With the countdown to the last day of school and the excitement of summer upon the student body, students start to prepare for the final battle: finals week. While all-nighter study sessions and quick answers through AI are a go to for many students for studying nowadays, here are three study techniques that are backed by science, to help you work with your brain, not against it.
Active Recall (Also Known As Testing Yourself)
Re-reading notes is about as useful as reading a textbook and expecting to remember it all. Allowing your brain to pull stored information is one of the most effective ways to do well on a test, as it mimics what your brain will be doing come finals day. Active recall activates this “testing mode” where information from your short term memory moves to your long term memory.
Paired with spaced repetition, this method is widely known as the most effective when it comes to retaining what is learned. This strategy also prevents the “illusion of competence” when passive studying starts to feel familiar but not actually known. When studying, replace rereading pages of notes to doing practice tests or flashcards.
Spaced Repetition
The “forgetting curve” principle, famously identified by psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, states that memory retention declines rapidly within days or hours of information being digested if there is no review. Reviewing material over repeated intervals ensures that the information is being retained in our long term memories.
So while some swear the “cram it all in one night” strategy, it is worth starting to schedule studying using the 2357 method. Plan for a review session the day before the exam, then two days before the exam, then count back three days and add another review session then count back five days and so on. Scheduling these study sessions allows for your brain to actually remember what is taught, which will serve you beyond the score you get on your final.
The Feynman Technique (Teaching Concepts)
Named after Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, the Feynman technique involves four steps: study a concept, teach it in simple terms, refine your learning and identify gaps in knowledge. While all steps have proved to bring success, the one I want to highlight is teaching hard concepts.
Imagine a second grader is sitting in front of you needing to learn all about AP Calc. Way too complicated, right? That’s where teaching these concepts in the simplest of ways can help. Coming up with analogies or puns that remind you of what the concepts are is another part of this equation.
Whether you take my advice or stick to your usual ways of studying, or not studying, remember that there are ways to work with your brain and get a score higher than you imagined.
