Why studying a whole chapter fails
Three assumptions that lengthen the preparation without improving the mark.
- All the material treated alike — The same effort goes into a definition to be learnt by heart and into an example that only needs understanding. As a result each gets half of what it needed.
- Cramming what needs understanding — A formula learnt by heart without knowing where it comes from works only in a problem identical to the one from the lesson.
- One evening for everything — Material covered in a single sitting looks mastered in the evening because it is fresh. By morning less than half of it is left.
The three piles every chapter splits into
Sorting takes twenty minutes and decides how long everything else will take.
To understand
Mechanisms, causes, examples. These are not crammed — they are told in your own words. If the telling breaks down, you go back to the textbook rather than to repetition.
To memorise word for word
Dates, formulas, definitions, sequences. Here and only here do images, chains and routes make sense. Do not adjudicate the doubtful cases — they go in this pile, which is the safer one.
Outside the scope
What the teacher did not cover and did not announce. The single largest saving in the whole preparation — provided the scope was checked rather than guessed.
Understand — tell it aloudMemorise — images and chainsOutside the scope — set asideSix steps from notes to ready
The first four are done once, the last two every day until the test.
- Write down the scope
From the lesson, from the school diary, or by asking the teacher outright. Without it, sorting is guesswork.
- Lay the material out in three piles
To understand, to memorise word for word, outside the scope. Anything doubtful goes in the second pile — better to learn one unnecessary definition than to skip a required one.
- Tell the “understand” pile out loud
In their own words, with the book closed. The places where the telling breaks down are the only ones worth going back to.
- Turn the “memorise” pile into images
Dates through number images, definitions through a scene, sequences through a chain. Seven items per session, no more.
- Write out the five days
One portion a day and a short daily return to the previous ones. The plan hangs where it can be seen, not in someone's head.
- The last day is for self-testing only
No new material. Questions at random, book closed, out loud — the way it will be in the test.
If the “understand” pile turns out to be the biggest and nothing in it can be told back, this is not a task for three days before a test. Then it is time to go to the teacher or back to an earlier topic.
A chapter on the circulatory system, sorted
A typical biology chapter and what happens to it after sorting.
Without sorting
- The child studies the whole chapter alike: the structure of the heart, the names of the vessels, the diagram of circulation, a fact about giraffes and every caption under every illustration.
- The names eat the most time because they are hard — and the circulation diagram, which the teacher will ask about, gets the last half hour.
- The evening ends with a sense of having “covered it”, because everything has been read.
After sorting
- To understand: how the blood moves — the pulmonary and systemic circuits. The child has to tell this out loud in four sentences, with the book closed.
- To memorise word for word: the names of the vessels and the order of the heart's chambers. The order goes as a chain of images, the names as one scene per name.
- Outside the scope: the giraffe fact and two pages on diseases that were not covered in class.
- Days 1–2 go on telling the circulation, days 3–4 on images for the names, twenty minutes each, day 5 on self-testing only.
Sorting by itself memorises nothing. It does something else: it makes sure the hard things get the most time rather than the least — because usually it works out the other way round.
Sort one chapter — five minutes
Do it with the material the child has for the next test. You need three sheets of paper or three colours.
- Write out only the headings and the bold text from the chapter
Not the content — just sub-section titles, the terms in bold and the captions under the illustrations. Two minutes.
- Put one of three letters beside each
U for understand, M for memorise word for word, X for outside the scope. One question decides it: can this be told in your own words?
- Count what is in each pile
Three numbers at the top of the sheet.
- Check the X pile at the source
One question to the teacher or to someone in the class. It is the only step you must not guess at.
The result is three numbers. If the M pile is the biggest, the evening will go on images and will be long — spread it across three days. If the U pile is the biggest, the evening will go on telling it aloud and will be shorter than it looked. If X is the biggest, you have just saved more time than anything else in the whole preparation.
Doubtful items always go in pile M, never in X. A mistake in that direction costs twenty minutes; a mistake the other way costs the mark.
What the research says
Two papers behind two decisions in this plan.
Roediger and Karpicke, 2006 — retrieval from memory
Material retrieved from memory once lasts longer than the same material read several times. Hence the last day given over to self-testing alone, with no new material.
Cepeda et al., 2006 — a review of 184 papers on spacing
The same number of minutes spread over several days gives better recall than a single sitting. Hence five days of twenty minutes rather than one evening for everything.
These studies looked at learning techniques, not at our course. Sorting into three piles is not the subject of either paper — it is practice from our classes, and its logic is simple: spaced review only makes sense once you know what is being reviewed.
Four mistakes on the night before
All of them look like diligence and cost marks.
Starting a new topic
Material touched for the first time at night will not go in, and it takes time away from revising what nearly has.
An all-nighter
A few hours less sleep costs more in the test than a few hours more studying gives.
Reading instead of self-testing
The evening before exists to check what comes out without the book. Reading it over and over only gives a feeling of familiarity.
Revising with a panicking classmate
Revising together works until it turns into a contest over who knows less. At that point studying ends and stress begins.
The five-day plan
The version for an ordinary test on one topic.
| Day | What to do |
|---|---|
| Days 1–2 | Sorting, and the “understand” pile |
| Days 3–4 | Images for memorising, twenty minutes a day |
| Day 5 | Self-testing only, 20–30 minutes, and then stop |
See how the child performs under pressure
The free test is three short game-like tasks: memory, attention and reasoning. It shows what recall looks like when the clock is running — that is, in conditions close to a test.
Open the free testshort test, about 7 minutes · no sign-up · instant result
Where the three piles come from
It is the first thing Space Memory coaches do with a student who brings material for a test. Only after sorting is it clear how much real work there is — and there is usually less of it than it looked from the height of an open textbook.
Questions from students and parents
How many days before a test should we start?
For one topic, five days is enough with room to spare. For a whole term you start by breaking the material into topics and count the days from there.
What if the test is tomorrow?
Sort the material, take the “memorise” pile alone, do one self-test and go to bed at the usual time. That is a rescue version, not a method.
Do flashcards work?
For definitions, dates and vocabulary, yes, provided they are asked both ways round. For descriptive material they do not replace telling the whole thing.
How do you memorise more than a dozen dates?
Through number images and a shared scene for dates from one period. Learning them as a list, in order, is the hardest possible route.
Is it worth studying in the morning before lessons?
A quick look at the list of difficult spots, yes. New material at seven in the morning almost never survives to the third lesson.
The child knows it at home and goes blank in the test. What then?
That is a question of recall under pressure, not of knowledge. Random questioning helps, as does a rehearsal in conditions close to the test: timed and with the book closed.
Pages on shortening the preparation and on techniques for particular subjects.
Effective study course for kids
Learning as a skill: planning, review and self-testing in class.
How to study faster
How to cut the scope and stop repeating the unnecessary
Memorising techniques by subject
What works in history and what works in biology
Memorising techniques for kids
Matching the technique to the type of material
Would you like to practise this before the next test?
In online classes the student sorts their own material and learns it with a coach present: 90 minutes once a week, in a group of 5–10. Leave a request and we will tell you about the next group.
Request a callThe article is free. In class the same thing is done on whatever material the student has in front of them.