Has anyone ever received good marks on their finals after cramming?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the effectiveness of cramming for final exams, with participants sharing personal experiences and opinions on whether cramming can lead to good marks. The scope includes anecdotal evidence from various subjects, including mathematics, philosophy, and engineering, as well as reflections on long-term retention of knowledge.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Personal experiences

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants report having received good marks after cramming, with one noting a successful experience in a philosophy midterm after only three hours of study.
  • Others caution against cramming, suggesting it may lead to poor retention of material and inadequate preparation for complex exam questions that require deeper understanding.
  • A participant shared a specific instance of cramming for a Financial Engineering midterm, highlighting the role of collaborative study in their success.
  • One participant expressed that cramming might work for tests requiring rote memorization but is less effective for subjects demanding critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
  • Another participant recounted a negative experience with cramming for an upper-level digital systems design course, resulting in failure, which they noted was a common outcome among peers as well.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants exhibit a mix of experiences and opinions regarding cramming, with no consensus on its effectiveness. While some share positive outcomes, others emphasize the drawbacks and risks associated with this study method.

Contextual Notes

Participants' claims are based on personal experiences and may depend on various factors, including the subject matter, the nature of the exam, and individual study habits. There is no uniform agreement on the effectiveness of cramming across different contexts.

Benzoate
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just out of curiosity, has anyone ever received good marks on their final exams by cramming all the material you learned for the class for two days?

I crammed once for a calculus class, and its no walk in the park I tell ya.
 
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It's possible, I've done it before. The problem is that now I don't remember much at all from that class. Its best to put yourself in a situation where you don't need to cram. That is, keep up with the class all through the semester.
 
Just yesterday.

I had a 2pm exam and didn't start studying until 10:00am in the morning that day.

I'm sure I got an A. I wouldn't recommend going this route though.

I normally make it a priority to actually fully understand the material. Therefore, I don't have to study that much because it all makes sense.
 
It depends on the class. I've never been success in doing that for a math exam. I crammed for about 3hrs for a philosophy midterm and got 90%.
 
I actually find cramming works best. Not so much for exams when you have a whole years worth of stuff to know but for tests and that cramming works best for me :D
 
k3N70n said:
It depends on the class. I've never been success in doing that for a math exam. I crammed for about 3hrs for a philosophy midterm and got 90%.

Man, I just remembered. I had this midterm once and started studying like 40 minutes beforehand.
 
ha ha. What class was that for??
 
It was Financial Engineering.

I was lucky though. I had a cute girl who stopped by when I just started, and we studied together. She was just in my class but I never really talked to her before. Anyways, so we just ended up testing each other non-stop for 30 minutes. I understood the material. It was just a matter of remembering the formulas.

So, as soon as the midterm started, I wrote all the formulas in the margins.

We studied again for the final along with two other girls who are really fun. If it weren't for them, I probably wouldn't have done as well as I did.
 
I definitely discourage cramming, but have I done it at one time or another? Sure. We've all made that mistake. Once in a while there's a class you can get away with doing that, because it's mostly rote memorization to answer a fill-in-the-bubble test...just hope you never need that knowledge again, because you'll forget it as fast as you learned it.

But, if you actually get challenging questions that require thinking, problem-solving, or written-out answers, you're really going to be in trouble if you cram...besides not being able to learn the material in the depth needed, you're also going to be just plain exhausted and not thinking clearly enough to even get the stuff you do know right.
 
  • #10
Just did that with a upper-level digital systems design course -- it did not help! I failed that test like no other, but so did my fellow peers, so it's all good. I guess?
 

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