Three things to count before changing how you study
A teenager will not accept a plan imposed from outside. They will accept numbers they see for themselves.
- How many subjects actually need work — Written out from the timetable, with the current mark beside each. It usually comes to four or five rather than a dozen — and that changes the conversation about “no time”.
- How long the evening runs from sitting down to closing the book — One evening with a clock. Not in order to shorten it, but to know what we are talking about.
- How much of the material comes back a week later — One question from last week, asked without warning. The answer decides whether the problem is the amount of work or the method.
Why the methods from primary school stop working
Three changes that arrive with the senior years.
There is too much material for one evening
In primary school you could catch up overnight. With a dozen or more subjects that strategy simply does not add up.
The questions are about understanding, not recall
A memorised definition is not enough when the question is “why”. The note has to contain reasons, not just facts.
Nobody keeps track of deadlines for you
Tests are announced in advance and nobody reminds you. The calendar becomes part of studying.
Six techniques that hold up on a lot of material
From the simplest to the one that needs a week's run-up.
- Spaced review
The same topic comes back after a day, after three and after a week. Three short returns beat one long evening.
- A note with questions
The question on the left, the answer on the right. Before a test you cover the right-hand side and you have a ready-made quiz.
- Explaining out loud
Tell the topic to someone, or to yourself. The place where you stumble is exactly what you do not know yet.
- Priorities instead of everything
Before a run of tests, write out the subjects and decide where you want a result and where a pass will do. Without that the choice makes itself — and usually badly.
- A memory palace for lists
For enumerations that cannot be understood, only known: dates, formulas, the stages of a process.
- Two reading speeds
The textbook slowly and with questions; an article or a review pass quickly. One speed for everything eats your evenings.
Nothing has to be introduced all at once. One technique over two weeks sticks; six at once are gone in three days.
The week before a biology test, two versions
The same material and the same teenager. The difference is when they start and what they do the first time round.
The one-evening version
- For a week the material sits there. The evening before: three hours reading the chapter and the notes.
- By 23:00 everything looks familiar, so there is a feeling of being ready.
- In the morning the questions are phrased differently from the exercise book, and the material was never once retrieved from memory.
- Result: a mark below expectations and the conclusion “I cannot study”, which is false — there was nothing to have learnt, because there was no second pass.
The three-session version
- A week before: splitting the material into three portions and a first pass — 30 minutes. This is where you find what you do not understand at all.
- Three days before: only the questions from the note, answered out loud — 25 minutes. No reading the chapter.
- The day before: only the places where you stumbled — 20 minutes. No new material.
- The evening before: a quick look over and sleep at the usual time.
- Less time in total than the version on the left, spread over four days.
Three sessions of 20–30 minutes is about 75 minutes. One evening is three hours. The difference is not diligence but the fact that material you come back to does not have to be rebuilt from scratch each time.
A note with questions — make one after today's lesson
Ten minutes instead of forty minutes copying out in the evening. It is the technique that pays back fastest in the senior years.
- Divide the page with a vertical line
A narrow margin on the left, the rest on the right. Content on the right, questions on the left.
- On the right — in your own words, briefly
Not copied from the board. Sentences the way you would say it to someone.
- On the left — a question for each part
“Why…”, “how does it differ from…”, “what happens when…”. That is the whole technique: a note you can test yourself from.
- The check: cover the right-hand side
You answer your own questions from memory. Mark the places where you stumble with a dot.
If with the right-hand side covered you answer every question but two, the topic is ready and five minutes before the test will do. If you stumble on most of them, that is not a failure but information gained a week earlier than it usually is.
The first such note will take longer than ten minutes, because the questions have to be invented. From the third one it goes faster than copying out.
What the research says
Three papers behind three of the six techniques.
Cepeda et al., 2006 — a review of 184 papers on spacing
The same minutes spread over several days give better recall than a single sitting. That is the arithmetic of the three sessions in the example above.
Roediger and Karpicke, 2006 — retrieval from memory
Retrieval from memory holds material longer than rereading, and the advantage grows over time. Hence a note with questions rather than a note to read.
Dunlosky et al., 2013 — a review of ten learning techniques
Self-testing and spacing rated highest, highlighting and rereading lowest — on secondary-school and university material, which is exactly what this page is about.
The research looked at learning techniques, not at our course. In this one case the participants were close in age to the reader — that is rare, and worth knowing.
The calendar before a test
Counting back from the date — a plan that fits inside a school week.
A week before
Splitting the material into portions and a first pass. This is where you find what is not in the notes at all.
Three days before
Second round: only the questions from the note, answered out loud.
The day before
Third round, only on the places where you stumbled. You do not start new material.
The evening before
A quick look over and sleep. Revising to midnight takes away more than it adds.
The most common mistakes in the senior years
Five things that turn a dozen subjects into endless evenings.
Studying everything alike
With a dozen or more subjects that is arithmetically impossible. Choosing where you want a result and where a pass will do is part of studying, not giving up.
A note copied out in the evening
Forty minutes of copying gives you a neat exercise book and nothing else. A note with questions made in ten minutes after the lesson gives you material to test yourself on.
A calendar in your head
Tests announced two weeks ahead do not stay in memory. Here the calendar is a study tool, not an organisational one.
Studying past midnight before a test
Shortened sleep takes away exactly the capacity you will need in the morning. It is the one place where more hours means a worse result.
Dismissing techniques as “childish”
Images and routes look like a method for younger children, and on dates and enumerations they work just as well at sixteen. Worth testing on one piece of material before dismissing.
How much this takes in a week
The real cost with a dozen or more subjects.
| Stage | How long |
|---|---|
| A note with questions | 10 minutes after the lesson instead of 40 minutes copying out in the evening |
| Spaced review | 15 minutes a day on whichever subjects are due back |
| Preparing for a test | Three sessions of 20–30 minutes instead of one evening |
See where you are right now
A free test of memory, attention and reasoning: three short games and a result straight away. A good reference point before changing how you study.
Open the free testshort test, about 7 minutes · no sign-up · instant result
How we know this
From Space Memory classes for the 13–15 and 16–18 groups. Teenagers arrive with a different question from younger children: not “how do I memorise a poem” but “how do I get through all of it”. The programme for this age group is about choosing and about the calendar, not about images alone.
Questions from teenagers
Can you learn everything in one evening?
Reproduce it tomorrow — sometimes. Still have it in a month for an exam — no. Those are two different goals and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing.
How many review passes are enough?
Usually three, spaced out, with answers said out loud. The fourth and fifth give less than a break for sleep.
Do image techniques make sense in the senior years?
For lists and dates, yes. For material that has to be understood, a note with questions matters more.
What about studying at night?
After midnight the pace drops and less stays. Better to finish one round short and get some sleep.
How do I study a subject I cannot stand?
In the shortest portions and right after the lesson, while something is still in your head. Putting it off turns dislike into delay.
Are the classes for sixth-formers too?
Yes — the 13–15 and 16–18 groups work on their own material, on their tests and exams, not on exercises for younger children.
Next
Pages that expand what is compressed here.
Effective study course for kids
Learning as a skill: planning, review and self-testing in class.
How to teach a child to study
The same order, written for a parent
The memory palace
A technique for lists, dates and stages of a process
How to memorise material for a test
Sorting the material and a five-day plan
Want to practise this with a coach?
In the 13–15 and 16–18 groups we work on whatever material you have at school right now. Leave a request and we will tell you about the next group.
Request a callThe techniques are free. If you would rather practise with a coach, we run groups for 13–15 and 16–18.