How I Was Able to Ace Exams Without Studying

http://zenhabits.net/2010/02/ace-exams/

by oscardelben • 16 years ago

31 32 16 years ago

adelevie2• 16 years ago

The blog post would have been a lot more compelling if it was from someone not out to make money selling his "concepts". I'd be much more interested to read about learning habits from someone with a "real job". For example, how person who accomplished _______ got the skills s/he needed to get to that point.

bhp• 16 years ago

I would usually agree, but the techniques of rapid learning that he introduced make a lot of sense. I've been studying neuroscience recently, and it is well known that the brain learns by linking new information with existing (metaphors and analogies) which is what the article is basically pointing out.

adelevie2• 16 years ago

Those paragraphs about being out of the country and acing an exam with just an hour of prep is Tucker Max-esque sensationalism. It probably says a lot more about the author's college than his amazing methodology.

d4ft2• 16 years ago

Agreed. Further, as a law student in the US, it is quite common for people to keep up with the reading, and then study for a day or so for many of the exams. Granted there are harder exams (and harder teachers) that demand more, but it is fairly trivial in some classes to get an A without too much studying. I would however, be very surprised to find a student who had done no prep, studying for an hour and getting an A. In the law especially, there are some basic ideas, but in many cases, you must have an extremely nuanced understanding to correctly analyze some problems (see, for instance, problems relating to conflicts of laws) and even then might end up missing something. I think this guy is british or a citizen of some british colony, so they may do things differently, but all in all, I think we are not getting the whole story here.

That being said, I do like some of these techniques, and I imagine that if one were to become good at them, they could save time. Would the overhead be worth for most folks? I'm not sure, and I would say, likely not due to dropouts, giver-uppers, and those that already had decent self-developed ways to absorb material.

regularfry• 16 years ago

I think someone's read The 4-hour Work Week. This reads just like the PX Method site.

EDIT: the more I look at it, the more the "oh sorry, our course is sold out - sign up HERE to here about when it reopens" line sounds like a classic Tim Ferriss trick to gauge whether it's worth bothering with or not.

mfalcon• 16 years ago

Unfortunately this ideas doesn't apply for maths related exams.

oscardelben• 16 years ago

I think math is actually one area where you can apply similar techniques. Not sure if it can be compared to the author's technique, but take a look at this http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-develop-a-mindset...

est2• 16 years ago

Unfortunately it applies only to below-highschool math

> Math provides models; understand their relationships and apply them to real-world objects.

Advanced Math like analysis or algebra can be very abstract and sharp, you can't easily find any real-world reference or grab your existing experience. To me, math is like twisting your ideas, blend your thoughts and blow your mind. It's painful but fun :)

est2• 16 years ago

Exactly. Sometimes you have to stare a formula for hours and after tons of practice to achieve comprehension.

pbhjpbhj2• 16 years ago

My greatest struggles in maths were in remembering formulae and reproducing proofs. Generally I'd have to start from basics to reproduce formulae so I could apply them to a problem - this probably meant better understanding of the derivation and application but at the cost of a lot of exam time.

I can see how memorisation techniques would have helped me to improve my exam scores in some exams even though at Uni in some modules I came close to 100% scores.

nazgulnarsil2• 16 years ago

that comment reveals how deeply flawed math instruction is. math is not fundamentally different from other subjects and yes this technique does work for math. I know because i had a differential equations exam friday that I hadn't opened the book on until ~5 hours before the exam.

math should be taught as a natural web of ideas that are intimately connected because that's what it is even more so than any other subject. forget a formula? if you understand the topic you can re-derive it trivially. I've taken this philosophy to such an extreme that I often forget basic facts about manipulation because i know i can just figure it out with a quick proof if need be. but hardly anyone is taught this way. since we never learn to think critically about the methods we're learning from a young age we certainly can't suddenly start in college.

this is the main reason I believe there's such a heavy washout rate in higher math. all of a sudden you have to think critically about what you're actually doing with those symbols on the page and its just an extreme shock because it's literally the first time for many people. this is echoed in A Mathematician's Lament (great read BTW) where the author says that (para) kids who thought they were good at math suddenly discover they were only good at following directions.

maximilian• 16 years ago

This is somewhat misleading. You still have to "study", ie do homework, read the book, and spend time with the material, you just don't expressively stare at notes and solutions for hours the day before the exam, which generally doesn't work too well.

Anybody who does a fantastic job taking in the ideas from material, and connecting it to what they know, and fully understanding homework, etc, will do great in any class without "studying [for the exam]".

pbhjpbhj2• 16 years ago

Your interpretation is at odds to how I understood the article. From what I read he appears to say he does absolutely nothing for a course that is based on a final exam - maybe attending lectures, not sure - and then with merely a couple of hours of study of a textbook is able to ace the exam.

This rather suggest that the exams are badly written if they rely merely on retention of knowledge.

Tichy3• 16 years ago

But how do you read a textbook in one hour?

ErrantX• 16 years ago

I think ultimately you can use the techniques suggested (and many others) to improve your learning. But speed learning is, I think, really hard to develop if your not natural at it.

Im a natural speed learner and always have been; but this comes with some serious side effects too.

My rote learning is pretty poor and I sometimes pass over minutiae. Also while I can quickly learn a topic and sound fairly expert I tend to struggle to fill out the rest of the detail: as a result I know a lot of stuff - but much is in no real depth (that's only partly problematic now; in my fields of interest I have developed the deep knowledge but it was not easy).

Focus is a problem too. I cant concentrate on learning anything for long periods. And hour at most - and if it isnt gone in by then I will move on. A couple of physics text books I bought months ago are still sat on my desk 50% finished because I lost interest in the ending.

These are not techniques you should really try to employ to pass exams. I can do it because it's a natural process for me (scan text books for a few hrs before exam etc.) but friends that have tried the same (and are natural rote learners) struggled to connect information together in the exam.

And a fun anecdote: one of my best final year university exam results was in a class I ignored after the first lecture (Opto electronics, my god it was boring). I skimmed the text book the morning of the exam with a friend and he suggested we go grab a drink because "we really need to go to an exam drunk at least once. and as were going to fail this anyway....". 4 pints and another skim read later we both aced the exam (top marks of the year). It's no proof of course but I think it's interesting evidence that this is a) a skill you either have or not and b) a lot of luck is involved. :)

jonsen• 16 years ago

Your anecdote reminds me of the Danish National Soccer Team winning the European Soccer Contest in 1992. The team didn't qualify for the tournament. All players had started summer vacation, when another team became disqualified or something. The Danish team was called to stand in on a very short notice. No time for any training etc., just merrily playing soccer. And ending up winning the entire contest.

nazgulnarsil2• 16 years ago

* A couple of physics text books I bought months ago are still sat on my desk 50% finished because I lost interest in the ending.*

eh, you didn't miss much. turns out the zirconium did it.

GiraffeNecktie2• 16 years ago

Hey, I was just on my way to rent the movie.

In the future, please preface this kind of message with SPOILER ALERT.

Tichy3• 16 years ago

"I got an A after just one hour of review on the plane."

Even with the best techniques, this can't be the whole story. presumably he had already studied the stuff before (however effectively). I would think in one hour one could not even read all the material.

Also creating those mental hooks also is work and takes time. Not sure if it comes easier after a lot of practice (probably).

corruption2• 16 years ago

I'm one of the "lucky ones". I never studied, hardly went to lectures during my courses and had A's all through school to postgraduate level.

It's not a good thing.

I had no work ethic. Everything came too easy, and never having to work for anything made me lazy.

Luckily I found things that I loved and became experts at them (outside of my course) to keep me from boredom. Then I decided to start my own business, and I've never looked back. I work because I love it, I research because I love it, and know more now than I ever thought possible.

Oh how I wish someone had of introduced me to a challenge ten years earlier and the amazing things that happen when you work hard at something you love.

Tichy3• 16 years ago

How did it work - you just read the book once and you knew the material? What subjects?

I also never studied hard for, say, maths at school. But the fact is, I always voluntarily did my maths homework. Not that it took me long, but still.

clistctrl• 16 years ago

Maybe its just me, but being confined on a plane for an hour is the equivalent to my normal space for 2, or 3 if you're first class (more room to get comfortable) I've had some of my most productive moments while flying.

anonjon• 16 years ago

idk where he want to school or what he majored in, but if he could study for an hour and ace the exam, it seems that he didn't really need to be taking that course in the first place. (Why not just be self taught?)

There are a lot of reasons for getting straight A's, and if you are reasonably smart it is easy to game the system at a university and take courses where you will only have to study for an hour or two (either looking for easy professors, easy subjects or both).

But if you look beyond the grade, it probably isn't worth it to take those courses. I personally measure my intellectual growth in terms of how painful something was for me to learn. If something is really hard and I am struggling, I know that I am working at the appropriate level of difficulty.

I can see how (if these techniques actually work), they would be nice to apply to stuff like foreign language.

_debug_• 16 years ago

Not 100% on-topic, but still :

Does anyone else think mind mapping is more hype than substance? It seems to be an incredible waste of space, for starters, which itself is a put-off for me.

GiraffeNecktie2• 16 years ago

Waste of space??? If you're doing it right, you should be able to take notes in much less space and your notes should be far easier to review, especially if you use colours and doodles to turn them into a real "map of your mind". However, I do think mind mapping on a computer is worse than useless.

arghnoname2• 16 years ago

I don't specifically "mind map" and tend to take more outline-ish structured notes, but then as different things are discussed, or something harkens back to something mentioned earlier, I get scrawl in the margins, arrows pointing back and forth, etc.

I just write down the connections I make while I'm listening to things, without really trying to. I suppose that has a lot of similarities with mind maps. Some subjects have more arrows and lend themselves well to that. Others essentially remain in pure outline formats. There's no one true way to do these things.

teeja• 16 years ago

"study for an hour and ace the exam"

When you're paying to learn what you'll need to know for your career (at some schools $50,000 per year), this attitude toward learning is completely pathetic. It's not smart to do well on tests if that doesn't reflect concrete learning that will stay with you for years.

I hope noone serious about taking advantage of schooling reads this and gives it any consideration.

arghnoname2• 16 years ago

People that spend inordinate sums of money to go to college and then spend all their time there figuring out how to only memorize what is absolutely necessary for the tests, and nothing else, are misguided.

That said, in my experience people that are interested in actually learning the material above and beyond doing well on the tests, learn it during the semester, not one night for the test. An hour refresher before the exam if you've been hitting the books all along is great if you already know the material. it reminds you of minor things that can trip you up on an exam, like some notation or some other minor detail.

Cramming tends to be the symptom of very temporarily obtained information for the sole purpose of grades.

NEPatriot• 16 years ago

Learning should focus on understanding how you learn and retain information verses memorizing facts.

I spent my entire time in K-12 thinking I was average/below average because as a very process oriented learner I needed to make connections with concepts and thoughts in my brain and have those concepts validated. This validation usually comes from the teacher either affirming or denying my assertions but to do this properly would have involved asking 20-30 questions per class (which I certainly wasn't going to do).

Fast forward to college where freedom is aplenty and I started "experimenting" with among other things my learning style. It wasn't easy for me but I finally discovered the method in which my brain best retains information and received high marks.

I'd like to see more of an effort made to help students discover how to learn before actually engaging in the process of learning. It was a life changing experience for me.

How I Was Able to Ace Exams Without Studying

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