If you have never had to cram the night before a big test, consider yourself lucky. A study done by the BBC reports 99 percent of students admit to cramming for their exams. Whether you only cram for tests as a last resort, or do so on a regular basis, we can all agree that it’s not the best study method. According to the Washington Post, cramming is often the result of procrastination and tends to only be effective for short-term memory.
Unfortunately, cramming is not the only dangerous habit that tempts students. Cramming not only fails to help long-term memory, but also deprives students of their recommended 7–9 hours of sleep.
According to Professor of Cognitive Science Carmel Levitan, sleep is essential for building memory.
“The thing I wish all of my students would do would be to sleep more […] one of the best things you can do if you want to remember things is to get sleep,” Levitan said.
Getting better sleep also allows students to pay more attention inside the classroom, permitting students to take notes so they can better understand the material. I remember numerous times when I persisted studying late into the night, only to forget all of the information when given the test. Eventually, I discovered that going to sleep at a reasonable hour helps retain the information. The way we take notes during lectures also greatly impacts how much of the material we remember.
“It’s actually more effective to take notes in a way where you’re trying to integrate the information or reflect on it as you’re writing it down,” Levitan said.
According to Department Chair of Psychology Professor Andrew Shtulman, including different representations of the same concept or topic in one’s notes helps students remember material by giving them multiple ways to retrieve the information.
Assistant Professor of Psychology Jamie Amemiya said she thinks handwritten notes are better than typed notes, because it allows students to personalize them by making connections, rather than just typing left to right on the computer.
I have found taking notes and explaining concepts to both be incredibly helpful when preparing for tests. During high school I began taking history tests orally, and by pretending to teach a lecture, I developed a more thorough understanding of the material.
According to Levitan, Amemiya and Shtulman, self-testing is a great study strategy for students to employ.
“When you start to test yourself on the material, even if you don’t recall it, when you look up the answer, you are strengthening the memory representation, so the testing forms a stronger memory in and of itself,” Shtulman said.
A crucial part of self-testing is forcing yourself to explain all the concepts and taking note of the ones you cannot understand, rather than passively looking over flashcards. According to Amemiya, connecting concepts when studying separates the novices, who learn things isolated from each other, from the experts, who can easily link concepts together.
“It’s a process of integrating what you’re learning into prior knowledge,” Shtulman said. “One strategy is to organize the material into categories that are meaningful to you rather than the categories in which the material was presented or the order in which it was presented.”
Speaking, or rather writing, about explaining concepts and connections brings us to explaining the concept to someone else.
“Having students generate and talk out loud [about] what they just heard and explain it to someone else […] really helps you identify your gaps in the knowledge and it facilitates more learning because you’re like ‘Oh this is the thing I don’t understand,’” Amemiya said.
The last element brought up by Shtulman was how crucial it is for students to learn to manage their time effectively when studying.
“Introducing spacing in between your study sessions is helpful […] space study is always better than mass study, although it’s hard to accomplish that given a very tight schedule in the semester,” Stulman said. “One way of accomplishing it is to review the material you learn that day at night rather than waiting until the night before the exam, like continual review.”
I know it’s hard not to fall to the temptation of procrastination because it serves our short-term memory — which helps when the test is the next day. However, college classes are designed so the material continues to build, and concepts do not remain isolated. If these methods don’t work for you, find the ones that do and adapt your study schedule to maximize academic success.
Contact Arlo Gallati at gallati@oxy.edu
