How to prepare for a final exam | High school and college

Oh crap. You’ve got a test. How are you going to study for it?
00:00 Step #1
1:31 Step #2
3:00 Step #3
5:04 Tip #1: How to use visualizations
5:40 Tip #2: On study groups
6:26 Tip #3: Be reasonable during step 3
7:03 Open vs. closed book exams
7:36 Multiple choice vs essay tests
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My advice here is based on a few lines of literature.
Steps 1 and 3, which I recommend spending the most time on, comes from the research on free recall and the testing effect. These are just better study than rereading or re-writing your notes. Typical research findings are here:
Karpicke, J. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science, 331(6018), 772-775. mrbartonmaths.com/resourcesne...
Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger III, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. science, 319(5865), 966-968.
psychnet.wustl.edu/memory/wp-c...
Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger III, H. L. (2007). Repeated retrieval during learning is the key to long-term retention. Journal of Memory and Language, 57(2), 151-162.
citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...
Yang, C., Luo, L., Vadillo, M. A., Yu, R., & Shanks, D. R. (2021). Testing (quizzing) boosts classroom learning: A systematic and meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin. (currently available at www.gwern.net/docs/spacedrepe...)
An applied research piece exploring the application of tests in the classroom. They tested both short-answer and multiple-choice tests, finding that short answer tests outperformed multiple choice tests (though both outperformed additional reading).
McDaniel, M. A., Anderson, J. L., Derbish, M. H., & Morrisette, N. (2007). Testing the testing effect in the classroom. European journal of cognitive psychology, 19(4-5), 494-513. (currently available at citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/...)
A classic study demonstrating long-term benefits (1 month).
Butler, A. C., & Roediger III, H. L. (2007). Testing improves long-term retention in a simulated classroom setting. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 19(4-5), 514-527. (currently available at psychnet.wustl.edu/memory/wp-c...)
My advice on the "outstanding questions" box is based on the literature on self-questioning and interrogation. It’s also supposed to help you with metacognitive knowledge (which helps you study more effectively because you know what you already understand and what you’re still struggling with). Example research findings are here:
Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the public interest, 14(1), 4-58. bibliotecadigital.mineduc.cl/... (The first two sections on elaborative interrogation and self-explanations are relevant here.)
Rosenshine, B., Meister, C., & Chapman, S. (1996). Teaching students to generate questions: A review of the intervention studies. Review of educational research, 66(2), 181-221. jgregorymcverry.com/readings/... (In most of these studies people are teaching students how to ask questions, which is an important part of the process.)
King, A. (1992). Comparison of self-questioning, summarizing, and notetaking-review as strategies for learning from lectures. American Educational Research Journal, 29(2), 303-323. citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...
My advice on using visualizations comes from research on learning and visualizations (well summarized in The ABCs of Learning, citation below). Basically, they offload cognitive burden, they can be more specific than words (relating ideas and concepts in more precise ways), and they can help you identify patterns that you might not have recognized before.
Schwartz, D. L., Tsang, J. M., & Blair, K. P. (2016). The ABCs of how we learn: 26 scientifically proven approaches, how they work, and when to use them. WW Norton & Company. (I’m referring to “V is for Visualization”. Great introduction to the research on learning more generally.)
There are other ways of studying for tests, of course. But I think this is a pretty solid default method.

[@devvv4616]

i honestly trust you the most in this space of learning science over those with millions or hundred thousand subscribers. I checked some and their editing usually carries them and they're just overly verbose elongating their content for the algorithm probably

[@stageconvention2298]

Same

[@atharvafasale]

00:04 Organize and integrate key concepts in each subject 01:20 Organizing information in papers is more important than making them look pretty. 02:31 Assess your knowledge and focus on weak areas. Use practice tests for preparation. 03:37 Take practice tests to prepare for exams 04:40 Take care of your health to perform well in tests 06:02 Effective strategies for studying 07:10 Closed book exams require less time for looking up information compared to open book exams. 08:23 Effective study techniques for essay tests

[@hellbug-lj8hp]

Dude, how you don't have more subscribers this are amazing tips and I can see the underlying ciencie base on all of them. This are things that really work now and in the long run! Definitely enjoying your videos know that my year started❤

[@thygovanengeland8758]

simple, but actually very good advice. after learning about learning for the last 2 years, I find myself in a trap sometimes where I forget to just point out the "obvious".

[@Aritul]

Thank you for the video and your sources.

[@yohannesgirma2]

I went through some of your videos and got convinced to subscribe

[@fieuline2536]

Love your videos!

[@romansynovle990]

MY thanks Excellent video playing while my pc is frozen!!

[@eliaselotmani2805]

Thank you for your video ! A very practical problem that I run into when taking practice tests : 1) often, they involve different skills, which you acquire at different speeds, and 2) they are redundant and overlapping in the knowledge they require, so that altogether the more you practice, the more you spend time working on things you already know very well (say you have a dice with a hundred sides, the probability of getting a side that you haven't gotten yet when iteratively throwing it decreases exponentially as you keep going). This is particularly true for fields like medicine where there are lots of details. For this reason I'm wondering whether it is not more useful to use the lasts weeks not to keep practicing but to go back to the lecture material, looking for things that your practice tests didn't cover I think this goes along the same logic than the one we find in other domains. For example, when training for chess tournaments, players usually spend a lot of time practicing with tough problems, rather than playing more games, because this way they can spend more time on situations yielding high amounts of learning, as opposed to oppenings for example, which are quickly mastered.

[@benjaminkeep]

Of course there are times when you are better off working on more challenging material. In fact, that's often true. But how would you know what is challenging - how do you know what you don't understand - unless you actually test yourself in some way? As you test yourself, you verify what you know and don't know and spend more time working on stuff that you don't know that well. That's just exercising good judgment. The comparison you're trying to make between working on hard chess problems and searching old lecture notes doesn't make sense. Looking through old lecture notes is a process of searching for information. Consider the mental effort involved in that search (and consider how long you spend searching vs what you might find). The chess player who spends time on hard problems is problem solving - applying knowledge, synthesizing play patterns, pushing their memory, using the many cognitive tools at their disposal. I'm not saying you should never search through old lecture notes. It could be a sensible thing to do. It's just the value of the time you spend searching depends on your likelihood of finding something important that you missed, the likelihood of you remembering and applying it correctly - which probably still requires you to apply the idea or information in some way (i.e., we're back to testing and problem solving again), and, if you're primarily concerned with test scores, the likelihood that it actually appears on the test.

[@joaquinfigueira85]

Thank you very much for the tips. I'm starting a new Master's now and I want to improve my studying skills in order to get the best grades possible. All the info you gave in the video seems Science based although I'm by no means an expert in the topic 😅

[@amirg5912]

After following your content and overcoming personal hurdles to study productively, as a 33-year-old late entry university student, I've gained a newfound appreciation for researchers like yourself. I'm thankful for your insights. I was wondering how you might study for something like an MCAT. Many organizations falsely advertise success stories showcasing secret blitzkrieg methods. I believe many people just cram study from April to September, or doing past tests daily. Any insights you have would be sincerely appreciated.

[@swisssaidal2970]

Hey! Been binging all of your videos hahaha, they're really good. I have some questions though, hope you can clarify them. Isn't steps 1 and 2 like a long session of free recall? What I understood is that the function of those steps is to try to remember all the stuff that you went through before, right? And then just filling in the "blanks" with practice. The open questions also had me a bit confused, because in free recall that bit is not included.

[@benjaminkeep]

Yes. It serves a few different functions. One is that it's just a good memory technique. But it is also a way of understanding what you actually know so you can figure out what you need to work on. And it will make your future studying more effective by activating prior knowledge. Open questions are always good. Yeah, I guess in my basic free recall video I don't talk about that. Kind of depends on your goals and the subject whether open questions are appropriate (doing a pure vocab free recall session doesn't really lend itself to that).

[@reinerheiner1148]

Amazing content. One question: does it have to be a blank sheet of paper, or can I use a programm like vue to draw mind maps on my device of choice? Is the act of writing and painting (even if its just connection lines) better for learning than using a mouse and a mind map program of my choice?

[@faizahmed295]

Thank you

[@GabrielBezerra.]

my question is how to put these intervals into practice. I am a medical student, and we have to learn many, many subjects. How to organize these spaced repetitions to avoid forgetting, you know? Faced with so many subjects to be learned.

[@shikha6747]

Hi! Question about the step 1. So, I’m a physics student where we cover a lot of material and it’s my finals coming up. Do you suggest that I write a blank paper for each chapter or the entire course in just one paper? Thank you so much, this video is really helpful!

[@benjaminkeep]

Between the two options, I would probably do it chapter by chapter - otherwise there's just too much stuff - but you could also think about a different way that you could organize the material. By concepts? By problem type?

[@pedroewert143]

And maybe think about a study plan that accounts for forgetting, time constraints and reviews - usually, when i had to learn 100 pages and could study 10 pages a day (time constraint) - i would calculate with 10 days and didnt have good results. So if we forget 80% of what we learn - out of studying 10 pages i just learned 2 pages. With that rate i would need 50 days. So i can counter that with doing more review. Maybe with 5 pages studying new stuff and reviewing 5 pages i can end with learning actually 4 pages - cutting study time to 25 days. Chat gpt is useful to do some calculations based on forgetting curve, numbers of needed repetitions and time constraints to calculate a realestic timeframe for the 100 pages. (I can do probably more pages in the review because im faster - but something will be forgotten from the first sessions too). And then there are those forgetting-wildcards Benjamin mentioned. Things we thought we knew, but cant recall - and we cant really forecast if we can reproduce it in the future- but just note after practise testing if we were successful - so one has to account for that aswell.

[@matthewariel547]

as a curious guy in general, i often have questions when studying about a thought process. lately i have been using chat gpt as a personal tutor, keep asking it until its simplest form of concept

[@serhatkuk4180]

Hi. I have a question, I would be glad if you can answer it. You stated in description that free recall and testing is better than re-reading. Does rereading not have a place, like at all? I think if there is a lot of time since the last time I studied the subject (lets say it was 8 years ago in my second year in university) and if I lost/didnt keep lecture notes, quizess etc. then rereading would be usefull. Don't you agree ? I mean I am not talking about rereading the same subject every 4 weeks, I am wondering about rereading a subject that you last studied 5-6 years ago. Thanks in advance.

[@benjaminkeep]

Certainly, there are times when we want to re-read something. I tend to re-read after I have questions from doing a test or something like that. It's more that re-reading as a general strategy is not terribly effective. Re-reading as a refresher to something you studied many years ago would be fine. I'm not a big believer in strict rules - as you understand what you know you should exercise your own judgment.

[@user-pj3dp7bm1g]

Do you suggest doing this for maths, or just go straight into practice tests and find your knowledge gaps there?

[@TheWiseFoxSpirit]

Hi Benjamin, what is the video you recommend toward the end? It didn't appear on my screen... Is it your free recall video?

[@benjaminkeep]

Hmm... that's weird. Shows up okay on my end. Yes, it is! Thanks for asking. : )

[@samiamaan8023]

Can this also be applied to medschool students. Also, what techniques do u recommend for a post grad(asking because I'm soon to be one)

[@benjaminkeep]

Yes, could apply to med school and law school too with minor modifications. Do you mean techniques for grad school? Or learning at work/on your own? The job of a grad student is VERY different from an undergrad. The focus is on research and writing skills within the discipline. And finding a good advisor/good peer group to learn from. Grades in classes do not matter at all and you need to focus on identifying the skills you need to develop, developing them, and what you can contribute to the research community. Plenty more to say obviously, but that's my quick response.

[@theintel5694]

This guy looks like deadmaus