Study Smart
To study "smart" and make the most out of your cramming time I generally do the following:
This guide works for pretty much any subject, and can be adapted to your learning style. If you have a course that relies on “Chapters”, “Units”, or “Sections”, try making yourself a study guide for each one before combining them.
1. Make a list of the sections/concepts covered in class
2. Get a red pen, blue pen, and pencil.
3. Circle concepts in the appropriate color (and be honest):
Red = "did we even cover this?"
Blue = "I feel like I could get partial credit on these"
Pencil = "I'm okay at this"
4. Then begin studying by going over the concepts in red. Do practice problems, write out explanations, whatever you need to get the basics down.
Most importantly: stop every 90 minutes (or so), take a deep breath, and review what you just did. Explain it to your friend/pet/water bottle, just take a minute to verbalize what's happened. This is called "chunking", and it's an educational tool to consolidate information by breaking it down into related pieces instead of powering through for rote memorization. By taking a break and reviewing, you're telling your brain "hey, this stuff goes together. These steps are linked".
5. When you've gone through the red, move on to blue. The critical difference is that you don't do the math for these. Punching numbers in your calculator is a waste of time right now. You need to know what equation to use and how. For blue problems you're going to write out the steps until the end, and then explain why you do them.
6. Pencil problems don't need paper. You know how to do these, but you just need to see more of them. Like blue problems, you're not going to do the math. Instead you're going to find your friend/pet/laundry basket, and verbally explain each solution to them. By talking and teaching these solutions you're processing the information in a new modality, making it stick in your brain. If it turns out you can't explain it, then you can find the solution and try to verbally explain what's happening.
7. Erase the concept list and make a new one. You may have discovered that you actually know more about some red concepts than you thought, or that you need to work more on a pencil-problem.