How to Study

This is not my material.  It is a short article written by one of my college professors.  I found it to be incredibly useful and interesting.  So I wanted to share.  Please enjoy.

I've sometimes been asked for general advice on how to study, and for specifics on how to raise grades in a class. I answered a student, and thought I'd pass it on.

The first thing to do is figure out if you thought you knew the answers on the test, or if the questions looked completely foreign to you. If it’s the second situation, then you are not concentrating on all the material that is on the test. You’re narrowing your focus too much. You would need to take in more facts, which for you means more extensive notes. If the questions on the test look familiar and you thought you knew them but found out you didn’t, then you need to change the way you are studying, not the scope of your focus (by far the most common problem with students I’ve talked to). Most students make the mistake of studying by going over material only until it seems familiar. That is, they read until they can think to themselves, “I know this.” Unfortunately that’s not enough. Simply recognizing something when you see it is not enough to get you through most exams, especially objective exams (i.e., true/false, multiple choice, matching—the kind I give in my classes). You need to be able to produce the answers from your own memory. I would suggest you either make flash cards, so you will know when you are able to produce the answers from memory, or that you go through your notes by uncovering the topic heading or sentence while keeping the details covered; then uncover it and see if you are correct.

So for example, assuming you take notes in outline form, uncover the heading only, and see if you remember what’s below it. If you don’t have time to take notes and are studying from a book, you can uncover the topic sentence (often the first sentence of a section or a paragraph in textbook style writing). That requires a higher level of retention than simply recognizing something when you see it. It’s the difference between remembering someone’s name when they say it versus being able to recall their name when you see their face.

Another principle that will help is what’s called “overlearning.” Most people stop as soon as they are successful, in this case as soon as they can produce the content from memory. The amount of time it takes to be able to do that is the time it takes to “learn” the material. But studies show that retention levels are very low if you stop then. The best retention for the effort comes at 50% “overlearning,” that is, where you keep learning for another half the time it took to learn it in the first place. So if it took ten minutes to learn something, you would continue for another five minutes (i.e., another half the time it took you to learn).

The best learning takes place on a higher level. That is where we connect what we learn with what we already know. To simply retain the new material as isolated facts, unconnected to what we know, is to leave it in a very weak place in our memory. It is much better to connect it to as many other things we know—or have experienced—as we can. So for example, if we are trying to learn,“Karl Barth believed that people cannot come to know that God exists by looking at the world around them,” we will have a hard time recalling that if that’s as far as we go. However, if we connect that with everything relevant we will do much better. We could connect it to the fact that this is a topic called “natural theology,” that is, the question of what people can know without the Bible. We could also remember that it has something to do with Romans chapter one. We could think about what Calvin said about it. We could even go to our experiences, such as what we feel when we look at a the stars at night and ask, can anyone believe this is all an accident? The more connections we make to new material, the firmer it is in our minds, and not surprisingly, the more it becomes real learning.

The difference between someone who knows little and someone who knows a lot, has something to do with the density of connected knowledge, and often how much use they’ve made of it. The very act of connecting our knowledge makes it more useful. There is a physiological element to this. When a fact sits isolated from other knowledge, we have perhaps only one “neural trace” to it, that is, one thread by which we can recall it. But if we make twenty different connections, or neural traces, to the new fact, there are twenty different biochemical pathways for the brain to get to it.

A student taking a test was once trying to recall how the ontological argument for God’s existence worked. I couldn’t give him any answer with content, but I did suggest he recall everything he could about it. He said that the only thing he remembered was that it was formulated in the Middle Ages. I suggested he try to recall everything having to do with the argument—who formulated it in the Middle Ages, and what it attempted to do. He couldn’t recall anything. So I suggested he just think about that particular period of the Middle Ages, everything about it he could recall: the way people dressed, the church, the state, etc. After a few seconds he recalled the ontological argument and got the test question right. He was a bit surprised that he had recalled it. I explained that he had formed a neural trace from the ontological argument to the Middle Ages, but that trace had broken down (which is what happens when we forget something). By suggesting that he expand his thinking about it, it increased the chances he would pick up another trace he had made to the forgotten material. So as he thought about it, something about the way they dressed and worked in that time period reminded him of the ontological argument. When studying it seems he had formed a mental picture of Anselm, and during the test thinking about dress at the time led him to Anselm and thus to Anselm’s ontological argument. All he had to do was find that unbroken neural trace. That underscores the importance of making multiple neural traces to the new material, connecting it to as much of what we already know as possible (including experiences, memories, opinions). And that makes it more like real, usable, knowledge–which is what we should be gaining from our learning anyway. It’s not just learning for a test that matters, but growing our knowledge so we can use it. Neural traces might not go both ways as easily.

For example, if you always study by looking at a term then recalling the definition, you might not be able to as easily go in reverse, from seeing the definition to remembering the term (such as on a test, or in a work situation when you need to remember the right term). I had some trouble recalling a few biblical verses until I realized I had always looked at the verse reference then recalled what it said. But when I needed to remember it in a conversation or when teaching, I was having no problem recalling what the verse says--I just couldn’t remember the reference. I was studying it backwards. Now I (also) study it by going in the other direction, by looking at the verse then recalling the reference. That’s made it much easier. Additionally, applying what I said about developing multiple neural traces, as I work to memorize it, I recall the verse reference at several points in the verse.

So for example, for Isaiah 57:15, I would say to myself, “For thus says the high and exalted One (Isaiah 57:15) Who lives forever, whose name is Holy (Isaiah 57:15), "I dwell on a high and holy place (Isaiah 57:15), And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit (Isaiah 57:15) in order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite (Isaiah 57:15).” That forms many neural traces. If I just formed one, at the beginning of the verse, and I forgot it, I’d be stuck. But there’s a much better chance one of those many traces will survive.

There are other factors that increase memory, such as motivation. People who struggle to recall math formulas would have no trouble remembering whether their favorite team won their last game, and probably even who scored the winning point. We can increase our motivation by making sure that we always know why we want to learn the material we have to study. The best motivation is intrinsic, that is, you want to know the material for itself.  You want to be a more mature person, know more about how the world works, about how to be successful in relationships with God and those you care about, how to be good at what you’ve chosen to do with your life. Not as good, but still helpful, is extrinsic motivation: you need to know this so you can do well in the class, graduate, get a good job, support a family, and do other things you want in life. When you sit down to study or start your day of classes, take a few seconds to do a motivation check. If it’s lacking, quickly rehearse why this matters.

Clarity also helps learning. It’s hard to remember something we don’t understand very well. Go over new and old material in your mind until it’s absolutely clear. Some people find it helpful to write out their own explanation (a lot of teachers are helping you do that when they have you write answers to questions–that’s one reason my students typically are required to do a fair amount of writing). It can be helpful to imagine yourself explaining it to someone. Even better is to actually explain it to someone. When it comes to finding fuzzy areas in your thinking there’s nothing like trying to explain.

This brings up a related point about learning. So often it is a solitary endeavor. But there are people all around you trying to accomplish the same goals as you. Why not become allies in the learning process? When it comes to memorizing, there’s what’s called “chunking,” where we cluster knowledge together into fewer groups. It is always easier to remember a few things rather than many. One way to reduce the amount you have to remember is by looking for patterns, so that instead of remembering a lot we can remember less because we reduce it to one or two principles. It’s hard to remember the string, 3, 7, 214, 22, 4, 108; but it’s easy to remember 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12. That’s because we are really remembering only one thing, that you add two to each number. Studies of some people with seemingly super memories shows that they are simply very good at chunking. Their memories don’t work better than anyone else’s. When they can’t group or chunk material they don’t do better than the average person. (Some people, however do have remarkably higher memory skills, revealed partly by larger hypothalamus glands, that part of the brain that makes new memories.).

Take heart, memory is like a muscle. The more you use it the stronger it gets. You will gain momentum as you work at it. As we said, memory, which is often what gets measured on tests, is just one aspect of learning. What matters is that you go beyond mere recall and build connected, usable, knowledge (which will, in turn, improve your recall). Another aspect to learning is your physical state. That’s huge. There are hundreds of studies examining the effects that of sleep, diet, exercise, and stress have on learning. It seems as though ninety percent of what I’ve seen (and I look for these, so I’ve seen a lot) boils down to common sense and what you already know. You need enough sleep. Make sure it’s restful, which for most of us means it has to be quiet (I know that is challenging if you live in a loud dorm), you need to be comfortable (not too hot or cold), and you need enough of it. Don’t think you can go on four hours of sleep and learn effectively. You may get used to it, but that doesn’t mean you are working at your peak. If you go on depriving yourself of sleep long enough, you won’t even recognize that you’re capable of performing at a much higher level.

Also, don’t try to solve problems by laying awake. That is a big mistake. Your ability to solve problems depends heavily on getting enough rest so you can think through solutions. Above all, recent studies indicate that sleep is when your brain converts temporary knowledge into permanent, usable knowledge. Your brain sorts out what it learned that day and categorizes it, connects it to existing knowledge and experience, and the like. Why work hard to learn something only to lose it because you stayed up playing that video game a few more hours? One study I read even showed that if your sleep is interrupted at times after the day you learned something, you can’t recall it as well even if you get more sleep later. If your brain fails to convert something to permanent knowledge it’s gone, like turning your computer off before you save; turning it back on won’t get it back because it never got converted from temporary to permanent memory.

As far as diet, your body needs lots of different things to be effective. A lot comes down to an old fashioned balanced diet. If you eat only what you think tastes great, you’re headed for problems, and not just with your GPA. Recent studies underscore the hugely beneficial effects of exercise on the brain. A couple of them have indicated that it actually increases the density of connections in your brain (not the traces of information you put there, but the actual physical hardware that allows you to put the information there). As some have said it very simply, exercise can make you smarter. It makes sense because your brain needs a high blood flow, and exercise increases that (by the way, the brain is very sensitive to dehydration, so making sure you get enough fluids helps it run better).

Stress is a hidden factor in learning. It changes your brain chemistry and does a lot of damage. The military has done large numbers of studies on the effects of stress (and sleep deprivation), confirming the amount of damage it does to the brain. Cortisol, which is produced under stress, can actually destroy brain cells. I don’t know about you, but I need every last one of them. In short, your emotional and spiritual condition have a big effect on your learning. Neglecting that to spend more time studying is counterproductive. So every part of your life affects learning. And learning should affect every part of your life. You’re not accomplishing much if you merely memorize a few facts only to forget them after a test. Real learning is growing your way to a better life. Don’t settle for less. It’s your life. I hope something here helps. 

--Brian Morley, ThM, PhD