it really depends on the situation. the gold standard for retaining knowledge is short, active (ie, not just re-reading notes/books) study sessions spread out o

it really depends on the situation. the gold standard for retaining knowledge is short, active (ie, not just re-reading notes/books) study sessions spread out over many days. but this takes a lot of time discipline. if you don't care about the material and just want to pass the test, I find dumb cramming methods like retyping all the professor's powerpoints the night before work pretty well. I got lots of As in classes I didn't care about that way. I forgot almost all the material later, but it left me with more time to study properly for stuff I was actually interested in.