Study smarter, not harder

Valentina Gudino

A student studies for all her classes that she left for the last minute so she can make sure she turns her assignments in on time.

With fall semester finals approaching fast, many students find themselves unsure of what homework to do first, or even how to do it. Throughout the years, students have found different methods to prepare for their finals. Some students begin homework the night it is assigned to space it out, while others may wait until one or two nights before it is due and cram all the info within a few hours. According to a UCLA study, 90% of students who followed a long-term study plan reported doing better on exams.

Senior Makayla Young uses her time each night to do her homework and believes it’s beneficial to her in the long run. 

“When I space out my work, I don’t remember things as well,” Young said. “But also it helps because when you cram it all into one or two nights, you’re not going to retain all the information, so it ends up having the same effect. I feel like you kind of have to space it out, but you also can’t.” 

Sports are a huge time commitment for students, as they mainly practice after school, and oftentimes do not get home until late at night. Later practice times can cause students to have less time to study or struggle to get work done in a timely manner. This leads students to cram the course material in one night. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines cramming as the process used “to study a subject intensively especially for an imminent examination.”

Senior Judah Hoffman has tried other methods regarding studying for exams or tests, but he believes that studying for hours the night before is what works best. 

“I’ve tried other methods, but cramming is what works best for me,” Hoffman said. “When there’s a deadline, I am much more motivated to do the [course]work.”  

Hoffman believes that cramming is favorable for next day tests or quizzes, but makes it difficult to comprehend course material.

 “I would say it’s beneficial to memorize the curriculum, but not understanding the curriculum,” Hoffman said. “You tend to just get the answers instead of actually understanding the work you are doing.” 

Young is a cheerleader at San Marin High School High School and feels as though her sport does not affect her studying time or her time with her friends.

“Most of the time my games are on Fridays so I don’t have anything to do on the weekend, but during the week is typically more like say I get home on a Wednesday and all of my homework is due Thursday, because the day before I decided not to do it all,”  Young said. “It ends up cutting into my time I would typically use.”

Junior Ella Coopersmith does not cram the night before an exam. Instead she chooses to space out her studying once she knows there is an exam. 

“I typically start [studying for an exam] right away to ease the stress,” Coopersmith said. “If my teacher says that I have a test a week ahead of time, I won’t cram the night before”

Coopersmith believes that cramming may potentially work for individual tests, but doesn’t see it as a reliable strategy.

“[Cramming] helps in the moment, but I would say in the long run, you tend to not retain as much of that information,” Coopersmith said.

According to the University of Colorado Boulder’s academic advising and coaching staff, cramming may allow students to get by for a test, but it is not effective for long term learning.  Students who cram will find themselves back to square one when it comes to a cumulative final. 

Not only is it harder for students to retain information by cramming, it has been proven to increase stress levels that could potentially lead to panic during students’ study sessions, according to topuniversities.com.

Additionally, students’ sleep loss impacts their study habits. Cramming often means staying up all night and waking up early to study. Although Hoffman believes that cramming has helped him pass his classes, his schedule is often affected by late night study sessions. 

“I’m just up all night and then up super early in the morning and I usually feel terrible all week,” Hoffman said. 

Ultimately, cramming is something that may work for students, while students have been able to space out their work and maintain a balance between school and extracurricular activities. Spacing out time is useful as it allows students to retain information and remember more specific information, but some students can resort to cramming to get the main ideas of the topic, even if it means giving up sleep to get work done.