The claims that the article documents "one of the world's most efficient studiers" is very bizarre.
He studied 3.5 hrs studying for an exam, not counting any of the time studying the subject in the weeks and months before the exam. That sounds pretty normal. He's not saying he studied 3.5 hrs during the whole semester total and aced the course as a result.
I typically spent 0-15 minutes studying for exams because I was already prepared, always got A or A+ and usually the top score in the class at a renowned program at a top university.
I did well because most the students were not interested in design or engineering and were there because their parents wanted them to study it. These other students (by which I mean asians) would do things like get ahold of the test in advance (cheating) and get together and try to figure out the answers. But they were mostly clueless because they thought cheating would overcome their failure to meaningfully study during the semester. Cheating made their academics much worse because it was a crutch they relied upon rather than bothering to do the necessary work. But the poor results of the cheaters distorted the curve and made it relatively simple for others to get an A: it's not as if I got perfect scores. I remember one class I got something like 20% and that was the highest score in the class. Yeah, it was a difficult test, as it should have been, after all this was engineering school.
Me, I did the projects and read the assignments. Before the exam here are things you should do:
1. Do not study or think about the topic at all.
2. Drink a glass of wine the night before.
3. Go to bed early and get at least 9 hrs sleep.
This assumes you have been keeping up. If you have not been keeping up, cramming won't do squat for you except make you tired and do worse than you would have from just getting some sleep and guessing on the test.
The only studying specifically for a test I would do is to casually flip through my notes a few minutes before the test, where I'd have notes in the margins about things that were easy to get mixed up and such stuff that I had specific problems with. These things I had already spent time mastering in the months or weeks leading up to the exam, I obviously don't bother trying to learn anything for the first time at this point, that's just silly.
One last tip - don't care about grades at all. If you care about grades you'll be motivated to get high grades, which means you'll be drawn to cheat and then you'll end up not actually knowing anything in reality. By not giving a rat's ass what grades you get, you have no motivation whatsoever to get involved in cheating clubs and groups, and will study what you want when you want, and you'll do great.
These other students (by which I mean asians) would do things like get ahold of the test in advance (cheating) and get together and try to figure out the answers.
Wow, I feel sorry for any honest, hard-working asian who's ever crossed your path.
I'm asian, and my method of studying is the similar to the one in the article. But a couple of months ago, to my horror, my own father advised me to use that tactic. (trying to figure out the exam answers in advance using previous exams)
I still keep to my method, but I don't think any discrimination was intended from the grandparent post. It's fairly common for non-passionate people to try to achieve good results without putting in effort to learn the subject. It's a question of whether you value time or learning more.
There is nothing wrong with using previous exams to study for an exam. They are a source of good questions. In fact the article mentions using a test exam! It's the teacher's fault for being lazy about reusing test questions. Many student societies keep a filing cabinet of old exams and I've seen books of old exams published. How about all those SAT prep courses???
"trying to figure out the exam answers in advance using previous exams"
What is wrong with this? My university provides the last six years worth of final exams for every subject, and sometimes the lecturers give you worked solutions for one or two of them. We will often work in groups to come up with solutions so we can practice with them and make sure we've got methods right.
The questions on the exam you take are often completely new (or altered versions of past questions, depending on the lecturer), so it's not cheating at all. But old exams are great practice to make sure you know enough of the formulas and equations to be able to solve the type of questions you will be asked.
His description fits what I saw in computer science: Westerners worked as individuals, Chinese and Indian students formed groups that coded as teams, a method which, at the time, was clearly considered cheating by the faculty. Perhaps today it is more acceptable.
A former roommate who graduated from one of the best, if not the best, Indian school opened my eyes to the rampant cheating that goes on in those hallowed halls. His class was apparently legendary for their cheating. Nonetheless he was a charming and extremely competent individual who, in an alien environment, when the chips were down and there were no Indian classmates to "cooperate" with, hit the books hard and earned his Masters degree admirably.
You are absolutely correct, I should have phrased it better regarding the cheating. My observation was that the organized cheating groups were populated exclusively by asian students. These were the ones that were highly systematized and had repeatable means of obtaining mid terms and finals in advance of the test. I knew about them because as the highest scorer on most tests, I would routinely get invited to join them since I would be able to find the correct answer to the questions. I always declined. It's not true that all asians were members of these groups, and it's also true that white students cheated, but just not in such organized and efficient ways. One thing I discovered was that the existence of the organized groups was a cultural phenomenon. I learned that western style Lone Wolf models of accomplishment are considered inefficient ways to do things. Cooperating and sharing information with one's group is more desirable. Subterfuge, such as getting ahold of a test before the exam, is not considered dishonest at all. But copying from someone else's paper during the actual test is considered dishonest and not done at all. At my school these were nearly all immigrant students and first generation immigrants who had at least some personal upbringing with schools in China and Korea. (Japan I don't know about, I don't recall any Japanese immigrant students in my program.) Anyway the result would be that they would do better on tests than students who did no studying or reading or projects at all, but not as well as those of us who studied and didn't "cheat". For an engineering, sciences, or maths degree, I do believe you have to put in the time. It's not sufficient just to learn the ways that specific problems are worked out.
This is a really difficult thing to discuss because "the cheaters were all asians" sounds disparaging and is impossible to explain fully without elaborate explanation. Subtleties in particular are that it's not considered cheating by the students that do it, but rather is considered smart studying and efficient use of time. Because of this it doesn't indicate dishonesty. As a parallel, consider the industrialization of Japan and China, much of which has depended on copying western designs, industrial espionage, and then, in the long run, often making the process more efficient by taking in feedback from workers at all levels collaborating to improve the overall system (which is perhaps a strength they have that the west doesn't as much). Westerners first faced with these methods have sometimes exclaimed "they are stealing our designs" and "they are cheating", but in the east, copying things makes more sense than reinventing the wheel. However, there are advantages to reinventing the wheel, as one learns about things on a deeper level when inventing it from scratch or first principles rather than simply copying a preexisting method.
Amazing. I'm having a flash back to 1987 when I was taking a computing science 150 course at Coquitlam College - predominately Asian students (Hong Kong) at the time and a significant part of the class already had the exam. They, somehow, had determined that our instructor also taught at BCIT, and, had managed to acquire the exam he used their.
Lo and behold, when the exam was presented, I realized that I'd already seen it, and went to the instructor to let him know.
I'd never really thought that this was a cultural thing, but, in hindsight, it was astonishingly well organized...
It may appear well-organized, but it only takes one clever cookie to figure out the instructor was reusing exams. And that person was just too impressed with himself not to let others know. Let's not underestimate the ingenuity of cmpt students! Perhaps the cultural thing was a hacker thing not an asian thing. Just saying you have to be careful of hindsight. What if the class was not full of Asian students? You wouldn't be mentioning this flashback at all then.
I'm sure neither of you intended to come off as racist here, but I'm not sure this helped...how is assuming that Asians have no genuine interests (read: that they're unmotivated and don't think for themselves) any better than assuming they're cheaters?
I do agree with the rest of the original comment though, this Scott guy sounds like a run-of-the-mill smart person who ended up at a mediocre school, not "one of the world's most efficient studiers." I'm sure 80% of the students at MIT, Stanford, etc would do just as well at his school. Very surprised this made the front page.
By genuine interest I mean interest in the course. They may have genuine interest in art history, but are taking the computing course because of pressure from parents.
It's a slippery slope from generalization to prejudice to racism. Each little step "makes sense" and is innocuous enough. We take many little steps and then we wind up far away from where we started off with.
I've found that this works great when you're sincerely interested in the class but not as well otherwise. I did this for Pattern Recognition, arguably the hardest class I took, with great success. However, for classes like Materials and Fluid Dynamics, which I was much less interested in, it didn't work so well. This is likely due to the fact that I didn't stay as on top of things due to a lack of interest in those classes and had to compensate for it near the end.
I definitely agree with you on the "don't care about grades" issue. The reason you go to school shouldn't be to get a high score but rather to learn and better yourself.
He studied 3.5 hrs studying for an exam, not counting any of the time studying the subject in the weeks and months before the exam. That sounds pretty normal. He's not saying he studied 3.5 hrs during the whole semester total and aced the course as a result.
I typically spent 0-15 minutes studying for exams because I was already prepared, always got A or A+ and usually the top score in the class at a renowned program at a top university.
I did well because most the students were not interested in design or engineering and were there because their parents wanted them to study it. These other students (by which I mean asians) would do things like get ahold of the test in advance (cheating) and get together and try to figure out the answers. But they were mostly clueless because they thought cheating would overcome their failure to meaningfully study during the semester. Cheating made their academics much worse because it was a crutch they relied upon rather than bothering to do the necessary work. But the poor results of the cheaters distorted the curve and made it relatively simple for others to get an A: it's not as if I got perfect scores. I remember one class I got something like 20% and that was the highest score in the class. Yeah, it was a difficult test, as it should have been, after all this was engineering school.
Me, I did the projects and read the assignments. Before the exam here are things you should do:
1. Do not study or think about the topic at all.
2. Drink a glass of wine the night before.
3. Go to bed early and get at least 9 hrs sleep.
This assumes you have been keeping up. If you have not been keeping up, cramming won't do squat for you except make you tired and do worse than you would have from just getting some sleep and guessing on the test.
The only studying specifically for a test I would do is to casually flip through my notes a few minutes before the test, where I'd have notes in the margins about things that were easy to get mixed up and such stuff that I had specific problems with. These things I had already spent time mastering in the months or weeks leading up to the exam, I obviously don't bother trying to learn anything for the first time at this point, that's just silly.
One last tip - don't care about grades at all. If you care about grades you'll be motivated to get high grades, which means you'll be drawn to cheat and then you'll end up not actually knowing anything in reality. By not giving a rat's ass what grades you get, you have no motivation whatsoever to get involved in cheating clubs and groups, and will study what you want when you want, and you'll do great.