An innovative proposal to stop exam over-preparation, plus William Bateson’s 1924 take on the previous century of biology, in the weekly dip into Nature’s archive. Snippets from Nature’s past.

"Cramming does not work at the higher levels of high school," says Rosalind Cartwright, professor and chairman of the department of psychology at Rush University.

This 53 minutes of footage has been watched almost 500,000 times. Study time. As the school year comes to a close, lots of students are cramming for finals. Some are doing it on camera.

Though cramming is officially denounced, yet there is scarcely anything which is in greater demand; and, so long as this is the case, candidates will of course insist, in spite of their teachers ...