Exams

It's exam season! Wheeeeeeeeeblegh. Nobody loves exams, but damnit, we have to take them every semester. We study and we study and then the bloody teachers put random impossible questions and we fail and drop out and get in with the wrong crowd and spend two years in prison for posession... what?

So here's how you should study for exams: cheatsheets. "But Mr. Snuffalupagus," you say, "that's CHEATING!"

Damnit, you. Listen for two seconds. You don't bring them with you to the exam. You just make them. "But Mr. Snuffalupagus," you say, "that's STUPID!"

Stupid? Yes. Idiotic? Yes. But it works. Personally, I learn more making the cheatsheets than I do paying attention to the teacher in class. Granted, I'm practically a superhero when it comes to making cheatsheets, but whose problem is that? Yours, that's whose.

"But Mr. Snuffalupagus," you say, "why cheatsheets?"

"Well, whorebag, you'll find out a couple lines down."

"Oh, ok, sorry."

You see, cheatsheets are basically the most efficient method of storing information modern students are capable of. The process of cramming all that text onto a little tiny 2"x2" piece of paper really forces your brain to sift out all the irrelevant information and leave you with just the points you'll need to know on the exam. Also, in making a cheat sheet, you kind of have to at least look at some sort of notes, or the book, or lecture slides online, or something.

So here's what you do, anytime before the exam: take a standard 3"x5" index card, find all the notes you can from the class in question, and (optionally) a list of all the topics that will be on the exam. Then - this is the tricky part - get everything you'll need for the exam onto that eensy-weensy card. Lists of things, tables, vocabulary, events, people, places - all of these can be compacted into very small formats. Also, put everything in boxes. Here's an examples of a computer science cheat sheet (note: I will NOT be bringing this to the exam - I'm not even being facetious or sarcastic, cheating is wrong):

See that? That's how you do it. That's good stuff. See that highlighting? It's beautiful. That's everything we learned in 4 months, compressed into a miniscule space in about half an hour.