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Sleep or study
- Thread starter pepocho
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if you don't rest to let the studying consolidate you're probably wasting your time studying. I'd rather just sleep. if you're going to fail, might as well fail well-rested.
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I usually go to sleep. Then wake up early and "cram" a little bit of more info, so I can brain dump. Usually when I do this, I don't retain a lot but I do have a good grade on my exam. There's no point in falling asleep in the book. So when I know I'm tired I just go to sleep. I'm the person who can feel like 8 hours a sleep on a good 1 hour power nap, but I will feel it later.
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Yeah that is true. I'm pretty much dead after the exam, probably had another class after, so as soon as I got home I would be DONE. I'm trying to get better with studying as soon as I get out of class, and every day after, butttt... not working. So I just keep taking my power naps. Lol.
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Always choose sleep!
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Believe me I know. I work full time, and I'm a single mom. All of my classes have been accelerated. * weeks a piece. So I've taken both half's of the required sciences in one semester. But luckily this is the last of my prereqs. Then I can sleep! Lol! Good luck.
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Study. I can do okay with 3 hours of sleep, and then crash after the exam. Plus there's a lot you can learn in even just 1 hour. So for me, 1 hour of focused studying >>> 1 hour of sleep, as long as I get 3 hours minimum. But I see my choice is in the minority here!
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There's no way in hell someone could do well with just 5 hours of studying for a science class, at least not here. So I would attack the exam with a well-rested mind.
The reason I did so bad freshman year^^, because I thought it was possible.
I would do it if it was for a memorization class like Spanish though.
The reason I did so bad freshman year^^, because I thought it was possible.
I would do it if it was for a memorization class like Spanish though.
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Sleep. I tried a few times to cram when I waited until the absolute last minute to study but it usually turned out poorly. Its just really hard to remember everything that was taught over the course of 4 weeks in one night. Plus you are so tired nothing sticks.
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There's tons of data showing that you can mentally binge and purge, but then you retain nothing.
Your best solution is to develop better study habits and time mgt.
And my best students often tell me that they get a good night's sleep before the exam.
Your best solution is to develop better study habits and time mgt.
And my best students often tell me that they get a good night's sleep before the exam.
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I work best at night...my brain turns on. I would ALWAYS go with the all-nighter, because if I know I'm behind on material, I won't be able to sleep anyway. In HS, where I never did any studying or work at home until the night of the exam, I trained myself to pull up to 3 all-nighters in one week without caffeine.
You are right that this isn't great for long-term retention - you can rock the exam, but you will probably be left with only the important bits after a few months. However, now I also study via Anki, so while that 1 night of studying will only let me remember it long enough to rock the exam (and yes, you can absolutely rock an exam after an all-nighter), the cards I make during that night will keep it in my brain for a long time.
If a strict sleep schedule is necessary for you, then I guess sleep...but most people can manage without one night's sleep, especially with a grade on the line.
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Sleep. Always.
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This lmao. Okay so you get your full night of sleep and wake up alert but feel like arse because you wasted 5+ hours not studying which can easily mean the difference between a C and a D/F. No thanks. Would rather not sleep and study my hardest and know that I did all I could then waste time sleeping
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If it's the final, you've probably taken exams/midterms before it. Unless they added more information/you were failing the previous tests, give it another 90 minutes and try to get 5-6 hours of sleep. You might be able to reason your way through it or see familiar topics.
If it's an exam that has new content or stuff you don't get, I'd pull the all-nighter. You need a plan though. "This is important, let me try to understand these concepts." Or perhaps you need to just cram some things in there and let them leak out on the test (and vow to never let yourself get to this point again/do it again next semester 😀).
You may be tired as hell but when the test is in front of you, you get a pure shot of adrenaline.
If it's an exam that has new content or stuff you don't get, I'd pull the all-nighter. You need a plan though. "This is important, let me try to understand these concepts." Or perhaps you need to just cram some things in there and let them leak out on the test (and vow to never let yourself get to this point again/do it again next semester 😀).
You may be tired as hell but when the test is in front of you, you get a pure shot of adrenaline.
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what's the point of being tired if you're going to do poorly on the exam anyway?
late night cramming on little sleep will hardly be productive.
I'll take your word for it though, you've got more experience with it than I do.
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I think that's the point. If you decide against sleep and go for the all nighter, you have that chance to NOT do poorly. If you sleep, you do poorly.
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or if you sleep you allow the material you've hopefully already studied to consolidate and you get some rest, allowing you to think clearly about the material you've studied.
I'm assuming you've actually read the material at this point and it's the difference between looking at it again and again vs reading it for the first time. If you're reading material for the first time then you're an idiot and might as well stay up and try to cram.
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the point of learning is to learn, not to do well on tests. if you don't know the material to the point that you are failing, then five more hours won't help. flipping through it quickly the morning of helps with regurgitating some of those little details but it's not good for long term retention which is the point.
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Agreed. My opinion for an all nighter was solely if you haven't gone through all the material...which is as you said, idiotic.
D
deleted303591
Study. Don't sleep. This is the end. This is it.
For one class, with *very* long homeworks (took 20 hours to finish one assignment), we had a test covering 5 homeworks that was 40% of our grade. I only did the first homework before studying.
Needless to say, I studied for 60 hours straight. No showering, or breaks, with small snacks. I got a 91% on the test.
This was also before I knew I was really sick with a rare autoimmune disease. I was just trying to hang on.
Just do it.
For one class, with *very* long homeworks (took 20 hours to finish one assignment), we had a test covering 5 homeworks that was 40% of our grade. I only did the first homework before studying.
Needless to say, I studied for 60 hours straight. No showering, or breaks, with small snacks. I got a 91% on the test.
This was also before I knew I was really sick with a rare autoimmune disease. I was just trying to hang on.
Just do it.
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I would study until I fell asleep studying and then continue to study in my sleep.
I tend to dream about thinks I think a lot about right before going to sleep. Worked great for me in college.
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Sleep, you are way less functional sleep-deprived whether you realize it or not. if you could do some brief studying and get some extra sleep you'd be way better off than cramming. Part of the reason why I mowed down organic chemistry was that most people crammed the night before, while I studied a little every day and got a full night's sleep the night before the test. I don't have a mind that can pull off cramming well though. If you can more power to you.
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The worst combo I can think of is "I am now fully awake so that I can focus properly on the full magnitude of my academic inadequacy."
It absolutely will and can help. You've got to put the 5hrs in at some point, it doesn't really matter if they happen to be the 5 directly preceding the test (other than the downsides of sleep dep). I try to do better now, but in college the vast majority of the information I learned was obtained in the 12hrs before a test. Back then, it wasn't "some information + sleep vs more information", it was "no information + sleep vs any information and no sleep". Even in volume-intensive courses such as Anatomy, doing nothing but cramming the night before is sufficient to get the A+...and now that I Anki, those hours of cramming CAN lead to a shocking amount of long-term retention if I use them to make flashcards.
Also, if I tried to sleep only 4hrs I would just sleep through the exam, but that's a separate factor.
Obviously I do everything I can to avoid this situation and this is a rare occurrence, but between work, other work, class, homework, volunteering, EC's... Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I used to be an all-nighter guy, but I've changed my ways. I've discovered it's best to sleep at least a little, then study. I can't function well or learn anything when exhausted, so staying up and fighting to stay focused is a waste of time for me.
Let's say I need to leave my place for a big test 8 hours from now, I'm totally unprepared, and I've been up for the past 16 hours already. This is my game plan:
-Try to stay up studying but I can feel myself not retaining, understanding, and it's a real struggle to stay focused
-Grab a quick 2-3 hours of sleep
-Alarm goes off (I actually have 3 alarm clocks: I set one, two or all of them depending on how much it would suck to sleep through something).
-Hate my life
-Hit snooze
-Pop 100mg of caffeine
-Go back to sleep for a few more glorious minutes
-Wake up to the alarm 10 minutes later feeling awesome, ready to go and mentally focused
-Take shower
-Study for 5 hours
-Before leaving, take another 100-200mg of caffeine
-Go kick butt on the test
-Don't use caffeine again for a week or two to keep tolerance down
Let's say I need to leave my place for a big test 8 hours from now, I'm totally unprepared, and I've been up for the past 16 hours already. This is my game plan:
-Try to stay up studying but I can feel myself not retaining, understanding, and it's a real struggle to stay focused
-Grab a quick 2-3 hours of sleep
-Alarm goes off (I actually have 3 alarm clocks: I set one, two or all of them depending on how much it would suck to sleep through something).
-Hate my life
-Hit snooze
-Pop 100mg of caffeine
-Go back to sleep for a few more glorious minutes
-Wake up to the alarm 10 minutes later feeling awesome, ready to go and mentally focused
-Take shower
-Study for 5 hours
-Before leaving, take another 100-200mg of caffeine
-Go kick butt on the test
-Don't use caffeine again for a week or two to keep tolerance down
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That is less than 1 large Starbucks coffee total...I think your tolerance will be fine!
Glad to see that I'm not the only one who prefers convenient forms of caffeine which you can have on you at all times and take as much as you want, no more!
This sounds shockingly like me, minus the 2-3hrs of sleep. Once I'm asleep, it's damn near permanent. If I'm going to stay up, I don't sleep at all. But man is that post-test nap GLORIOUS!
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Why don't you just try to learn the material prior to the night before? My classmates always post about cramming and I wonder what they hell they were doing for the 3 weeks before the test. Apparently jack sh@t.
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I do, now. Back then I had too much free time and too little motivation. After all, if I could pull a B+ average studying only the nights before my exams and the career I was contemplating at the time didn't need anything better, why study when I could procrastinate?
Now? I study ahead of time and I Anki everything...except occasionally when my 2.5 jobs get in the way more than usual or when I decide to take 3 classes in 8wks or something. Then I still pull the occasional all-nighter.
Beethoven used to count out exactly 60 coffee beans each morning so he could get an exact dose!
I'm a huge fan of caffeine pills for so many reasons - just don't tell people you use them or they'll freak out. Little do they realize that they're consuming a lot more of it, yet not reaping any of the benefits because their tolerance is too high.
The caffeine pill + snooze trick is one of my favorite things now. Really tricks you into feeling like a million bucks when you would otherwise be completely miserable.
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I tell everyone, because they freak out more at the idea that I don't have caffeine at all than at the idea that I take pills. They do assume I'm a caffeine junkie, though, which is amusing as I have maybe 200mg every month or so (plus some tea here and there because it tastes good).
I can't do the snooze trick, but I don't feel miserable after an all-nighter, so I'm OK with that trade.
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I only pulled one all nighter when I was in UG. Crammed for like 10 hours straight. I failed the test. Take from that what you will.
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It's funny, because everyone says to study ahead of time, but when I do that I study exactly the same way for the same amount of time, I just do it sooner. I've never figured out why they are supposed to yield such different results. The difference between cramming and studying ahead, for me, is simply that if something goes wrong when I'm studying ahead of time, I can switch my schedule and just cram later, whereas if something goes wrong while cramming, I'm SOL. All of my poor grades in UG stemmed from precisely that - life interrupting when I had no space for a backup plan. They never occurred because I was studying last minute or cramming - they occurred when something interfered with studying last minute or cramming!
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Study
Every bit of information you cram at the last second could be the difference between getting a question right or wrong
You could get a lot done in 5 hours
Every bit of information you cram at the last second could be the difference between getting a question right or wrong
You could get a lot done in 5 hours
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I would study, but idk, I'm a total insomniac. I pull all nighters all the time, hell sometimes for no reason at all, and honestly I feel fine as long as I'm not in a boring situation, even then its just a loss of focus. Then again, even during breaks I'll sleep around 5-6 hours a night and feel 100%. I once pulled a double all nighter because of some absolutely ridiculous circumstances involving a research experiment, a final exam, and a big research presentation. I ended up doing well on the exam, and on the second sleepless day I drank like 9 cups of coffee before presenting my research to like 7 PhD's, and my PI even told me she was impressed. Although I will say, when the coffee wore off I slept 20 straight hours. I always figure I can sleep later, but this material needs to get in my head NOW.
It's five am right now and I'm eating a jumbo family-sized frozen mashed potato dish with a 10% abv IPA, so maybe I'm a bad person to ask. And yes, I will die early. I'm okay with that.
It's five am right now and I'm eating a jumbo family-sized frozen mashed potato dish with a 10% abv IPA, so maybe I'm a bad person to ask. And yes, I will die early. I'm okay with that.
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This 100% used to be me, only minus the caffeine. On breaks I'd invariably end up sleeping less than during school.
However, now that I have a job with variable hours and 12-hr shifts and, most importantly, an hour commute, I can't afford to do this anymore. I can pull off a 12, then an all-nighter, then an exam, then another 12 (ask me how I know!) but I worry that even when I feel fine, I should NOT be driving a route I know by heart for 1hr each way. Plus, I simply don't have time for that 20hr post-all-nighter crash anymore.
I am happy that I used to be a variable sleeper - I can pull all-nighters without blinking an eye - but the real world eventually caught up to me.
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I think this is my biggest issue with sleep: driving. If I only had to walk, that would be okay. But the thought of being in a one ton death machine at 70mph endangering the lives of those around me really dissuades me from pulling all-nighters.
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SLEEP.
My personal motto in undergrad was actually: "It is better to be awake enough to BS your exam than be too tired to write down the correct answers."
This motto for me was a matter of knowing my limits: I sleep like a rock when I'm sleep deprived, so if I pull an all nighter it actually has to be a full night - watching the sun rise and all. I wouldn't wake up for my exam alarm if I ever fell asleep - I know this from experience, as I actually slept through a final once. Let me tell you, waking up directly into a full blown panic attack is not a pleasant experience.
If you are a heavy sleeper, then sleep well at the expense of studying.
...Honestly though, you should probably just learn to manage your time better.
My personal motto in undergrad was actually: "It is better to be awake enough to BS your exam than be too tired to write down the correct answers."
This motto for me was a matter of knowing my limits: I sleep like a rock when I'm sleep deprived, so if I pull an all nighter it actually has to be a full night - watching the sun rise and all. I wouldn't wake up for my exam alarm if I ever fell asleep - I know this from experience, as I actually slept through a final once. Let me tell you, waking up directly into a full blown panic attack is not a pleasant experience.
If you are a heavy sleeper, then sleep well at the expense of studying. ...Honestly though, you should probably just learn to manage your time better.
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I am the same Re: heavy sleeper. Thus, I only pull full all-nighters. But then, once I pass the 'sleepy' phase of the night, I get a new surge of energy and do not get tired again until the next afternoon.SLEEP.
My personal motto in undergrad was actually: "It is better to be awake enough to BS your exam than be too tired to write down the correct answers."
This motto for me was a matter of knowing my limits: I sleep like a rock when I'm sleep deprived, so if I pull an all nighter it actually has to be a full night - watching the sun rise and all. I wouldn't wake up for my exam alarm if I ever fell asleep - I know this from experience, as I actually slept through a final once. Let me tell you, waking up directly into a full blown panic attack is not a pleasant experience.
...Honestly though, you should probably just learn to manage your time better.
This is why, now that I commute 12+hrs/wk, I turned the back of my station wagon into a bed. I took all of my college bedding - duvet, pillows, something to block the light, etc. - so that whenever I get tired while driving I can pull over and have a good, full 8hrs. Or, if my shifts are tight, I can just sleep at the hospital. I always keep food, a set of PJs, a full set of work clothes (+some workout clothes in case), and a full set of toiletries, so no matter what comes up I can eventually get some rest and wake up prepared for the day without commuting tired.
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Definitely SLEEP! I think we all have so many experiences pulling all nighter and still fail, so yeah, we should have learned our lesson. If you feel the need of study all night, then you probably not ready at all ....... (well some classes work tho)
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Nope. If I pull an all-nighter I get a B+ in the worst case scenario (no prior studying and simultaneous stomach flu). I don't understand how you could NOT do reasonably well if you dedicate an entire night to one course...that's 8-12hrs!
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My thoughts exactly.
If you haven't studied at all yet, how in the world could one think that sleeping would benefit you more than 8 hours of studying?
