Parent and teacher advice have droned certain so-called “good studying habits” in our heads, but have you ever followed all the trusty tips and still fallen short to expectation? Well it turns out that much of this preparation advice is absolute bogus—detrimental to your recollection and ultimately your GPA, according to psychologists. In fact, finding one designated studying location and powering through hours of a specific topic may actually lead to bombing instead of bonuses. You can bet that parents and teachers didn’t scientifically fact check their advice, so why waste so much time on satisfying conditions that don’t do anything for you? We did the work for you (and your parents and teachers) and found real ways to enhance your learning and ultimately your grade. Follow these scientifically proven study hacks and you’ll be levels ahead of your peers who are obliviously sticking to their sad, inefficient ways. Not only will your recollection be remarkable, but you’ll have a much more enjoyable, dare we say fun, test review experience. So enough with the prep talk—here are five incredible techniques to ace your next exam.
- The World is Your Oyster—er, Studying Location
While you may have been told to find a single study location, such as a quiet carrel in a library or your bedroom desk, studies show that your memory retention improves when you switch the place up. According to a New York Times article, a 1978 psychological study found that college students who had studied a list of forty words in two different locations, with different visual and auditory stimuli, scored far better on a memory retention test than those who had studied repeatedly in the same room (Carey, 2010). One hypothesis about this discrepancy of outcome is that the brain associates the material we wish to memorize to our surroundings, a phenomenon that is partially a result of covert attention: attending to an object without moving our eyes to it. Not only can outside visual information be partially processed during studying, but background auditory information can be partially attended to as well according to a 1953 study by Dr. Colin Cherry. In his research study, participants shadowed an “attended” message in one ear and were told to ignore an “unattended” message in the other ear. While participants were not able to recall specific content from the unattended ear, they were aware there was a message and could sometimes recall general information such as tone and sex of the speaker. Arguably, these results suggest that the noises and sights of the room you are studying in can be processed right along with the information you are seeking to memorize—meaning that you may have a more difficult time recalling that information in different types of environments. Additionally, the senior author of the aforementioned two-room experiment, Dr. Bjork, suggested that a varied outside context can enrich information and in turn slow down forgetting. Not only is switching up your location beneficial to your learning processes, but it is also way more fun and interesting than being trapped at your desk all day! Visit your local garden, travel to different buildings on campus, and don’t be ashamed to travel to new places!
- When it Comes to Memory, Cramming is Damning
According to one survey mentioned in a BBC article, 99% of students admit to cramming—even worse, 72% of students in a 2009 study thought it was more beneficial than spacing for their learning experience (Kornell). Nothing can be further than the truth—in the same study, spacing out learning proved to be more effective for over 90% of the participants. One reason why spacing out learning sessions is such an important study habit is due to a mental process known as consolidation: a time-dependent process which helps to transform experiences into retrievable, long-term memories. The importance of spacing for memory consolidation is demonstrated by a 1984 study, where subjects were separated into three groups to test learning retention—all were taught the same 8 hour statistics class, but some of the participants were taught the entire class in one day and some were taught it over four days (Smith and Rothkopf). The participants that underwent the spaced-out statistics session scored better than those who had the longer session on one day. (Interestingly enough, the same experiment also made a portion of the “four-day” participants learn in different environments, and those people scored best of all). Anyway, one theory of why memory consolidation works is because it allows time for synaptic connections between neurons to strengthen. In fact, it is widely thought that one of the primary purposes of sleep is to provide a space for experiences to consolidate to long-term memories. Spacing out your studies is therefore vital for long-term recollection of what you learn—not only that, but it is much more manageable and less fatiguing than cramming!
- Don’t Recite Terms Over and Over; Play Games Instead
Many students study endlessly with flashcards, skimming over lists of tedious vocabulary terms over and over—not only super boring, but super ineffective. According to the Levels of Processing Theory brought forth by a 1975 Craik and Tulving Study, memorization based on rehearsal is only a very shallow form of processing—one that only leads to short-term retention. In their study, participants were separated into groups and asked to recall words in a variety of ways—one by studying merely physical features, others by confirming whether or the word rhymes with “train,” and others putting the word in context with a sentence. The results show that those who had to imagine the word in a context had the deepest level of recollection, presumably because they needed to visualize the word and its appropriate functions. This type of thinking is believed to lead to a deeper form of mental processing than rote rehearsal with little attention to meaning. Rhyming scored slightly better than memorization, but it still proved to be ineffective compared to the visualization method. The beauty of the Levels of Processing theory is that you get to use creativity to enhance your learning, such as using mnemonic devices, visualization games, and associating the information with yourself. Gone are the days where you sit at your desk like a mindless drone, sifting through lists of hundreds of terms!
- Switch Up Subjects (Before A Burn-Out!)
Many students think that studying one subject for extended periods of time will help them retain information about that subject—after all, you don’t want other information to become confused with the target material! However, this widely held belief is contested by a study by psychologist Dr. Robert Bjork, who asked 120 participants to memorize paintings and the artist who painted them (2008). One group studied six paintings from every artist at a time, switching from artist to artist. The other group studied the paintings in random order, without attention to artist at all—surprisingly, this cluster of people significantly outperformed the other when asked to later identify the artist of each painting. The results suggest that mixing up subjects helps us retain information better than droning hours on particular material, since when you revisit information it helps with the aforementioned consolidation processes. Also, different subjects require different mental processes—some are more logical, others are more creative, with a plethora of in-betweens. Switching from statistics to classical architecture to history can likely reduce mental fatigue in one of these domains, leading to a better studying experience.
- Treat Yo Self After A Long Day of Review
So, you undergo an exhausting, long day of intense studying (though hopefully less exhausting and long due to avid utilization of the techniques above). What now? Luckily, one scientifically proven way to get yourself to study more often is to reward yourself right after the completion of the session. The idea of positive reinforcement was first described by psychologist B.F. Skinner in 1938 while he was conducting research for his theory of operant conditioning. Skinner placed an animal in what is now referred to as a “Skinner Box”: a box which had a lever that the hungry animal could press to dispense food pellets. He found that animals would repeat whatever behavior that occurred that directly or indirectly resulted in the pressing of the lever and dispensing of the food pellets. In this scenario, these pellets were the positive reinforcement that followed a desirable action (pressing a lever) and encouraged these animals to elicit the same action more often in the future. You can supply a positive reinforcement to yourself in much of the same way that Skinner did to his animals—a snack of chocolate ice cream after every two hours of studying, for example, or watching an episode of your favorite show following the learning a new vocabulary list. If you are looking forward to a fun reward as a result of your efforts, it can make a long day of studying much easier and less stressful.
Forget those old study tips eagerly passed onto you by oblivious teachers, parents, and peers who prefer to pull all-nighters and cram information. You are now equipped with all the scientific tools necessary to pull off the best grade possible—all while having a great time. You no longer need to feel guilty about creating a “Renaissance Artists” crossword puzzle while cruising in the Bahamas, followed by a family reenactment of the Revolutionary War and finally a pinã colada break. It’s not luxury; it’s proven science. All your peers will be sitting at their desks at home, pounding through days’ worth of textbook pages only to forget the information days later. When the day after the exam rolls around and your paper gets handed back with a big, visible A, your friends will wonder how many extra hours you piled on—little do they know your secret.
References
Briggs, Saga. (2015). 10 Smart Study Tactics that Support How the Brain Actually Works. InformED. https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/how-does-the-brain-learn-best-10-smart-studying-strategies/
Carey, Benedict. (2010). Forget What You Know about Good Study Habits. The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?auth=login-email&login=email.
Kornell, Nate. (2009). Optimising Learning Using Flashcards: Spacing is More Effective Than Cramming. Applied Cognitive Psychology 23(9).
Kornell, Nate & Bjork, Robert A. (2008). Learning Concepts and Categories: Is Spacing the “Enemy of Induction”?. Association for Psychological Science 19(6).
Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms: an experimental analysis. Appleton-Century.
Smith, S. M., & Rothkopf, E. Z. (1984). Contextual enrichment and distribution of practice in the classroom. Cognition and Instruction, 1(3), 341-358.
Stafford, Tom. (2014). Memory: Why Cramming for Tests Often Fails. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140917-the-worst-way-to-learn
Winerman, Lea (2011) Study Smart. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2011/11/study-smart
Excaliburisas. 