What Is The Most Effective Way To Study A Huge Amount Of Information For One Test?
Editor's Note: This question was asked by someone who needed to study over 2,500 pages of financial text for a five-hour test. Still, these techqniques can apply to anyone studying anything.
Thanks for the A2A.
Yikes, that's a lot of studying you're faced with and it will require an enormous effort on your part. But don't despair. If you do the right things, you'll be ready to crush that exam at the end of the year.
In order to pull this off, you'll need to:
- Learn and implement the best study techniques
- Study every day in a strategic manner
- Optimize your diet, sleep, and exercise habits
Study techniques
There are a couple of study techniques that you should understand. They are the spacing effect and surveying.
- The Spacing Effect
The easiest way to absorb all that information is to use the spacing effect, a study technique that researchers have called, "[O]ne of the most remarkable phenomena to emerge from laboratory research on learning."
Basically, when you learn new things, your brain stores that information in neurons. It then connects those neurons to existing neurons that contain information you already know, forming a network of associations.
The problem is that your brain can only grow this neural network of associates so strong in one sitting. That bears repeating — it is physically impossible for your brain to grow neural pathways strong enough in one day for perfect retention. That's why if you force yourself to study the same information many times in one or two days, also known as cramming, you'll have a hard time remembering it even though you studied for hours.
Researchers have learned that it's much more efficient to expose your brain to new information and then wait at least a day before reviewing that same information. This gives your brain time to cement the connections it has already built, which means it will be ready and physically able to build those connections stronger at the second exposure.
For example, if you have an exam coming up in a week, it's much better to review your notes only once a day for those seven days than 30 times in one or two days. Even though you'll have studied several times less, you'll do better, because you worked with the way your brain naturally stores information.
Things are a little different for you since you have a year to prepare for one exam, but the principle is the same. You'll want to get multiple spaced exposures to all the information you'll need to know for your test.
This sounds daunting, but by the end of this answer we'll have come up with a plan for you to do this.
- Surveying
The second part of your plan to crush this exam is a study technique called surveying.
As you pointed out, you have 2,500 pages of information to learn. That sounds like a lot, but by using the spacing effect and surveying, you'll be able to review all that information dozens of times over the next few months. These multiple spaced exposures will be key in helping you memorize everything you need to know.
Surveying is a technique to help you condense those 2,500 pages of information into something more manageable. I'm assuming that you're taking classes while learning all this information, but if you're not, just apply this to your textbooks.
- Read your assigned chapters and other readings the day before class.
- Highlight only the critical information in your textbook or other readings that isn't already bolded, italicized, put in a box, or otherwise emphasized. Also, do not highlight anything that's in the topic sentence of each paragraph (usually the first sentence of each paragraph that contains the main idea of that paragraph).
- Go to the lecture and take concise notes by hand. Make sure to keep these notes handy so that you can review them at the same time you review your chapters.
- From now on when you reread your chapters, only read titles, topic sentences (usually the first sentence in each paragraph), any text that was emphasized by the author, and any information that you highlighted. Finish by reading the chapter summaries, since they neatly tie up all the ideas expressed throughout the chapter.
- Most of the key ideas in a reading are in the titles, topic sentences, emphasized text and whatever you highlighted. For instance, a topic sentence usually contains the main idea of a paragraph, and the rest of the sentences only elaborate on and explain that main idea. So, if you have already read the chapter in its entirety, you should have an idea of what's in that paragraph, and by reading only the first sentence in each paragraph, you'll be reminded of what else is in the paragraph.
- By doing this, a chapter that would take you an hour to read may now take you only five to 10 minutes, allowing you to review it regularly, getting those multiple spaced exposures that are so critical to memorization.
- Also, review your lecture notes once per day alongside your assigned readings. Since you wrote concise notes by hand, these shouldn't take long to read and the spaced exposures will ensure that you memorize them thoroughly before an exam.
If you read 100 pages per day, it will only take you 25 days to get through all 2,500 pages and highlight the crucial information that's not already emphasized by the author or in the topic sentences. Most importantly, this read-through will give your mind a complete first exposure to everything you'll need to know for your year-end exam.
Now your attention must turn to getting your spaced exposures, allowing your mind to see the same information again and again, but with at least a day of space in-between each exposure so that your brain can cement the neural networks and be ready to strengthen them.
My guess is that by using the surveying method, you should be able to review 300 pages a day with their accompanying lecture notes in about two hours of studying. At this rate, you'll be able to review all 2,500 pages every nine days.
Since you'll still have several months before the end of the year even after doing your initial reading, such a review schedule will give you around 20 or 30 spaced exposures to everything you'll need to know. That should be enough for you to have a strong grasp on all the overarching theory as well as the details.
Remembering Finance Formulas
Having taken several finance classes, I know how difficult it can be to remember all the formulas and functions you'll need to learn.
By reading and reviewing the textbook and going to class and doing your homework, you'll be learning how to do these, but you'll still need to tap into the power of the spacing effect in order to really memorize them.
That means getting many spaced exposures to all the formulas and complete instructions for how to solve them.
My recommendation is to create a notebook in which you write your own instructions for how to solve every formula and equation you need to know, followed by a couple of examples. Then, as you're reviewing your chapters with the surveying method, also take time to read through these instructions and look at the examples.
By completely reading through this notebook every few days for the next few months, the spacing effect will help you memorize all the instructions. Then, when you're in your test, it will be like an open book exam, because all the instructions will be right there in your memory.
Test Yourself
After a couple of months of spaced exposures to all the textbook pages, lecture notes, and from reading your notebook of instructions for how to solve the formulas, begin testing yourself every couple of weeks. Choose several example problems from your homework, create a test, and see how you do.
If you aren't doing well, then you need more spaced exposures. If you're doing well, make sure you keep getting your spaced exposures so that the information will truly be cemented.
Optimize Your Lifestyle
There are several things you can tweak in your daily routine that will dramatically increase your ability to memorize information.
Proper Sleep
Studies have shown that students who go to bed at or before 10:00 p.m. average as much as a letter grade higher than students who go to bed at midnight or later.
There is a bunch of theories as to why this works (optimized melatonin production being my favorite), but you don't need to get into the weeds to make this work for you. Just make it a point to be asleep by 10:00 p.m. every night and try to get as close to eight hours of sleep as possible.
This is absolutely critical for your academic performance. Not only will it optimize memory storage, but being well rested means you'll have better focus when you're studying.
Proper Exercise
Tons of studies also show a strong correlation between daily, vigorous exercise and academic performance.
Make sure you sweat every day. Alternate between jogging, cycling or power walking or other aerobic exercises one day and strength training the next. You don't have to kill yourself, but make sure you're getting a good workout.
Proper Diet
The American Journal of Medicine once published a study that showed how even one high-fat meal (chicken nuggets) could reduce blood oxygen content by as much as 20 percent, and cause blood to stop flowing completely in the smallest capillaries.
If you're trying to learn 2,500 pages of information, you don't want your body all gunked up by crappy processed foods.
Eat only whole, unprocessed foods. Eat lots of whole grains, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and fruits. Drink only water.
In Summary
Remember, multiple spaced exposures is the key. Use surveying to cut down on your reading time without missing important ideas. Create a detailed notebook about how to solve all your equations and formulas. Review everything in full as many times as you can before your test. Test yourself at two week intervals. Always sleep well, eat well, and exercise daily.
By doing all these things, you should be able to do well.
Good luck my friend.
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