Pittman 1

Linzie Pittman

College Comp. 1

3.2

How to Avoid Cramming

“Test tomorrow on chapter 27, look over the reading checks. Oh yeah, make sure you know the

vocabulary words too!” Mr. Nordine knows just how to end a Tuesday geography class. I have known

about this test since last Friday, and somehow have YET to read the stinkin’ chapter. We had gone over

the content, which happens to be on the Chinese dynasties, on Friday. I had been meaning to look at the

rest of the chapter all weekend. It never happened. Now, I have to re-learn everything he taught me,

plus the topics we had to do independently. I tend to do this a lot; it leads to cramming in Mrs.

Wheeler’s class. Cramming consequently leads to me falling a day behind in Health Careers. It’s a

vicious cycle.

This habit will not work out too well in college, especially because I will want to retain a lot of

the information that I am getting in class. Cramming doesn’t keep things in my head for long term. It

does however work perfectly to remember the things long enough to get a decent grade on the test.

One way to avoid having to cram is by doing assignments in smaller sections. In tenth grade I

had Mrs. Hoglo for geometry. On Monday she would hand us each a piece of paper with all of our

assignments for the week listed on it. Friday the assignments would be due. It took me a whole quarter

to figure out that it would be much smarter to do an assignment or two a day versus doing six

assignments until midnight Thursday. I learned this the hard way but, the second quarter went much

more smoothly. By doing an assignment a night, I could build on what I knew and by Thursday’s

assignment I had the material down!

 Pittman 2

Cramming can also be avoided by making sure you know what’s up. If you got lost on the

electron configuration lab in chemistry, chances are you aren’t going to be able to figure out how to

determine reactions. You need to either talk with the teacher or do extra studying to make sure you

don’t fall behind! Tests and quizzes come quick and if your understanding of the topic isn’t where it

needs to be then you need to take care of it RIGHT AWAY!