Study Smarts: How to Learn More in Less Time

6. Space Out Your Practice Times

Remembering Tips SS REMEMBERING TIP 6 Space Out Your Practice Times Since your subconscious pitches in to help reinforce your memory between study sessions while you're asleep and while you're doing other things, take advantage of it. Space out practice times so that, in between, your subconscious keeps working. It takes no extra effort at all to get the benefit of subconscious reinforcement. Another element that makes spaced practice doubly effective is called the Zeigarnik effect after its discoverer. According to the Zeigarnik effect, the brain tends to keep remembering things that it hasn't finished with, and tends to forget-at least consciously-things it is convinced it won't need to remember anymore. It is this quality that makes it hard for us to remember any of those dates we knew cold for last year's exam. That's why we told you in Remembering Tip 1 to study with the intention of remembering for a long time. The great thing for students about the way the mind keeps remembering on its own is that you can sneak in some totally painless study while eating or running or dancing. Left to its own devices, the mind chooses an interesting problem to keep working on. For most of us, the subjects that are interesting are the ones we are doing best in. To trick your mind into working on a hard topic, start it on the right track. Take a minute or two-at the dance or on the court-to consciously focus on the ideas or facts that you would like reinforced. As with all free benefits in life, there's a point of dimmishing return. If you space out your reviews too much, you begin to forget. For most subjects and most people, the ideal spacing is as follows: 56 STUDY SMARTS Ist review: five to ten minutes after learning 2nd review: later the same day 3rd review: one week later 4th review: one month later 5th review: just before the exam Your ideal spacing may be smaller or greater. For subjects that are difficult or boring, you may need up to twice as many reviews. (That's one reason we suggested that you play it smart and work up as much enthusiasm as you can from the beginning.) The more memory work in a course, the more practice you need, too. To take further advantage of spaced-out reinforcement, break up your final test review time into two periods. First, study during the evening before the exam. (But stop as soon as alertness fades. You'll start messing up your brain signals if you try to remember when you're overtired.) Then reinforce your memory once more, briefly, after you wake up. How do you get that first review, the one that comes five or ten minutes after learning? If it's out-of-class learning, it's easy. Just close the book, get some soda or a candy bar, or take some other short break. (Keep it short!) Then sit down and write everything you're supposed to remember: summary , names, dates, rules, what-have-you. (This is the time to write those textbook chapter notes we talked about in Learning Tips 5 and 9.) Once you've got them down, check back to make sure that your memory is correct. In this case, the second review should be a fast checklist review of each subject's main ideas just before you close shop for the night. Five minutes' attention to each subject is sufficient. If you're reviewing classroom learning, grab the time for it while you're heading for your next class: do a mental review of the main points. (But leave yourself five minutes to preview-to get your head in the right frame of reference for the lecture that is coming up next.) For your second review, in the evening, read your class notes and develop your clue words. (See Learning Tip 9.) Remembering Tips 57 A two-minute review of yesterday's material. at the beginning of today's lecture or homework assignment. is an alternate way to get the second review time in. (In Remembering Tip 9 we will suggest many ways to review.) All along, it's important to test your memory-to see how much you can recall without referring to previous notes-and then to check your memory to make sure it...