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64 STUDY SMARTS REMEMBERING TIP 10 Keep Each Study Session Short For anyone course, do your studying in short takes. You'll remember more after four one-hour sessions distributed over four days than after one marathon six-hour stint. For textbook reading and note studying, your best timespan is about fifty minutes a course. If you're doing straight memorization, whether math formulas or a foreign language or names and dates, twenty to thirty minutes' time is plenty. That's because you cram in more information when you are rote memorizing than with the other kinds of memory work. Don't try to remember 100 percent all at once, either. Build up your memory little by little. If you remember half your list of conjugations today, pat yourself on the back, put your notes away, and try for a higher number tomorrow. One reason you learn better in short takes is that you use time more efficiently when you're under an imposed time restriction. (Have you noticed how many facts and figures you manage to cram in the day before a big exam?) Another reason is that you're letting your mind do some subconscious work on its own between your study times. (We explained all about this reinforcement value in Remembering Tip 6.) But the most important reason is that your brain gets tired and loses interest after you spend a long time on one subject. Unless you are alert and involved, you'll remember very little for any length of time. Two kinds of study situations are exceptions to the keepit -short rule. One is library research. There, you're moving around and constantly shifting from one book or paper to another. There's enough change of pace to keep you alert for at least several hours. Remembering Tips 65 The other exception is writing a paper. If you stick to the fifty-minute rule, you'll just about have your notes organized and your outline constructed when you'll be forced to pack it in. But that's the point when your brain is teeming with its utmost inspiration. Start writing, and don't stop until you're at least a few pages into the first draft. Then, if you run out of steam, stop for the day. Let your thoughts percolate around in your subconscious. When you pick up next time, copy the last page or so that you've written just to put your mind in the right groove again. In most cases, you will find that the rest of the paper moves along surprisingly easily. ...

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