Stressus Procrastinatus

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I just finished reading an article on my favorite website, www.cracked.com. I immediately thought of writing about it because I feel there is something we can lean from it.

But first let me just say these guys are my heroes... for real. They always cheer up my day, make me laugh until I'm blue in the face and inform me of the most random useless knowledge (yeah it's worse than a commercial about an asthma drug). Needless to say I'm hooked - in three different ways to be exact; their website, Facebook page and my favorite on-the-go tool, their Android App.

Hi everyone, my name is Janet and I'm a cracked.com junkie! I read at least five articles every day. If I ever get fired from my job it would because of them.

The reason for mentioning them is not just to give them an awesome plug, BUT because they covered the issue of studying for exams in college. Just in time for finals. (Yep, it's all coming together now.) This is their cleanest article I've read so far (these guys are not for the sensitive types, they cuss, a lot!), so I feel comfortable sharing this one with you.

The article is called, "The 7 Dumbest Things Students Do When Cramming for Exams". Sounds intriguing right? I know, it grabbed my attention right away. I said to myself, "Please cracked.com tell ME what I do wrong!" 

It touches on everything from complaining about the exam to highlighting our books until it looks like a hippee got a hold of it. Which  I have to admit I am guilty of doing on occasion. Somehow I truly believe highlighting will help me remember the information, well that and I just really love bright orange highlighters. So dumb... Anyway, as the writer (Luke McKinney) states,

"If you notice yourself lighting a textbook up like TRON fanfic, drop the highlighter. Instead, try writing out the key points of your reading material on a separate page you can study easily and anywhere. If that sounds like too much work, well done, you've just found out why people highlight instead."
 And he's 100 percent right! It's so important to write it out instead of using the pretty colored marker for two reasons. For one you're forcing yourself to actually use your brain and two it's proven that if you use a pencil to write it out your brain is more likely to remember the information. Why? Because of the vibrations it sends up to your brain. Think I'm nuts? Well it's true! Using a pen is too smooth and doesn't allow for vibrations to travel. I dare you to try it.

Another excellent point McKinney makes is to never re-read your notes and texts. Here is his logic...

"If you're in English lit, put down the play you already read, and write a one page essay discussing how Hamlet was the greatest pansy of all time. Do something, anything, which tests your knowledge or makes you actually think, then use your notes to find out what you'd forgotten. Then do the problem again. Instead of sitting and reconfirming, "Yep, I sure can read this language all right!"

Once again he's got a point. I love to believe re-reading my notes is actually helping me studying. But the cold hard fact is that it's not. Really it's just helping me to be even more lazy about studying.

OH! Another thing is nesting... how many of us need to have everything just so before we can even begin to think about studying? I am one of those people. Seriously I have a check list... Coffee, check. Studying materials, check. Classical music, check. The list goes on and I just recently learned that by doing this I'm wasting precious studying time.

I'm infamous for cramming for tests. It's what I do and I do it well. And depending on the subject I have aced many tests using my crazy unorthodox methods. I'm not saying it's a good idea to cram but hey we're college students it's expected of us, right?

So to end this rant of mine, I highly recommend reading this article before you cram for your exam. It will help you loosen up a bit, maybe even laugh.  And who knows you might learn something.

Stay Classy FC,
Janet