

How I Was Able to Ace Exams Without Studying - oscardelben
http://zenhabits.net/2010/02/ace-exams/

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adelevie
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
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.

~~~
adelevie
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.

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ErrantX
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. :)

~~~
nazgulnarsil
* 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.

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

In the future, please preface this kind of message with _SPOILER ALERT_.

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maximilian
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]".

~~~
pbhjpbhj
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.

~~~
Tichy
But how do you read a textbook in one hour?

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Tichy
"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).

~~~
corruption
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.

~~~
Tichy
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.

~~~
corruption
I didn't read textbooks back then - it was mainly osmosis due to assignments
that had to be done and compulsory labs/tutes I think that got me through. I
do have a very good memory for important things, and a terrible memory for
unimportant things - perhaps it's a filtering mechanism. Years later I learned
about memory techniques that I tend to do naturally (e.g memory palaces et
al).

I fondly remember purposefully going into an exam completely blind, not a
minute of prep and acing it. The year following was exceptionally lazy :(

Regardless I look back and wonder what could have been if only I had actually
studied those topics and found things I enjoyed. Since I skipped so much of it
(spent a lot of time in the sun at university and went clubbing most nights) I
never knew what I was missing. I've since gone back and revisited the
materials and really enjoyed it.

My lesson is that the goal isn't an exam result, it's finding things you find
interesting enough to work hard at. Grades are beside the point entirely. If I
had of gone to lectures and perhaps picked up some research assistant jobs
back then I would have found my calling much earlier.

~~~
d4ft
In essence, you were studying by doing the assignments. I don't see this as
that much different than actually "studying", i.e. sitting in front of the
book and learning the material. You just did it an earlier stage in a
piecemeal way. Most classes are designed so that if you do the work (or
whatever prep) during the course of the semester, you will need little review
by the time the exam comes around. Maybe you are better at not forgetting, but
it doesn't seem like your learning was any better than anyone elses (except
maybe about going to lecture, although I assume many people dont go to lecture
if it was anything like my school).

------
NEPatriot
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.

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

~~~
oscardelben
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...](http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-develop-a-mindset-for-
math/)

~~~
est
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 :)

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teeja
"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.

~~~
arghnoname
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.

------
_debug_
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.

~~~
GiraffeNecktie
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.

~~~
arghnoname
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.

------
anonjon
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.

