As high school education–and even education in middle school, elementary school, and in general–gets more and more complex, there is a growing demand for tools and tricks that help students to manage ever-growing quantities of data. Whereas students a few years ago might have needed to memorize a more basic and less intimidating set of facts about a given topic, students in the modern classroom are now expected to remember quite a bit more information. Indeed, many high school classes now are so comprehensive in the topics that they cover that many can be used toward college credit, should the student do well in the class, score well on the necessary test, and choose to attend a school which has a policy of accepting those courses.

Although it is always easy to get sucked in to the latest technological craze when it comes to finding the best way to store, manage, and access information, sometimes the best method is one that is tried and true and, in many instances, actually extremely low tech. Once that works well in this case is the \’cheat sheet.\’ Don\’t be fooled by the name, because a cheat sheet can be a useful and valuable educational tool without any dishonest or dishonorable implications.

A \’cheat sheet\’ is essentially just a whole lot of important information on a given subject that a student has copied down onto a single sheet of paper. Often these are done by hand, with little regard for formatting or white space so as to cram in the largest quantity of information possible. The cheat sheet is so named because they were originally used by students to actually cheat on tests. The idea was to store a lot of information on something small so that they could produce it unobtrusively during a test. Although there are, unfortunately, students who still hope to pull off such stunts, most people today use the term to describe a piece of paper that contains a lot of information that students use to study for a test.

There are certain situations where teachers will allow students to use a cheat sheet during the actual test. They might, for example, say that a student is allowed one three by five inch index card with as much information as that student can cram into the space. This is a somewhat controversial policy to adopt, as one could certainly argue that the student is not proving anything by copying answers from one piece of paper to another, but that is another topic.

The cheat sheet, in its more common implementation, is still a great tool. Just the act of creating one can be a good way for students to focus on the information they are recording, and to organize it into more important components and less important ones. Then, once they have it, they have all that they need to study the bulk of whatever will be on the upcoming test in a small and convenient package that they can easily carry around with them almost anywhere. Then, when the test is over, they still have a helpful summary to refer back to for final exams or other situations, so the usefulness of this tool goes beyond simply the next big test.

Author Bio: Diana Washington writes on various topics connected to education, with particular attention paid to teaching, preparing for standardized tests, and finding LSAT Prep Courses, a significant concern for thousands of students hoping to go to law school. She is a staff writer for the Test Preparation Blog Testing Is Easy.

Category: Education
Keywords: cheat sheet,high school, class, school, students,studying