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The claims that the article documents "one of the world's most efficient studiers" is very bizarre. He studied 3.5 hrs studying for an exam, not counting any o
by bugsy 15y ago
The claims that the article documents "one of the world's most efficient studiers" is very bizarre.
He studied 3.5 hrs studying for an exam, not counting any of the time studying the subject in the weeks and months before the exam. That sounds pretty normal. He's not saying he studied 3.5 hrs during the whole semester total and aced the course as a result.
I typically spent 0-15 minutes studying for exams because I was already prepared, always got A or A+ and usually the top score in the class at a renowned program at a top university.
I did well because most the students were not interested in design or engineering and were there because their parents wanted them to study it. These other students (by which I mean asians) would do things like get ahold of the test in advance (cheating) and get together and try to figure out the answers. But they were mostly clueless because they thought cheating would overcome their failure to meaningfully study during the semester. Cheating made their academics much worse because it was a crutch they relied upon rather than bothering to do the necessary work. But the poor results of the cheaters distorted the curve and made it relatively simple for others to get an A: it's not as if I got perfect scores. I remember one class I got something like 20% and that was the highest score in the class. Yeah, it was a difficult test, as it should have been, after all this was engineering school.
Me, I did the projects and read the assignments. Before the exam here are things you should do:
1. Do not study or think about the topic at all.
2. Drink a glass of wine the night before.
3. Go to bed early and get at least 9 hrs sleep.
This assumes you have been keeping up. If you have not been keeping up, cramming won't do squat for you except make you tired and do worse than you would have from just getting some sleep and guessing on the test.
The only studying specifically for a test I would do is to casually flip through my notes a few minutes before the test, where I'd have notes in the margins about things that were easy to get mixed up and such stuff that I had specific problems with. These things I had already spent time mastering in the months or weeks leading up to the exam, I obviously don't bother trying to learn anything for the first time at this point, that's just silly.
One last tip - don't care about grades at all. If you care about grades you'll be motivated to get high grades, which means you'll be drawn to cheat and then you'll end up not actually knowing anything in reality. By not giving a rat's ass what grades you get, you have no motivation whatsoever to get involved in cheating clubs and groups, and will study what you want when you want, and you'll do great.
- swah 15y agoI've been doing the wine thing with success for years. Always gives me 9 hours of sleep.
- shadowpwner 15y agoGreat advice. However, it seems like a (false) generalization to say that all Asians cheat.
- bugsy 15y agoYou are absolutely correct, I should have phrased it better regarding the cheating. My observation was that the organized cheating groups were populated exclusively by asian students. These were the ones that were highly systematized and had repeatable means of obtaining mid terms and finals in advance of the test. I knew about them because as the highest scorer on most tests, I would routinely get invited to join them since I would be able to find the correct answer to the questions. I always declined. It's not true that all asians were members of these groups, and it's also true that white students cheated, but just not in such organized and efficient ways. One thing I discovered was that the existence of the organized groups was a cultural phenomenon. I learned that western style Lone Wolf models of accomplishment are considered inefficient ways to do things. Cooperating and sharing information with one's group is more desirable. Subterfuge, such as getting ahold of a test before the exam, is not considered dishonest at all. But copying from someone else's paper during the actual test is considered dishonest and not done at all. At my school these were nearly all immigrant students and first generation immigrants who had at least some personal upbringing with schools in China and Korea. (Japan I don't know about, I don't recall any Japanese immigrant students in my program.) Anyway the result would be that they would do better on tests than students who did no studying or reading or projects at all, but not as well as those of us who studied and didn't "cheat". For an engineering, sciences, or maths degree, I do believe you have to put in the time. It's not sufficient just to learn the ways that specific problems are worked out. This is a really difficult thing to discuss because "the cheaters were all asians" sounds disparaging and is impossible to explain fully without elaborate explanation. Subtleties in particular are that it's not considered cheating by the students that do it, but rather is considered smart studying and efficient use of time. Because of this it doesn't indicate dishonesty. As a parallel, consider the industrialization of Japan and China, much of which has depended on copying western designs, industrial espionage, and then, in the long run, often making the process more efficient by taking in feedback from workers at all levels collaborating to improve the overall system (which is perhaps a strength they have that the west doesn't as much). Westerners first faced with these methods have sometimes exclaimed "they are stealing our designs" and "they are cheating", but in the east, copying things makes more sense than reinventing the wheel. However, there are advantages to reinventing the wheel, as one learns about things on a deeper level when inventing it from scratch or first principles rather than simply copying a preexisting method.