Green’s Dictionary of Slang

intensive learning aimed purely at passing necessary examinations; also attrib.

1840		Westminster Rev. (US edn) 237: ‘Cramming’ — [...] filling the mind with knowledge hastily acquired for a particular occasion.
1856		Webster cited in Hall College Words (rev. edn) 143: cramming. A cant term, in British universities, for the act of preparing a student to pass an examination, by going over the topics with him beforehand, and furnishing him with the requisite answers.
1863		C. Reade Hard Cash I 16: ‘Cramming, love?’ ‘Yes that is the Oxfordish for studying.’.
1872		Daily News 20 Dec. n.p.: [...] success [in competitive examinations] was made to depend very largely on successful cramming, which meant a high-priced crammer [F&H].
1883		Dundee Courier 9 Feb. 2/2: School Boards are turning their attention to the subject of ‘cramming’.
1895		J.S. Wood Yale Yarns 92: All those weeks of cramming.
1907		(con. 1896) in J. London Road (1970) ix: Two friends persuaded him to enter a ‘cramming joint’ known as the University Academy.
1924		P. Marks Plastic Age 139: Suddenly examinations threw their baleful influence over the campus again. Once more the excitement [...], the cramming.
1931		V. Carter ‘University of Missouri Sl.’ in AS VI:3 203: cramming: attempting to learn a full semester’s work, or a part of it, in a very short time.
1949		Cornell (University) Daily Sun 30 Sept. 4: Heavy cramming once or twice a term [W&F].
1950		Sunderland Dly Echo 10 Oct. 2/2: It is probably that there is mucvh less ‘cramming’ than there was, say, 20 to 30 years ago.