College Study Tip #6: Avoid Cram Sessions

We all know cram sessions aren’t effective for retaining information. But they can also cause stress and exhaustion, which doesn’t help you ace exams either. Here are a few tips for better studying.

This post is part of a 10-week series on study tips for college students. (Most of these tips apply equally well to high school students!) Look for one top tip delivered to your inbox weekly on Thursdays in March through May. You can find all the past tips here. 

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As a student, it's easy to fall into the trap of cramming for exams. After all, you have a lot on your plate, so it can be tempting to put off studying until the last minute. 

I’ve been there myself. We creative types — especially if you tend toward perfectionism — are chronic procrastinators. I can’t tell you how often I’ve been up all night writing a paper, and I wish I could tell you that ended after college and grad school. But I’ve pulled a few all-nighters writing professional articles, even in my forties.

So, no judgment here! However, whether we’re talking about writing papers or studying for an exam, research shows cramming is detrimental to learning and performance.

Why Spacing Out Writing & Studying Matters

I constantly remind my students that the best writing happens in revision. And revision works best when the mind has time to “breathe” between rough and final drafts. In other words, your subconscious needs to mull over all those ideas you just wrote down. Often, it’s only then that your best ideas emerge.  

Countless times, I’ve turned in assignments to editors only to have a great thought afterward — when it’s too late to go back and add to my article. 

It’s also hard to self-edit when your writing is too fresh. True, it’s always impossible to be 100% objective about our own work. Because we know what we want meant to say, we don’t recognize places that need more explanation or where we’re being repetitive. And our eyes fill in typos, like missing words or dropped commas.

But the more space you can put between your rough and final drafts, the more objective you can be.

Likewise, cram sessions aren’t effective when studying for an exam. You won’t perform the best because your brain has difficulty retaining so much information at once.

You also haven’t given yourself the time to really “digest” (think critically about) the material. Thus, you won’t move from memorization to comprehension, which is sometimes important for exams — especially if they contain short-answer or essay questions.

But when you space out study sessions, retaining those smaller bites of information is easier. Moreover, you can repeat studying the same material over several sessions, and you know what “they” say: “Repetition is the mother of retention.”

And, of course, your subconscious will have time to mull over the material, so even without necessarily thinking about it, you’ll start to engage more deeply with the course content.

So, here are a few tips for avoiding cram sessions and studying more effectively: 

Start Early

The key to avoiding cramming is to start studying early. If you have a big exam coming up, don’t wait to start until the night before. 

Instead, break up your study sessions into smaller, more manageable chunks. This will give you more time to absorb the material and reduce any exam stress or anxiety. 

In fact, it’s worthwhile to consider reviewing your class notes daily. We discussed reviewing class notes within 24 hours of a class in study tip #3 on taking effective notes.

Similarly, if the assignment is for a paper, plan for time to complete the paper in steps rather than attempting to do everything in one night.

Make a Study Schedule

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Additionally, follow study tip #2 and make a study plan. Write exam dates in your calendar or student planner and work backward. Ensure you’ve included multiple study sessions leading up to the big day. These can even include group study sessions, as discussed in study tip #5. 

Studying in a group is actually an ideal way to avoid cramming. Because you have dates on a calendar when you’ll meet with others, it keeps you accountable.

If you’re working on a paper, remember to think of writing as a process. Rather than sitting down at the last minute to attempt to spit out a paper, start far in advance with brainstorming your topic; coming up with a thesis to guide your writing; doing research and taking notes, if applicable; and writing a rough draft (or three). 

Then ensure there’s some space in your schedule (days or even a week) before you edit your rough draft and turn it into a final draft. 

Even editing can require stages. Always start with the big picture and then work down to what’s called “proofreading” — looking for comma errors, sentence-structure errors, and examining your word choice. After all, it doesn’t make sense to correct on the sentence and word level if you’re going rewrite your sentences anyway when you shift around paragraphs or alter your thesis.

You may even want to plan on time to visit a writing consultant at your university’s writing center. An extra pair of eyes on your work is always helpful because others can spot things in your writing you can’t see. 

Teaser: I’ll be writing a series of tips for writing great papers in the fall! So look out for it at the start of next semester.

Make a Plan for Each Study Session

Make a plan for what you’ll cover in each study session, and stick with it. In other words, don’t go overboard trying to stuff too much in your head. Short study sessions of no more than an hour are best.

So, whether you study alone or in a group, make a list of the topics your exam will cover, and assign yourself (or the group) one topic per study session. Also, ensure you schedule in time for “brain breaks” to give your mind time to absorb and retain.

An ideal study session might look like this:

• Set Your Study Goal (1-2 minutes): Decide what you’ll accomplish and what topics you’ll cover in your study session.

• Study (30-50 minutes): Engage with the material in whatever way works best for you. For example, if studying solo, you can organize notes, make a concept map, make an outline, or actively re-read your textbook while highlighting and annotating. If studying in a group, consider playing any of the quiz games discussed in study tip #5.

• Take a Brain Break (5-10 minutes): Stretch, take a walk, get a snack, listen to some music, or do any other activity that helps your brain rest for a few minutes.

• Review (5 minutes): Come back to your notes and quickly review them.

Use Active Learning Strategies

As discussed in previous tips, including study tip #4, simply reading your textbook is rarely enough. Instead, use active-learning strategies in your solo or group study sessions. 

This could include annotating and marking up your textbook, organizing your notes topically, making flashcards, creating practice quizzes, and playing quiz games with your study group.  

Because you’re not simply passively absorbing information (straight reading), you’re more likely to retain information.

Get Enough Sleep

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One of the biggest problems with all-night cram sessions is the lack of sleep. Even if you get through all the material, you’ll arrive at class exhausted, and your brain won’t be primed to retrieve all that info you stuffed it with.

This may seem like a no-brainer (haha!), but plenty of research, including from UCLA, shows your brain doesn’t perform best on a lack of sleep. So it’s not helpful for college students to skip out on a full 7-9 hours, depending on your body’s needs.

Plus, of course, your brain needs time to process all the information you’ve learned. That’s one of the many things your brain is up to during the night. 

In fact, we’ll be returning to this idea in study tip #9.

Stay Organized

Ensure you keep all your notes and materials for each course in one place so you’re not scrambling to find things when you’re studying. 

We discussed this a little bit in study tip #3 on taking effective notes, but you certainly don’t want to waste precious minutes or hours searching for your lost notes from a crucial lecture.

Even if you prefer taking all your notes in one notebook, it can help to “process” your notes. In other words, once a class is over, go through your notebook and sort the day’s notes into a folder or binder exclusively for that course. You can also, of course, rewrite your notes topically or even make an outline, as discussed in tip #3.

The Bottom Line

Most of us have heard that cramming isn’t an effective study strategy. The bigger problem is that we get overwhelmed with our schedules and put things off — either because we felt we didn’t have the time or because we’re resisting facing it.

I know student life can be tough. As a Ph.D. holder, I have 10 years of higher education! So I’ve definitely been there. Not only is there a lot of work involved in getting a degree, but college also comes with many opportunities for social experiences, such as participating in extracurriculars, that can be just as important to the college experience as your courses themselves.

But, believe it or not, studying actually becomes easier — not just more effective — when you do it in bite sizes. No matter how busy we are, most of us can find a spare 15 to 20 minutes in the day to review class notes. Even as little as 5 minutes can help.

When it comes to resistance, students most often feel it with writing papers. And that’s because we expect to sit down at our computers and type out a finished paper. But this is the wrong place to start. 

The “real” beginning of writing is brainstorming or free-writing your ideas. And there’s no need for this to look like a paper or even be grammatically correct. Realizing this lets you release perfectionism and just mine for the raw material of an essay. Then, you can then go back and shape that material into an actual essay.  

So, now all that’s left is to just do it! ;)

Want More?

• I assign Anne Lamott’s essay on writing a “Shitty First Draft” (link opens to a PDF) every semester. Her advice on writing an essay is timeless and may help you understand the benefits of taking the time to free-write before shaping a working draft.

• If, despite your best intentions, you can’t avoid a cram session, TestTakingTips.com has some advice on how to get the most from it.

What’s New?

• Still immersed in the end-of-semester crunch — as I’m sure many of you are as well. So not much to report on the “home front.” 

What am I Loving Right Now?

• I recently discovered I can tell my phone to play whatever I want on Spotify, completely hands-free. I know, even my husband rolled his eyes that I didn’t already know that. But music can help some students study (others need silence), so even if you only use it for brain breaks, give it a try!

• If you’re into dorm cooking, check out the Kitchen Twins, authors of The Teen Kitchen. Now that the twins are in college, they’re focusing on cooking in the dorm. Although making your own food can be more time-consuming than picking it up from the school cafeteria, it can be a great way to fuel your brain with healthy options during exam season.