The exam period draws closer day by day, and most of the students I know don’t use effective study methods. In this article, I’ll outline what science says about how we can optimise our learning, our ability to focus, and our memory.
The problem with most study methods is that they work best as an idea, not a method. A mind shift needs to occur amongst students and that’s that the brain is like a muscle - you need to put it through hard work in order to make it stronger. Most methods such as highlighting and summarising our work seem like they work because they feel easy to do. The reality is that it’s not the most effective way to study.
In a study by John Dunlosky, various methods of studying were researched. The methods were compared at the end of the paper and then ordered in terms of how useful they were, with [1] being the most useful and [3] being the least useful:
Practice testing and distributed practice (which is a fancy way of saying “testing at different times instead of all at once”) were rated to have the highest use.
Explaining to yourself and interleaving was given an average rating.
Summarising, highlighting, rereading, and using imagery instead of text were all ranked the lowest.
The scary thing is that all the study methods in the third category are the most popular. While tactics such as summarising and highlighting might be useful in certain situations - e.g. keeping yourself awake during a lecture - they are not useful when studying on your own.
Looking at the first and second categories, we can now see that the most effective techniques are practice testing, distributed practice, explaining a concept to yourself, and interleaving. Self-explanation and interleaving are both specific forms of practice testing and distributed practice respectively.
Practice testing
This tactic can be used before and after the lecture.
Before the lecture, you can try testing yourself on the topic. Get a piece of paper and write down as many facts as you know, or try doing some practice problems. By doing this, you will get things wrong and your brain will then make itself more ready to hear the information it needs to get the correct answer. This makes it less likely that your brain will forget the information that you learn in the lecture the next day. After the lecture, you can test yourself on the material you just learned.
Distributed practice
When it comes to distributed practice, the key is to test yourself over and over, not just at regular intervals (e.g. daily) but ideally at increasing intervals (e.g. one day later, then one week later, then one month later, etc). By forcing your brain to work harder, your brain will remember the concepts you learned for a longer period of time, as your brain doesn’t know when it’s going to be tested again. It will feel like a lot of effort, but having at least one practice test has been proven to increase your exam performance by 20%.
There is currently no evidence as to whether you should do distributed practice or repeated study sessions at decreasing (e.g. every 3 days, then 2 days, then 1 day), equal (e.g. daily), or increasing (e.g. 2 days, then 3 days, then 4 days) intervals. But, I can say from personal experience that I have benefitted from studying at increasing intervals. Regardless, the evidence is clear that we need to repeatedly study the concepts we learn. The reasoning behind this is that the brain will forget things that it doesn’t need to remember. However, if we force it to remember something two days after the lecture, it will remember that information for longer.
Having covered the study methods, we need to discuss focus and memory.
Focus
Being able to drop into a focused zone immediately is not possible. In the same way that athletes warm up before exercise, your brain needs to warm up before getting into a focused mode. This can take a while (5-10 minutes), but there are things you can do to decrease that amount of time. The first is meditation, and you can read about that here. The next is based on a study by Lai and Chang, where primary school students were trained to focus. One of the methods in this study had the students focus on a particular point in their environment for 30-60 seconds. This made their brains ready to focus on the next immediate task, which could be studying, exercising, etc. This was proven to be effective for both ADHD and non-ADHD students.
Memory
Apart from repeated studying, aerobic exercises have been found to be beneficial when it comes to enhancing memory. Aerobic or cardio exercise (such as running, swimming, or cycling) causes BNF to be released in the body. This BNF is used to improve the functioning of a particular part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, as outlined in a study by Suzuki. While you don’t need to know this name, you do need to know that this part of your brain is active when you’re doing homework, concentrating in class, or doing any work that’s “brain-heavy”. Aerobic exercises, spaced repetition, and meditation help to increase the performance of your prefrontal cortex.
Ways to test yourself
Pre-class tests: test yourself before the class
Immediate review: test yourself after the class if possible
Teaching: teach the concept to someone else. Whatever you aren’t able to explain is what you can go over again
Flashcards: create questions for yourself during the lecture and test yourself on the lecture concepts; this can also be applied to essays where you can memorise paragraphs and math/physics/compsci problems where you have a model answer at the back and a question in the front. You can use the free flashcard app called Anki for this.
Ways to repeat your testing
Interleaving: instead of studying A, then B, then C, shift your studying around. Study A, then B, then A, then C, then B, then C, then A, etc. While this feels more difficult, your exam results will thank you.
End of day testing: test yourself on the lecture material at the end of the day.
Shoebox method: divide the topics you study into 4 boxes - daily, weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly. If you get something perfect in “daily”, move it to “weekly”. Then move it to “bi-weekly” once you get it right, and so on. However, if you mess something up in “bi-weekly”, you bring it back to “daily” and start again. This way, you’re only focusing on your weakest topics.
2-3-5-7 method: plan your studying in terms of certain intervals - i.e. 2 days before the exam, then 3 days before that day, then 5 days before that day, then 7 days before that day.
Retrospective revision: list out all your topics, and test yourself on each of them. Based on how well you did on the test, set them as red, yellow and green. The next day, choose a “red” topic. Once you’ve tested yourself on that “red”, upgrade it to “yellow”. Once you’ve tested yourself on a “yellow”, upgrade it to “green”. On any given day you study, you must study all the “red” topics first. Once the “reds” are gone, study all the “yellows” first before studying the “greens” etc. Then all your topics will be “green” at the end, because you would have studied all the work you needed to. By focusing on the “worst” colours, you will focus on your weakest topics more.
Use these tools wisely. All the best for the exams!