December 9, 2020 • 13 mins
Cramming is no way to study. Learn why in today's short stuff.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, you welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
on behalf of Chuck. Who's here? Say hi Chuck an
uh Dave see the producer Jerry the mega meta uber
producer Uber with an oom loud Even that was a
good Jerry. Um. This is short stuff, the stuff you
(00:24):
should know, A short version of stuff you should know,
but shorter, that's right. And this has to do with
something that I have been guilty of from grades kindergarten
through my undergraduate degree, which is to say, cramming for
the test. I've always procrastinated when it comes to my
(00:48):
school testing. I always crammed. I always did pretty good.
It's a sort of a B student, and I never
thought it mattered much, and now I feel terrible about it.
Right until that time the cop pulled you over and
asked you how to explain Pythagoras Pythagoras theorem, and you
(01:09):
were like, oh, man, I knew this, I knew this,
and I forgot it. Yeah, because cramming is uh, it
sort of works if you're looking to skate by and
make that grade in and like walking in there minutes
after you finished studying. You might do okay, but you're
not gonna learn anything, and you're not going to remember
that stuff. And that's the point. Like, yes, you can
(01:31):
cram and do okay on a test, you could even
get through college or high school like that. And that's
why a lot of people who cram say, well, whatever
it works, I'm fine with it. But the point of
learning all this stuff is to actually learn it. So
when you look at it like that, like you don't
actually learn anything, you just are are doing rote memorization.
(01:51):
And then then it kind of makes sense to look
for other ways. And luckily, um, they figured out that
there are plenty of other ways to learn aside from cramming.
Before we get into that, let's talk about exactly why
cramming is terrible. Yeah, so you know, obviously we're saying
you're really not learning much. It's there have been studies
done and there are a lot of people who study this. Uh.
One of these guys from the House Stuff Works article
(02:14):
is Dr Robert A. Bork from u c l A
psychology department, and he's like, there's a dramatic forgetting rate
after you take that test. And you might think, well,
who cares, man, I pasked the test, but uh, that's
a big deal when that test is a building block
for more lessons, Like if it's a language class he
points out, or math class, all of that stuff matters.
(02:37):
You gotta learn that stuff. You can't cramp. I mean,
I guess you can cram for a language final or
a language test, but it's not gonna do any good
when the next test comes around and you never learned
the first stuff. Yeah, you'll never be a French major
like that. You SAP know what's SAP in French? Exepp
(02:57):
perfect um. And then the other part is when you're
cramming too. Usually you are you're you're adjusting your normal
schedule to like really debilitating degree. You're not cramming from
you know, um nine am, two ten pm the day
before the test. That's that's studying. Cramming usually involves like
(03:21):
just like squeezing whatever time you have out of the
handful of hours right before the test. Maybe you sleep
for a little bit right before and then going to
take the test. In my experience, it's always just been
going in and taking the test right after you finished studying. Yeah,
remember God, just remember this the Family Ties when Alex
(03:44):
pe Keaton took speed, it's so great. Every study. Every
family sitcom has always had somebody take speed, and it's
always to study. Remember Jesse Spanoh, Jesse, I saved by
the bell where she's like, I'm so excited. That's so excited.
They were doing a performance of that song and she
(04:04):
was like freaking out about getting it wrong. So she
was rehearsing and rehearsing and taking speed. I know, like,
you're too fast. I don't remember. It's it's great. It's
one of watershed moments in television history, Jesse collapsing in
Zack's arms because she's so excited. But I think that
shows coming back. It is in the same stars are
going to be like teachers, so cramming. Uh yeah, you
(04:29):
cram right until the last second. No good, you're not
learning long term. And there are some interesting ways to
combat this though. And should we take a break now? Yeah,
I think that's right. All right, it's a little early,
but it's a perfect place, so we'll be right back.
All right. Well, now we're on the road, driving in Chuck.
(05:00):
Want to learn a thing or two from Josh Man
Chuck stuff you should know? All right, all right, I
jumped the gun. We took an early break, but here's
the deal. If you want to study effectively. Uh, they
say that, you know, studying something twice is obviously the
(05:23):
best way, and even three times and more is the
best way to retain something and really learn something. But
it gets even more specific. It's called the spacing effect.
They say, if you study some and then you go
and take a break and do something else and then
come back to studying that same thing, you're gonna retain
even more than if you just did it twice in
a row. That's right. So this is like really really
(05:46):
important to remember, because if you want to learn anything,
there's just a certain thing you have to do and
that is not cramp And like this could even be
I didn't, I didn't see anywhere like how far spaced
out it needs to be. But I got the impression
that there's a sweet spot too far. And it's basically
like seeing the material like brand new again and you
(06:07):
don't even remember the first time, but too close. And
studies have shown that you actually, um don't uh, you
don't see it differently than you did the time before.
Like if you read a chapter and then go back
and read the chapter again, you're not doing anything to
help yourself you want to space it out some and
in doing that, you're they think you're you're encoding things differently. Yeah. So,
(06:31):
like you said, if you do something twice in a row,
it's so familiar to you, you're encoding it in the
exact same way. If you take that little break, you'll
encode it differently and remember it longer. And not only that,
but there are different ways to encode uh. And they
suggest like changing your um like where you study, Like
if you sit down in your favorite fat chair in
(06:51):
your office to study your thing, take a little break,
go to a different room for the second take, and
that will just mix it up in your brain enough
so you'll encode it more permanently. That's right. Um, So
that's pretty cool. That's a that's a good, good bit
of advice. And there's there's there's other reasons why they
think this works, um really well. Another one is that
like if you struggle to recall um, whatever the information
(07:17):
is for some reason, you're that that exertion of brain
power UM makes you learn it more. And there's this
there's a pretty good example in this article from House
to Folks, where like if you meet somebody, um and
you have to remember their name like thirty seconds later.
That's great, and you'll probably remember their name because it's
right there in your working memory. But the next day
(07:37):
you're probably not going to remember it. But if you, like,
you meet somebody and then an hour later you have
to recall their name and you really try to recall it,
you're probably going to remember it the next day because
they think you're struggling with that recall. You're exerting an
effort with recall. And it makes sense because you know,
if you're like, what's that person's name again, and you
don't even bother to try to recall, um, you will,
(08:00):
You're not You're not going to learn it. Or if
you even if you ask the person what their name
is over and over again, you're not just getting it
in there. Um, You're you're never going to learn it either.
So it makes sense struggle struggle to recall might help
with this, uh this learning. Yeah, I'm the worst with
names like that, and I've tried. I know we both are.
We I've tried all the things I try to remember
(08:22):
to think of pneumatic devices, pneumonic devices, pneumatic and uh,
I just can't do it. So you hear a lot
of hey Man out of me, and it's no offense.
I never forget a personality or a face, so you're encoded.
It's just those names. I think everyone should wear name tags.
(08:43):
But they've done plenty of studies about this. There was
one in two thousand nine from u c l A
from Dr Nate Cornell with a K and found that
spacing was more effective than cramming for nine of participants,
which is I mean, there it is, there's your proof.
Well yeah, But the thing is they also surveyed those
participants and found out that basically all of them still
(09:04):
thought cramming was effective. And the reason why is because
it is effective, but it's not effective for long term learning.
So what they figured out in addition to spacing, um
that spacing is well, I guess in kind of in
conjunction with spacing, because another technique that really helps people learn,
and it's called inner leaving. I think it should be
(09:24):
called inter weaving. But whatever, it's where you take. You know,
let's say you have two hours to study math. You're
actually better off to study math for thirty minutes, then
go study, say French or something else for another thirty minutes,
and then yeah, and then right, and then study um
(09:44):
model airplane building for thirty minutes and then go back
to the math. You're gonna do better than you did
if you spent two solid hours on math, even by
breaking it up, which is very counterintuitive because it seems
like to be distracted. But hey man, the studies don't lie. Yeah.
Is two thousand fifteen study that tested middle school kids
(10:05):
with algebra and geometry, two subjects at a very hard
time with and a day after their lesson was complete, Uh,
the students who enter wove or enter love scored better
than students who got regular instruction. And then here's the
real kicker. A month later, that interleaving group was up
(10:26):
seventy six percent. And that's kind of the whole point,
which is like long term learning something rather than just
recalling something for a test. Right. Yeah, that's there's your
proof right there. Seventy percent after a month is that's
all I needed to hear. So from now on, it's
inter leaving and encoding, uh, and spacing for me. Yeah,
(10:47):
And I try to do that because our job is
sort of like taking a test in ally, and I've
gotten into and I know we both have our own
sort of methods worked out now, But um, I've gotten
into a groove now where I will read stuff like
on the laptop and then not look at it for
a bit, and then read and highlight the printed version
(11:08):
and then leave it for a bit and then eventually
underline the key parts on the highlighted printed version. And
that in addition to just general like you know, videos
and other like ways of learning, that's kind of the
sweet spot for me. Yeah, because you're spacing it out
and that's it works. Yeah, I know, writing something down
has always been a suggestion, like if you write it out,
(11:30):
then you're more likely to remember it. That's a big thing.
Oh yeah, for sure. Like if there's a very difficult
concept that we have to explain, it's way easier to
write it out. On one hand, you're like proving to
yourself that you understand it, but you're also definitely like
re encoding it in a different way. And the other
thing I find interesting too is if you actually physically
(11:51):
move to like a different room or a different location
or something like that, Um, just being surrounded by that
different stuff or different sound, different smells, different sites. Even
if when you're learning the exact same information, your brain
is encoding it in a different way. I just find
that endlessly fascinating and it makes total sense too. Yeah,
and I've always, you know, seen over the years when
(12:13):
you said across from me that your signature Josh Clark
three point chicken scratch handwriting. No one else on the
planet can see without a magnifying glass or read even
with the magnifying glass. Yeah, I sometimes can't. I'm like,
what is I What did I say here? But the
point is it's not even to go back and reread
(12:33):
almost never is. If it is, then I make it
super legible. It's just writing it out. Help me remember it,
you know. Yeah, it's good stuff. We have her tricks.
Well that's it. Go forth and stop cramming everybody. You
will be a more well rounded, happier, smarter human being. Okay, okay,
And since I said okay twice, it's uh the end
(12:54):
of short stuff and short stuff. Oh wait, Stuff you
should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Hey, you welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
on behalf of Chuck. Who's here? Say hi Chuck an
uh Dave see the producer Jerry the mega meta uber
producer Uber with an oom loud Even that was a
good Jerry. Um. This is short stuff, the stuff you
(00:24):
should know, A short version of stuff you should know,
but shorter, that's right. And this has to do with
something that I have been guilty of from grades kindergarten
through my undergraduate degree, which is to say, cramming for
the test. I've always procrastinated when it comes to my
(00:48):
school testing. I always crammed. I always did pretty good.
It's a sort of a B student, and I never
thought it mattered much, and now I feel terrible about it.
Right until that time the cop pulled you over and
asked you how to explain Pythagoras Pythagoras theorem, and you
(01:09):
were like, oh, man, I knew this, I knew this,
and I forgot it. Yeah, because cramming is uh, it
sort of works if you're looking to skate by and
make that grade in and like walking in there minutes
after you finished studying. You might do okay, but you're
not gonna learn anything, and you're not going to remember
that stuff. And that's the point. Like, yes, you can
(01:31):
cram and do okay on a test, you could even
get through college or high school like that. And that's
why a lot of people who cram say, well, whatever
it works, I'm fine with it. But the point of
learning all this stuff is to actually learn it. So
when you look at it like that, like you don't
actually learn anything, you just are are doing rote memorization.
(01:51):
And then then it kind of makes sense to look
for other ways. And luckily, um, they figured out that
there are plenty of other ways to learn aside from cramming.
Before we get into that, let's talk about exactly why
cramming is terrible. Yeah, so you know, obviously we're saying
you're really not learning much. It's there have been studies
done and there are a lot of people who study this. Uh.
One of these guys from the House Stuff Works article
(02:14):
is Dr Robert A. Bork from u c l A
psychology department, and he's like, there's a dramatic forgetting rate
after you take that test. And you might think, well,
who cares, man, I pasked the test, but uh, that's
a big deal when that test is a building block
for more lessons, Like if it's a language class he
points out, or math class, all of that stuff matters.
(02:37):
You gotta learn that stuff. You can't cramp. I mean,
I guess you can cram for a language final or
a language test, but it's not gonna do any good
when the next test comes around and you never learned
the first stuff. Yeah, you'll never be a French major
like that. You SAP know what's SAP in French? Exepp
(02:57):
perfect um. And then the other part is when you're
cramming too. Usually you are you're you're adjusting your normal
schedule to like really debilitating degree. You're not cramming from
you know, um nine am, two ten pm the day
before the test. That's that's studying. Cramming usually involves like
(03:21):
just like squeezing whatever time you have out of the
handful of hours right before the test. Maybe you sleep
for a little bit right before and then going to
take the test. In my experience, it's always just been
going in and taking the test right after you finished studying. Yeah,
remember God, just remember this the Family Ties when Alex
(03:44):
pe Keaton took speed, it's so great. Every study. Every
family sitcom has always had somebody take speed, and it's
always to study. Remember Jesse Spanoh, Jesse, I saved by
the bell where she's like, I'm so excited. That's so excited.
They were doing a performance of that song and she
(04:04):
was like freaking out about getting it wrong. So she
was rehearsing and rehearsing and taking speed. I know, like,
you're too fast. I don't remember. It's it's great. It's
one of watershed moments in television history, Jesse collapsing in
Zack's arms because she's so excited. But I think that
shows coming back. It is in the same stars are
going to be like teachers, so cramming. Uh yeah, you
(04:29):
cram right until the last second. No good, you're not
learning long term. And there are some interesting ways to
combat this though. And should we take a break now? Yeah,
I think that's right. All right, it's a little early,
but it's a perfect place, so we'll be right back.
All right. Well, now we're on the road, driving in Chuck.
(05:00):
Want to learn a thing or two from Josh Man
Chuck stuff you should know? All right, all right, I
jumped the gun. We took an early break, but here's
the deal. If you want to study effectively. Uh, they
say that, you know, studying something twice is obviously the
(05:23):
best way, and even three times and more is the
best way to retain something and really learn something. But
it gets even more specific. It's called the spacing effect.
They say, if you study some and then you go
and take a break and do something else and then
come back to studying that same thing, you're gonna retain
even more than if you just did it twice in
a row. That's right. So this is like really really
(05:46):
important to remember, because if you want to learn anything,
there's just a certain thing you have to do and
that is not cramp And like this could even be
I didn't, I didn't see anywhere like how far spaced
out it needs to be. But I got the impression
that there's a sweet spot too far. And it's basically
like seeing the material like brand new again and you
(06:07):
don't even remember the first time, but too close. And
studies have shown that you actually, um don't uh, you
don't see it differently than you did the time before.
Like if you read a chapter and then go back
and read the chapter again, you're not doing anything to
help yourself you want to space it out some and
in doing that, you're they think you're you're encoding things differently. Yeah. So,
(06:31):
like you said, if you do something twice in a row,
it's so familiar to you, you're encoding it in the
exact same way. If you take that little break, you'll
encode it differently and remember it longer. And not only that,
but there are different ways to encode uh. And they
suggest like changing your um like where you study, Like
if you sit down in your favorite fat chair in
(06:51):
your office to study your thing, take a little break,
go to a different room for the second take, and
that will just mix it up in your brain enough
so you'll encode it more permanently. That's right. Um, So
that's pretty cool. That's a that's a good, good bit
of advice. And there's there's there's other reasons why they
think this works, um really well. Another one is that
like if you struggle to recall um, whatever the information
(07:17):
is for some reason, you're that that exertion of brain
power UM makes you learn it more. And there's this
there's a pretty good example in this article from House
to Folks, where like if you meet somebody, um and
you have to remember their name like thirty seconds later.
That's great, and you'll probably remember their name because it's
right there in your working memory. But the next day
(07:37):
you're probably not going to remember it. But if you, like,
you meet somebody and then an hour later you have
to recall their name and you really try to recall it,
you're probably going to remember it the next day because
they think you're struggling with that recall. You're exerting an
effort with recall. And it makes sense because you know,
if you're like, what's that person's name again, and you
don't even bother to try to recall, um, you will,
(08:00):
You're not You're not going to learn it. Or if
you even if you ask the person what their name
is over and over again, you're not just getting it
in there. Um, You're you're never going to learn it either.
So it makes sense struggle struggle to recall might help
with this, uh this learning. Yeah, I'm the worst with
names like that, and I've tried. I know we both are.
We I've tried all the things I try to remember
(08:22):
to think of pneumatic devices, pneumonic devices, pneumatic and uh,
I just can't do it. So you hear a lot
of hey Man out of me, and it's no offense.
I never forget a personality or a face, so you're encoded.
It's just those names. I think everyone should wear name tags.
(08:43):
But they've done plenty of studies about this. There was
one in two thousand nine from u c l A
from Dr Nate Cornell with a K and found that
spacing was more effective than cramming for nine of participants,
which is I mean, there it is, there's your proof.
Well yeah, But the thing is they also surveyed those
participants and found out that basically all of them still
(09:04):
thought cramming was effective. And the reason why is because
it is effective, but it's not effective for long term learning.
So what they figured out in addition to spacing, um
that spacing is well, I guess in kind of in
conjunction with spacing, because another technique that really helps people learn,
and it's called inner leaving. I think it should be
(09:24):
called inter weaving. But whatever, it's where you take. You know,
let's say you have two hours to study math. You're
actually better off to study math for thirty minutes, then
go study, say French or something else for another thirty minutes,
and then yeah, and then right, and then study um
(09:44):
model airplane building for thirty minutes and then go back
to the math. You're gonna do better than you did
if you spent two solid hours on math, even by
breaking it up, which is very counterintuitive because it seems
like to be distracted. But hey man, the studies don't lie. Yeah.
Is two thousand fifteen study that tested middle school kids
(10:05):
with algebra and geometry, two subjects at a very hard
time with and a day after their lesson was complete, Uh,
the students who enter wove or enter love scored better
than students who got regular instruction. And then here's the
real kicker. A month later, that interleaving group was up
(10:26):
seventy six percent. And that's kind of the whole point,
which is like long term learning something rather than just
recalling something for a test. Right. Yeah, that's there's your
proof right there. Seventy percent after a month is that's
all I needed to hear. So from now on, it's
inter leaving and encoding, uh, and spacing for me. Yeah,
(10:47):
And I try to do that because our job is
sort of like taking a test in ally, and I've
gotten into and I know we both have our own
sort of methods worked out now, But um, I've gotten
into a groove now where I will read stuff like
on the laptop and then not look at it for
a bit, and then read and highlight the printed version
(11:08):
and then leave it for a bit and then eventually
underline the key parts on the highlighted printed version. And
that in addition to just general like you know, videos
and other like ways of learning, that's kind of the
sweet spot for me. Yeah, because you're spacing it out
and that's it works. Yeah, I know, writing something down
has always been a suggestion, like if you write it out,
(11:30):
then you're more likely to remember it. That's a big thing.
Oh yeah, for sure. Like if there's a very difficult
concept that we have to explain, it's way easier to
write it out. On one hand, you're like proving to
yourself that you understand it, but you're also definitely like
re encoding it in a different way. And the other
thing I find interesting too is if you actually physically
(11:51):
move to like a different room or a different location
or something like that, Um, just being surrounded by that
different stuff or different sound, different smells, different sites. Even
if when you're learning the exact same information, your brain
is encoding it in a different way. I just find
that endlessly fascinating and it makes total sense too. Yeah,
and I've always, you know, seen over the years when
(12:13):
you said across from me that your signature Josh Clark
three point chicken scratch handwriting. No one else on the
planet can see without a magnifying glass or read even
with the magnifying glass. Yeah, I sometimes can't. I'm like,
what is I What did I say here? But the
point is it's not even to go back and reread
(12:33):
almost never is. If it is, then I make it
super legible. It's just writing it out. Help me remember it,
you know. Yeah, it's good stuff. We have her tricks.
Well that's it. Go forth and stop cramming everybody. You
will be a more well rounded, happier, smarter human being. Okay, okay,
And since I said okay twice, it's uh the end
(12:54):
of short stuff and short stuff. Oh wait, Stuff you
should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
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