I am still exhausted after my 3 hour med school exam yesterday morning which covered topics ranging from cancer to pregnancy.
I’m exhausted not so much by the exam (it was only 3 hours after all), but mostly because of all the work leading up to the exam. For this exam, we covered 6 weeks worth of lecture material – Shelly calculated this to be ~3200 slides. I learned 80% of this material for the first time over the last three days. Yes, you read that right.
My cramming session culminated with me waking up at 5:30am in the morning on less than 5 hours of sleep, where I proceeded to do more cramming right until the exam started at 9am.
I admit this isn’t the first time, and it is unlikely to be the last.
Now, I’m not here to preach cramming to you. I wish I didn’t do it, because it is so damn stressful. 12 hour+ studying days? It’s crazy and exhausting. And there’s no worse feeling than not wanting to fall asleep because you know waking up will only lead to another 15 hour study session.
That being said, cramming is efficient. The less time I spend studying, the more time I can spend doing other things I like. Like writing blog posts! 😉
In any case, whatever your reasons are for wanting to learn how I cram (curiosity, out of time and need tips, lazy by nature), I’m going to tell you straight up what I do. It isn’t pretty and I wouldn’t wish 3200 slide procrastination on anyone. But hey, if you have to do it, then this might help.