Why a few questions a day beat a long cram session
Most of us study by reading our notes again, highlighting the important parts, and cramming the night before a test. It feels productive. Learning research says there's a better way – and it takes less time than you'd think.
Testing yourself is studying
In a well-known experiment, psychologists Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke had students read short passages. Some students then read the passages again; others took a test, writing down everything they could remember. Five minutes later, the students who had re-read did slightly better. But two days later, and again a week later, the students who had tested themselves remembered more.
This is called the testing effect, or retrieval practice: pulling something out of your memory makes it easier to pull out again later. Re-reading feels easier, but that feeling of "I know this" is often misleading.
Answering a question isn't just a way to check what you know. It's one of the best ways to learn it.
A later study by Karpicke and Janell Blunt went further: students who practised recalling a science text learned more than students who built detailed concept maps of it – even on questions that asked them to draw new conclusions.
Spread it out
The second idea is spaced practice (also called distributed practice). If you study something in several shorter sessions spread over days, you remember it longer than if you study it for the same total time in one go. A large review by Nicholas Cepeda and colleagues, which combined the results of hundreds of experiments, found this pattern again and again.
Cramming can get you through tomorrow's test. Spacing is what keeps the knowledge there next month.
What the big review found
In 2013, John Dunlosky and four colleagues reviewed ten popular study techniques. Only two got their highest rating, "high utility": practice testing and distributed practice. Highlighting and re-reading – the techniques students use most – were rated "low utility".
How to use this
- Quiz yourself instead of re-reading. Close the book and try to answer, then check.
- Do a little every day. Ten minutes daily beats an hour once a week.
- Mix old and new. Come back to last week's topics, not only today's.
- Read the explanation when you're wrong. A mistake you understand is a mistake you won't repeat.
- Keep going when it feels hard. Struggling to remember is part of how memory gets stronger.
This is exactly why TONEC STUDY is built around a few short tasks a day, with an explanation after every answer: little and often, with questions instead of re-reading.
The studies
- Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3).
- Karpicke, J. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science, 331(6018).
- Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3).
- Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1).