Advice Column: How to Most Effectively Study

This is quite possibly the most useful thing I can post for you guys. Being able to study both effectively and efficiently in college is an invaluable skill that will determine how well we do in school, and consequently how well we do in the "real world".

I'm not going to lie when I say that it took me a full 3 semesters to figure out my study groove. I guess I just ended up being the "late bloomer"......

Anyway, what's super cool is this semester I was fortunate enough to be able to take a class on Human Memory. Of course one of the lectures happened to be about fool-proof study habits that help you retain the things you study longer, and more efficiently. This wasn't just a cheesy "study every day, create your own study guide" type lecture either. These tactics were tested by researchers several times over, with relatively large subject groups.

In one research study, there were 10 study strategies tested, and only 3 were found to actually be effective (which I will elaborate on later in the post):

1) Elaborative Interrogation- generating possible explanations for a given fact you are trying to remember.

2) Self Explanation- generating explanations for how new information you are learning is related to information you already know.

3) The Testing Effect- actually being tested on the material

The first method, Elaborative Interrogation, is essentially asking yourself "why?" when learning a particular fact. Then generating an answer as to why that fact may be true. For example, let's say I find out that the campus has decided to extend the hours of all the food-serving places another two hours into the night. I might ask "why is this the case?". An explanation could be to get more business, to cater to students staying up late to study, etc. According to the study, generating explanations such as these could really help with long-term memory retention.

The second method, Self Explanation, sounds very similar to the first method, but is different in that you are more so reasoning the fact given information you already know. To go along with the previous example, I would ask the same "why" question, and then think "well that makes sense because *insert restaurant here* was open at 10 last night when it usually closes at 9".

Funny enough, the third method, The Testing Effect, was found to be BY FAR the most effective when it came to retaining information in the long term. This probably explains that, despite the fact that we get terrible testing anxiety and feel that tests produce unnecessary stress, schools and universities still insist on giving us midterms and finals. It turns out that when you "test" yourself, that is, make yourself generate answers to pre-asked questions, you retain that information for much longer and more accurately than if you simply just went the Self Explanation route.

This method was tested in different settings as well, with a group of students being tested on material immediately after learning it, and another group of students who just re-studied the material and were tested later on. The two groups were each tested 3 times with increasing time spans between each test. It turns out that the students who simply re-studied the material did better in the short term (on the first test), but by the third test, which was over a week later, they did much more poorly than the students that were tested as a form of studying. Moral of the story? Test yourselves!


Ok, so we've covered a few decent methods of studying, but there are yet another few tactics that can help those that aren't inclined towards the above ones suggested.

The next study method up is known as the SQ3R method. It is also another scientifically studied and sound approach to your schoolwork. This method works best when reading through a textbook.

S = Survey
Q = Question
3 R = Read, Recite, and Review

Each of these activities are performed in the order they are presented.

Survey - Before reading the chapter, read the chapter summaries first.

Question - Generate questions based on these summaries that you think the chapter may answer(elaborative interrogation, anyone?). This part may be difficult, but it's the extra step that helps with true memory retention.

Read - Read the chapter, and as you go, try to find the answers to the questions you asked earlier.

Recite - Try to remember key ideas from the chapter, by taking notes or making flashcards, or explaining the concepts to someone.

Review - Combine the key ideas, and connect them together. It also helps to try and explain them in this way to someone as well. This can also apply to trying to connect the ideas from other chapters.


This is a nice and structured way to go about studying for classes in the moment, but what about studying throughout the semester? There's a strategy for that too. It's called The Spacing Effect. Whether it's intentional or not, you'll often see your classes work this way. It's kind of where the concept of quizzes come from. This technique has also withstood intense scientific experimentation.

So the Spacing Effect is basically spacing out your study time in periodic amounts. It's all dependent on how long you need to retain the material. The general rule seems to be that the "inter study interval" between study sessions should be about 10 to 20 percent of the retention interval.

For example, if you want to retain memory for something for one week, you need to space out the time between your initial study period and review study period for one day.

This tactic is extremely useful for laying out a strategy for finals. Since we are in the spring semester, the optimal time for the review study period would be right around now, if your finals are in May, like mine.

Oh but Kristin, you might say, I always get better scores when I cram! I don't need to actually restudy this stuff so soon. I have time, don't worry.

According to some experiments, that feeling of knowing the material really well is very misleading. You may feel like you know it now, because you just spent 8 hours productively studying, but 3 months from now? You'll test much worse than the students that were using The Spacing Effect in their studying. Apparently college students make this mistake all the time. The short term success they have in cramming gives them a false sense of self-confidence, which then makes them feel like they're done studying for that topic for the semester.

Don't be those students.

Here's a visual representation of how the Spacing Effect would work:

Based on this, here's what I recommend: when you learn a new chapter, test yourself on that chapter exactly one week after you've studied it. Then, 1-2 months later, review that material, and maybe test yourself again. By the time you get to finals, studying will be a breeze. This does take a good amount of planning, but if you plan it out at the beginning of the semester using the syllabi, you'll be golden. For now though, I recommend you guys start studying the last half of the semester's material already. Now's the prime time to, and I can assure you that you'll thank me when finals come around and you're not having to pull all-nighters to cram all that material.

This is a recommendation for studying that a professor of mine put up for us as well. Ya'll might find it useful!

I sincerely hope this might enlighten at least a few of you, and I hope I put this up with just enough time to study for the third wave of midterms. Good luck to all of you hobbits, we got this!

Quote of the Day

Working hard for something we don't care about is call stress.

Working hard for something we love is called passion.

-David 'Avocado' Wolfe


Good luck with your midterms! Always keep things in perspective, and make sure you know that your goals are worth every ounce of sacrifice you give to your studies.

Study Strategies

So it's midterm season!!!!!

YAY. SO MUCH JOY.

And stress. So much of that too.

Anyways, since ya'll are probably having near-breakdowns due to irrational fears about your lives falling apart, let me calm you down with some plans that you should either already have or should set with yourself while you still can.

Start Early-ish

Always start studying exactly a week before any midterm. If you have an insanely lazy teacher that likes to only have two exams a semester, or worse, just ONE with a final, you should probably try to start 2 weeks before the exam......just saying. I've pulled all-nighters for exams like that and honestly, even though it's totally feasible, it's a lot of unnecessary stress when you're pre-med. Start early, and when the test comes around you won't be so stressed to cram so much material.

BUT.....if you guys are down to the wire right now and have exams this week already, like me, there's still some hope left to get that A/B grade.

Cramming 2-3 days before the Exam:

First, start studying, at this very moment. Right now. Seriously go grab your study materials before you're done reading this post!

Second, study during all of your lectures. You'll lose some material, but since you're in cram mode, you can't afford to lose an hour here or there, because that's equivalent to points on an exam that can make or break your grade.

Pull an all-nighter before the exam if it's in the morning(unless it's only got a chapter of material on it). I know that research says that this isn't the best thing to do because of cognitive processes and whatnot, but again, you're in CRAM MODE. You don't have any time to waste on sleeping, when you have that much material to study in so little time. I can't tell you guys how many times I've increased my test grades by about 20 points just because I spent the extra 6-7 hours cramming the material instead of sleeping.

To counteract your sleep deprivation, take power naps of no more than half an hour. If you don't have the self-discipline to do this, don't nap at all, just wait until you get to sleep the next night, and use whatever caffeine/energy drink that works for you to keep you going. For me, Five Hour Energy actually works quite well.

Sleep and Studying:

As mentioned above, power naps of no more than half an hour are your best bet for rest if you need it that badly. This requires a good amount of self discipline in making yourself go to sleep efficiently and wake up efficiently.

NEVER study and then go to sleep within 10-15 minutes. I swear to you that you will lose all of the material you just read. When you study before bedtime, make sure you give yourself at least a half an hour between finishing studying and actually laying down to sleep. This way, the memory consolidation that happens during sleep will actually work.

One strategy I've used with all-nighters is giving myself 1 1/2 hour naps throughout the night. Power naps are great throughout the day, but you never get a full REM cycle in. During all-nighters, it's important to get at least one REM cycle in so that memory consolidation can happen somewhere in that cramming process.

If you were responsible and started studying a week or two before the exam, get your solid 9 hours of sleep in per night. You have the time, trust me. Again, memory consolidation is a thing that happens when you get a full night's rest, and it's important in the week leading up to the exam that you're not accumulating sleep debt, because THAT is when sleep deprivation will actually affect your test score.

The Studying Itself:

A lot of what college is about is finding out what type of learner you are and maximizing that learning style through different study strategies, so this section is mostly just an outline of possible things you could do while you still have time. Later on, when midterms are over and everyone's starting new units, I'll post a study strategy schedule that's actually proven to work no matter what type of learner you are (learned about it in my Human Memory lecture :P)

Flashcards. Nuff said.

Diagrams. These can either be flow charts to show the flow of ideas or questions or formulas to use. These are INCREDIBLY helpful for memorizing rules in small amounts of time if you're a visual learner.

Drawing pictures. Straight up drawing and labeling the pictures with pretty colors from textbooks is also a good quick (not to mention fun for the artsies) way to memorize diagrams for that bio course.

Reading the textbook. No kidding, in the all-nighters I pulled, I'd actually read the entire chapters front to back and paraphrase them in my notebook. Whenever I did this, I usually got about 5-10 above the average on the test. The professors use the textbook way more than students think. It's tedious, but it works.

Write all your notes out on a white board. Again, for the visual people, this is a great way of creating a "mind palace" of sorts where you can just memorize the whiteboard and recall it on the test. It's easy to be like "oh yeah! It was right below the dinosaur I drew during a study break. The answer is allopatric speciation".

Watching khan academy or any other education youtube videos. These are great ways for verbal learners to cram without having to read a textbook or write everything down. They also get tons of material in, in an interesting manner, in tiny amounts of time.

Skimming lecture slides. Professors a lot of the time will post the entire test on their lecture slides for whatever reasons......but it saves us boredom and time on reading the textbook so I'll take it.

That's about all I got for today. Happy studying! And, may the curve be ever in your favor.