Cramming Doesn't Work

I never crammed for an exam in my life. (Okay. Memorizing formulae on cheatsheets doesn't count, and I never did that before High School Calculus.)

Cramming doesn't work because for most exams, the easiest way to crack them is to understand the concepts. And TBH I think understanding and applying those concepts are more important than passing. The best way to learn is to read the book and do exercises to reinforce your understanding. If those aren't to your taste, pay attention in the class and try to make sense of those concepts before you go to bed.

When I used to learn something that is too difficult to grasp in one day, I wake up the next day and try to solve an exercise again. With more creative works like camera or coding, it's to do a new project incorporating these difficulties.

For most of my exams, there's always someone cramming and the average outcome for them isn't well. People cram because they know they don't understand the basics, and they'll score worse if they don't at least utilize rote memorization. Perfect recipe to fail on tricky questions.

I'm still stressed on exam day because I don't want to make silly mistakes, but I don't worry about my knowledge. If I know it, I'll ace the exam. If I don't know it, I can have all the time in the week before and still can't solve it. This is more or less a habit I carried over from my math competition era.

In short: Be prepared, and know I'm well prepared, is my key to cracking exams with pre-defined standards.

Reaffirm Yourself on Your Ability, Before Heading into an Exam Filled with Uncertainties

Challenges in the real world doesn't follow the same recipe. You thought you're well prepared? Think again. A chef didn't cook a meal properly and triggerd a diarrhea of your counterparty. Then you lose the deal. You did everything on your side but maybe you also need to be the chef? Say you can be the chef, but then the counterparty might have family issues.

There's endless possibilities for something to go wrong.

I watched this video by Marc Randolph: Hard Work DOESN'T Equal Success… THIS Does … | Former Netflix CEO. He illustrated the point of how last-minute effort doesn't count with his experience catching flights. No matter whether he runs or not, he will either catch the flight or miss it. He went on to explain that, in many cases, the outcome is determined by a few key factors, while most other details such as running are irrelevant to success. To ensure catching the flight, he ought to get to the airport early.

Randolph also showed how meticulously changing DVD covers, photographs, etc. didn't revolutionize Netflix. It's the one insightful change to subscription model that did. An increased iteration speed helped to achieve that in secondary capacity.

I used to share a similar experience, trying to catch LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) trains from Long Island into Penn Station after flight lessons. The train leaves every hour, so I need to wait for a long time if I miss one. For countless times, I heard the train whistle, sprinted to the platform, only to catch my breath while watching the train speeding away.

We still keep an internal locus of control, boosted with a confidence in preparation, knowing we need not to cram toward success. It's also healthy also admit that the outcome is probablistic, even when we're doing our best. This keeps our anxiety at bay and makes us eye on the horizon, where we can prepare better for the next challenge.

Yet I still believe in the last-minute sprinting and fixing obvious mistakes—What if the train conductor holds the door for a few extra seconds?