How to Use Your Mind: A Psychology of Study: Being a Manual for the Use of Students and Teachers in the Administration of Supervised StudyKitson, Harry Dexter
Science
How to Use Your Mind: A Psychology of Study: Being a Manual for the Use of Students and Teachers in the Administration of Supervised Study
Kitson, Harry Dexter
Study skills
Against cramming it may further be urged that the hasty impression of a
mass of new material is not likely to be lasting; particularly is this
true when the cramming is made specifically for a certain examination.
As we saw in the chapter on memory, the intention to remember affects
the firmness of retention, and if the cramming is done merely with
reference to the examination, the facts learned may be forgotten and
never be available for future use. So we may lay it down as a rule that
feverish exertions at the end of a course cannot replace conscientious
work throughout the course. In spite of these objections, however, we
must admit that cramming has some value, if it does not take the form
of new acquisition of facts, but consists more of a manipulation of
facts already learned. As a method of review, it has an eminently
proper place and may well be regarded as indispensable. Some students,
it is true, assert that they derive little benefit from a
pre-examination review, but one is inclined to question their methods.
We have already found that learning is characteristically aided by
reviews, and that recall is facilitated by recency of impression.
Reviewing just before examination serves the memory by providing
repetition and recency, which, as we learned in the chapter on memory,
are conditions for favorable impression.
A further value of cramming is that by means of such a summarizing
review one is able to see facts in a greater number of relations than
before. It too often happens that when facts are taken up in a course
they come in a more or less detached form, but at the conclusion of the
course a review will show the facts in perspective and will disclose
many new relations between them.
Another advantage of cramming is that at such a time, one usually works
at a high plane of efficiency; the task of reviewing in a few hours the
work of an entire course is so huge that the attention is closely
concentrated, impressions are made vividly, and the entire mentality is
tuned up so that facts are well impressed, coordinated and retained.
These advantages are not all present in the more leisurely learning of
a course, so we see that cramming may be regarded as a useful device in
learning.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account