Why Studying on the Last Night for the Exam Often Doesn’t Work

Studying for the exam on the last night for a course that we haven’t studied for days is usually an option preferred by most of us. It seems like if we work until the morning, we can get everything done. But what is expected in the exam the next day is not possible.

Alright Why does studying for the exam on the last day often do not work?

To answer this question, let’s first look at Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve.

The creator of this concept, Hermann Ebbinghaus, is a German psychologist known for the discovery of the forgetting curve and the interval effect. In the forgetting curve, which is a mathematical formula The curve shows the rate at which information is forgotten over time.

Within the framework of education, the forgetting curve is the It shows that they will forget approximately 90% of what they learned within 1 month. Because the ability to store information is related to the strength of memory and the time elapsed after learning.

Ebbinghaus says that if you review the information at regular intervals suggests that the forgetting curve declines more gradually. This means your brain is much more likely to categorize repeated information as important.

Every time you repeat the information, your recall rate returns to 100%.

Taking time to learn the necessary information, It helps to remember information more easily. But of course, this process takes time, and therefore filling your brain on the last night only works for a short time.

If studying for the exam on the last night will not benefit us, then what study techniques should we use?

In the self-explanation technique, the process is It involves thinking out loud. This method also helps you gauge whether you truly understand a particular topic.

If the sentences you use when explaining the subject to yourself are inconsistent and meaningless, It means you don’t understand the subject as well as you thought.

In the interval training technique, what you need to do is: You should not study the subjects right before the exam, but divide them into days. So, you can learn more information by extending this process over time. Moreover, in this way, it is possible to have the information transferred to your permanent memory.

Finally, mixing topics can help you succeed in the exam.

Imagine that there are three different topics in the exam: A, B and C. Your working technique: It will be in the form AAAABBBBCCCC. This is the block operating model. That is, you focus on one subject at a certain time, and after you finish studying that subject, you move on to another subject.

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