and picking out Halloween decorations, it also means preparing for mid-term exams.

You have probably been told hundreds of times that cramming is a poor way to study for an exam. Hopefully, you have managed to attend your psychology classes and have taken good psychology class notes so far this semester. However, even students with good study habits sometimes find themselves needing to cram the night before a big exam.

While cramming for an exam is definitely not the best way to study (and you certainly shouldn't make a habit of it), there are things you can do to help ensure that your last-minute study session is more effective.

Tara Kuther, Ph.D., About.com's Guide to Graduate School, has a handy reference guide with tips for how to cram for an exam. She suggests prioritizing the topics you are going to study, reviewing class notes and required readings and answering questions about the material in your own words.

Other tips that might come in useful:

• Create a quick outline of the topics that will most likely be on the exam. Put a star next to the subjects that are giving you the most trouble, and then study these topics first. Next, move on to the material that you are more familiar with for a quick refresher.


• Don't take on too much. Trying to learn and entire half-a-semester's worth of material in one night is an impossible task. Instead of trying to cover every single thing, focus on the material that is most likely to appear on the exam. A quick rule of thumb - if your instructor talked about it in class, it is very likely that it will show up on the test. Use your class notes as a guide for what you should focus on in your cram study session.


• Get some sleep. It might be tempting to stay up all night in an attempt to learn as much of the material as you possibly can, but this strategy can backfire. In all likelihood, you will just end up so exhausted and burned out that you won't be able to perform your best on the exam. Instead, study what you can during your cram session, but still try to get some uninterrupted sleep the night before your exam. If you really need more study time, wake up early the next morning and go through your review materials one more time.

Check out a few more tips in this article on cramming for exams from Grace Fleming, About.com's Guide to Homework/Study Tips.

More Psychology Exam Tips

Photo by Svein Halvor Halvorsen

Source: http://psychology.about.com/b/2012/10/18/how-to-cram-for-a-psychology-exam.htm

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