How to Cram 4 Months of Studying in 4 Hours (I'll delete this if you don't get A*s)

Summary

In the video, Zain Asif shares a strategy to effectively cram four months' worth of study into four hours, a method he claims to have successfully used in various competitive exams. The core of the approach is to prioritize study material by assessing its importance and your proficiency in each topic, a process he calls 'triaging'. His method involves understanding the type of questions likely to appear, quick skimming of materials, and using mind maps or flowcharts for efficient study. He also emphasizes active recall and mixed question sessions for efficient learning and retention so that students can perform well even when time is running short.

Highlights

• Start by triaging topics to determine what’s important and relevant. Don’t waste time on less significant areas. 🚦
• Engage in strategic cramming using the speed learning cycle for maximum knowledge retention. 💡
• Use skimming, mind mapping, and flowcharts to make study sessions more engaging and fruitful. 🎨
• Regular reviews and mixed question sessions solidify learning and prepare you for exam-like chaos. 🔄

Key Takeaways

• Triaging is key! Prioritize topics based on exam frequency and personal strengths/weaknesses 🗂️.
• Cramming isn't rushing; it's strategic learning! Use the speed learning cycle for efficiency. ⏳
• Mind mapping and flowcharts enhance understanding and memory! They help visualize concepts. 🧠
• Review and recall are crucial. Use spaced repetition to ensure information sticks. 🧩
• Mixed question reviews train your brain to handle the chaotic nature of exams. 💪

Overview

Zain Asif’s video provides a unique approach to last-minute exam cramming. By advocating for a methodical triage system for your study topics, he helps students focus on high-yield areas that will likely appear in exams. This way, you don’t waste your limited time on content that doesn’t benefit your final score.

The strategy is not about skimming through textbooks aimlessly. Instead, Zain encourages the use of mind maps and flowcharts which streamline your study process by visually organizing information. This approach makes learning interactive and less overwhelming.

Finally, Zain emphasizes the importance of reviewing your work through spaced repetition and practicing with mixed question sessions. This prepares you to tackle exams efficiently, training your brain to retrieve information quickly even under pressure. His method is designed to give students the confidence and tools needed for a successful academic performance, even when time is not on their side.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:30: Introduction and Triage Your Topics The chapter introduces a pragmatic method for effective last-minute exam preparation, based on the author's personal experiences. It reassures readers that even with little time remaining, success is achievable through strategic study techniques. The author emphasizes focusing on essential topics, knowing what to skip, efficient study processes, and memory retention strategies. This approach has been successful for the author in various high-stakes academic settings.
• 01:30 - 04:00: Speed Learning Cycle: Initial Questions and Skimming The chapter titled 'Speed Learning Cycle: Initial Questions and Skimming' emphasizes the importance of prioritizing topics before diving into study materials. It introduces the concept of topic triaging, where students assess each subject or topic on their syllabus by asking two critical questions: whether the topic is frequently tested in exams and whether it is a personal weakness. This strategy is part of a comprehensive plan designed to help students achieve significant academic improvement within a short timeframe, regardless of the exact duration available for study.
• 04:00 - 07:00: Building a Solid Foundation Quickly This chapter discusses the process of creating a solid foundation by prioritizing topics based on their commonality and strength. The narrator suggests using a triage table to classify topics into four categories: common and weak, common and strong, uncommon and weak, and uncommon and strong. The table helps to focus on the most important areas, thus maximizing efficiency and effectiveness. The chapter emphasizes that while setting up this triage table may take 1 to 2 hours, it ultimately saves time by minimizing focus on less important areas.
• 07:00 - 09:00: Creating Flowcharts and Mind Mapping The chapter emphasizes the importance of organizing and prioritizing study topics to ensure effective learning and better exam scores. It warns against common mistakes such as studying randomly and not efficiently. The core strategy proposed is the speed learning cycle, which entails initially questioning, skimming, and deeply learning priority topics before exams. Creating flowcharts and mind maps could be a part of this method, aiding in visualizing and understanding the relationships between different topics.
• 09:00 - 11:00: Proper Question Sessions In this chapter titled 'Proper Question Sessions,' the author is about to delve into an analysis of a full question session. Before starting, the author appeals to the audience to subscribe to the channel, noting that a significant portion of viewers have not done so yet. The author emphasizes the importance of subscribing as a form of support for the community. In return, the author promises to continue sharing valuable content and engaging with the audience.
• 11:00 - 13:00: Review and Retention Systems The chapter discusses the initial step in improving retention through systematic review, which is to read past exam or textbook questions. The purpose is twofold: assessing one's current knowledge level by attempting 5 to 10 questions and gaining insight into how topics are typically examined, whether that involves factual recall, understanding processes, or performing calculations.

How to Cram 4 Months of Studying in 4 Hours (I'll delete this if you don't get A*s) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 If your exams are in a few days from now and you've done nothing, honestly speaking, it's not the end of the world. You just have to lock in now and follow this ruthlessly simple cramming method that I've personally used for seven plus years across some of the most competitive exams that I've given in school, university, and now medical school. A lot of which I studied for very little to be honest and alhamdulillah still ended up scoring very highly in. All because I followed these straightforward steps. I'll talk about exactly what's worth studying, what you need to skip, how to do it quickly, and then how to remember all of
• 00:30 - 01:00 it under pressure, whether you have 3, 5, or 12 days. This is your complete plan. Everything that you'll need to pull off the greatest academic comeback of all time. Now, before opening any book, you need to do one thing that 90% of students skip, and that is triaging your topics. And this means for every topic on your syllabus, you ask yourself two questions. Number one, is this tested frequently or infrequently in my exams? This is how I suggest you check it for each subject. Pause and read. And then number two, is this a weakness or a
• 01:00 - 01:30 strength for me? And as we do this, we accordingly add the topics to a triage table. Common and weak topics are your number one priority. Common and strong topics are your number two priority, and uncommon and weak topics are your number three priority. We don't care about the uncommon and the strong ones. This triage table is your filtered focused plan of attack. Yes, this will take 1 to 2 hours to do, but once you've done this, once you've prioritized, you won't waste a single minute on the things that don't matter. There's no doubts. There's
• 01:30 - 02:00 no confusion on whether you're studying the right way or the right things. But if you skip this, you'll do what everyone else does and probably not score very highly. Phase two, now we talk about how to learn all these topics, starting with priority one. But cramming here doesn't mean you rush through everything blindly. It means you get smart and study in a way that gives you the maximum amount of return per hour. And the way we do this is by following the speed learning cycle for every topic that you study before your exam. Now you follow the cycle and you're set. One, the initial questions, two skimming, three, learning for priority one topics, and then four, the
• 02:00 - 02:30 full question session. Let's break it down. But before we dive in, something that's blown my mind recently is that 70% of you are watching aren't subscribed yet. So could I please ask you for a favor before we start? If you've learned anything from these videos over the years, if they made any form of impact, and if you want to support the community that we're building, the free simple thing that you could do is just to hit that button, that subscribe button. And if you can do that, my commitment to you is that I will do everything in my power to continue sharing, teaching, listening to each and every one of you, and helping
• 02:30 - 03:00 you all to the best of my ability. The first step of the cycle is to start by reading as many of the past paper questions or the question bank questions or your textbook questions as possible. Literally just reading these questions and understanding what they're testing. And then you just do five to 10 of them. Now, obviously, I'm doing these five to 10 questions to test my current level of knowledge. But more importantly, I'm reading through as many of these questions as I can to see how this topic is being examined. Is it testing for facts, making me recall processes, or making me do calculations? Because when
• 03:00 - 03:30 you can understand the types of questions that are being assessed, you can study with laser focus. Only learning in the ways that the information can actually be tested. Remember, you're not memorizing a chapter. You're studying for a very specific exam written by specific examiners that are told to test specific things. It's a meta game and you need to learn to play it. And now for step two. Trust me, if you do this step well, it will replace 80% of the reading that you needed to do and will save you hours of revising the wrong things. And what this
• 03:30 - 04:00 step is is a 10-minute skim. Skimming the topics for 10 minutes going through all the pages that you need to just to understand the basics. My suggestion is you use two very easy to understand resources for this. A high yield textbook is really good and then a YouTube video. Because our brains are like children. They need to be taught the ABCs first, then the words, then they connect the words and make the sentences. Not a perfect analogy, but you get me. So, do the ABCs first, the basics. But this is the question I get a lot. What am I actually doing while I'm
• 04:00 - 04:30 skimming? And here it is. Number one, find out what the topic is about. Number two, find out how many sections and what sections this topic is divided up into. And number three, find out which parts of the chapter link with the questions that you just read. This 10-minute skimming turns a 20page chapter into a selective mission. So, don't get stuck here. Set a timer for 10 to 15 minutes maximum per topic. The goal of this is to make your brain feel like it already knows the shape of the topic. Now, step three is where we take the learning to the next level. And to save time, we
• 04:30 - 05:00 only do this for priority one topics, the weak and common ones. For priority two and three, if you don't have time at all, just skim and then jump to the questions. That's more than enough. The reason we don't just jump to questions like everyone tells us to is because learning directly from questions takes way too long. Because think about it, with each question, what are you doing? You're grabbing a fact or two and then chucking it at your brain, hoping it catches it. Whereas, if you actually had a foundation for what this topic was, you'll be able to understand the answers from each and every question a lot quicker. Every mistake you made will be inputed a lot faster. And to build a solid foundation quickly, by the way,
• 05:00 - 05:30 because you don't have much time, all it requires is you do three things. Even if you have 10 seconds before your exam, read all of your information in layers. Practically, this means reading in three phases. First, basics only, then the general concepts, and then in the last read, go through the details and understand them. Regardless of whether it's a small or a big concept, this lets your brain build the concept up like a scaffold and then makes the harder stuff easy to understand because it has that base. Number two, compare in your head
• 05:30 - 06:00 while you read through different concepts and different topics. What's similar between them and what's different. It's far easier to remember atrial versus ventricular problems than it is to remember atrial stuff on its own. The same applies to different types of economic markets or different trig equations. When you can differentiate between them, you're automatically helping your brain learn them. And lastly, mind mapping. The process of creating even a rough mind map that combines multiple topics on a single page in a memorable way is the fastest
• 06:00 - 06:30 most effective way to learn. Full stop. The process of making that mind map. But by the way, if you have less time, I would only make these mind maps for the weak important topics, not for the ones you already know because for beginners mind mapping it takes time. And if you already know the topic daily, then just jump to questions because recall is far more beneficial if you have some understanding already. I'll put the steps here in brief for you to read. But if you want the full method with examples and everything, I've made several videos I'll link here and a completely free PDF guide on mind mapping, the whole method, frequently
• 06:30 - 07:00 asked questions, annotated mind maps, everything you need to get good and learn the basics of mind mapping. Again, free below in the description. And I know for a lot of you, it might seem daunting to learn the skill of mind mapping. Fine, because I get it, you have little time, you have too much to do, but even if you don't make a mind map, do not make notes while you learn the content. I know you're going to default to making the notes, but it's stupid and there's no point to them. Instead, if it's a big topic and there's no high yield resources for it and you feel like you have to make the notes, just make a quick simple flowchart either by hand or by using a tool like
• 07:00 - 07:30 Eraw. It will simplify what you're learning because you'll be able to organize it visually in front of you and compare between the different concepts. Let me show you how I'd make a flowchart for example with the topic using the software. I'd open it up blank template and start adding subheadings to see what the topic is broken up into side by side. Then I'd categorize and I'd add different concepts within each heading. And as I'm doing this, I'll only think of adding the important details that I know I need to understand and remember in this session. What this will do is
• 07:30 - 08:00 help me number one visually organize the topic in front of me so I can see exactly what it's broken up into and which pieces of concepts are within it, which makes it already better at helping me understand than notes ever would. And number two, creating this digital flowchart, this mind map helps me compare between the different concepts within this topic. And this, as I've already explained, is helping you automatically learn the content. There's infinite canvases on here and plenty designs to choose from on this depending on your topic and your goal. And if
• 08:00 - 08:30 you're particularly lazy, you can even use their one-click mind map generator to just AI generate the flowchart of the entire topic that you're studying. And it's a good tool to generate automatically as long as you're not just reading the flowchart, but instead using it to organize this topic in your head, categorizing the information. And remember, you're always finding the links between the different facts and concepts, the similarities, the differences. That is what really trains
• 08:30 - 09:00 your brain to learn faster. Anyways, try out EJ Mind to create those flowcharts for the topic. If you can't actually do the full mind map, this is a good intermediary step. Link in the description to do so. Try it out for free. Again, link in the description. Eraw mind. Please just create the flowcharts with this tool or by hand or even create the mind maps if you have time. But do not waste your precious time making notes. And now step four of the cycle once you've got a decent understanding is when we do a proper question session. This step should be the main focus for most of your topics because a you need to test yourself to
• 09:00 - 09:30 remember and b you need to expose yourself to as many questions as possible before the exam. But again, don't just spam through 500 questions or just check if you're wrong or right and then move on. Instead, you have one job and that is to make use of every single mistake that you make to the maximum. You do this by number one, writing down every single mistake you make on a red topic list so you can review it later. I don't care about what you got right. I only care about what you got wrong. When answering each question, think broader than just the question. It only takes a few seconds to think about the wider topic and how it works. And that bit of
• 09:30 - 10:00 effort I found goes a long way. And number three, go and actually learn from the wrong answers using the practices, the exact ones that we mentioned in the previous step. But on a mini level, number one, layering just for that concept. For example, the basics of it first, then the general, and then only add the the complex details to it. And number two, compare between the different concepts within a topic. It will strengthen the amount you learn. Phase three, review. You've completed the cramming of your topics, four simple steps. But here's the truth that most people miss. Without a proper review
• 10:00 - 10:30 system, at least half of what you try to learn will vanish on exam day. That is why you need to have a retention or review system. And mine is very simple because all it requires you to do is two things. Number one, targeted space reviews and number two, mixed question sessions. Now, for targeted space reviews, first you need to review the topic that you studied, right? Not just by reading your notes, but by recalling. Let's talk about how often you do these reviews for each topic and what you do in them. If I have less than 2 weeks, I follow the 48 hour rule. You can't let
• 10:30 - 11:00 48 hours pass before you review a weak topic again. One or two more reviews should be more than enough. So, if you've learned a weak topic today, you need to recall it either tomorrow or the day after. That's literally it. If you have a lot of topics and very little time, only apply to the weak important topics, the priority one ones. speaking from experience and the science backs it too. Even one proper space recall makes a strong improvement in how much you remember when you're cramming for the exams. So follow it even if you just have a few days. And if you have more than 2 weeks before your exam, follow the day 1, day 4 and day 14 formula.
• 11:00 - 11:30 That means do the topic on day 1, then day four, and then day 10 to 14. Spacing more and more after every repetition is proven to be highly effective for remembering. I've made whole videos on how to build timets for your revision when you're close to exams using space repetition. I'll link them here. And by the way, when you're doing these reviews, do two things. Definitely. Number one, review the red list topics that you made before. And number two, do as many questions as possible, learning actively from each one. As we've said before, keep continuously editing and
• 11:30 - 12:00 adding to that red list as well. Once you've started learning these topics, what you need to start doing almost daily, especially if you're less than 2 weeks or a week before the exam is mixed question reviews. This is the second thing that we're doing to try and repeat and remember as much as we can at the start of the day or at the end of the day, whenever you want to after you've done your learning, do 20, 50, 100, however many mixed questions from all of the weak topics that you've done. From experience, you will feel lazy when you have to do this at the end of the day when you're done and you kind of have to
• 12:00 - 12:30 just push yourself. But the advantage is that if you regularly do these sessions, you'll hit multiple week topics at the same time. So you won't have to schedule them and do topic one on one day, topic three on the other day. You can combine it. You don't bash out in one big session. And also, you teach your brain to switch gears between different questions. Exams aren't topic by topic questions, right? They're they're chaos. And this is how you train your brain to tackle that chaos. Here is the written summary on screen for the full cramming method. It is so important that you space out the revisions and the reviews that you're doing for each of the topics that you're studying. And to make your
• 12:30 - 13:00 life easier, I made a revision timetable video where I space out the topics using space repetition. I I've done it live, so you can literally copy what I'm doing. Anyways, please leave a like if you enjoyed it. Comment down below because literally I've made this video from three comments I got on my previous one. Anyways, I'll see you in the next one.