Don’t you wish your memory was like a bookshelf? How nice would it be if our memory was a place where we could locate information from A-Z whenever and wherever we want? Unfortunately, memories are fleeting and as a consequence, most of us force ourselves through sleepless nights of cramming information in preparation for finals.
I recently learned all about memory in my psychology class–particularly how short- to long-term memories are encoded, stored, and retrieved. Along the way, I discovered important principles that can guide our study techniques as students. The reality is that exam success doesn’t rely on the amount of time you study, but rather on how efficiently you study. We’ve highlighted the most important memory-related psychology concepts and paired them with study tips to help you improve your study sessions this dreaded exam season.
1. Spacing effect
So it’s a Wednesday night and you glance at your calendar only to realize you have a test on Friday! You freak out because you haven’t even started reviewing your notes; in fact, you aren’t even done watching the lectures! This is probably the biggest study mistake you can make since by the time you open up your books, you’ll become overwhelmed with all the information you have to memorize in a short period of time!
According to the spacing effect, we remember things on a long-term basis more easily if we space out the times in which we encode our information (aka, learn the information). By this logic, if you want those big theories memorized and ready to go on the day of your exam, the best course of action is to plan out your study sessions WELL in advance. For instance, make a goal to finish certain topics by certain weeks so you’ll have information stored in your brain over a longer period. Then, reward yourself with a small treat like your favourite drink or fast food after you’ve finished each goal to continue reinforcing this behaviour! Planning in advance is hard, but your future brain will thank you for it–trust us.
2. Chunking
When we break down information or words into smaller or more significant pieces, we allow our brains to be less overwhelmed by what’s presented. As a result, “chunked” information is more easily stored and retrieved in our minds. For instance, memorizing phone numbers presented like this: 6476258798 is much more difficult than memorizing them when they’re separated into three parts like this: 647 625 8798.
I “chunk” information all the time with acronyms to simplify the plethora of information scribbled in my notebooks. For instance, if I have a list of terminology I need to memorize that all belong to the same category, I create an acronym for them! Then, after I chunk my information, I engage in something called cued recall. Cued recall involves remembering information by using little hints you previously made that link back to the content you’d like memorized. It explains why acronyms are so effective: the letters act as cues that help us remember the word or concept we attached to them.
3. active recall
We’ve talked about cued recall, but it’s important that we touch on active recall as a whole. We tend to think that reading the same thing over and over again will help us memorize it. But in reality, this only helps us memorize information in a short-term setting; for long-term storage, it is an absolute MUST to practice active recall.
Active recall, in other words, means testing yourself. You start by reading the information you’d like memorized, then you try to actively recall the information you read without your reference material. You continue repeating this until you know the information inside out. This can be hard at first as it requires you to dig deep in your brain for old information, but it eventually forces you to truly understand the information you’re studying. By pairing active recall with different study cues, memorizing information gets easier and you’ll be better prepared for that closed-book test!
Now for many of us even with these techniques, we can still somehow find ourselves falling behind on our study goals. It is 100% OK if you find yourself in this situation from time to time–burnout is real and happens to most of us. Although we presented study tips relating to how we can improve our memorization, our real best tip for students during exams is to take it easy and to be proud of the effort you put in during a grueling semester.
Happy studying!