STUDYING AN HOUR PRIOR TO EXAM, TEST AND INTERVIEW

There are instances where we are being advised to devote not more than one or two hours revising in preparation for a test, exam or an interview as studying too much would wear you off. Yes, we don’t need all day studying however, we also need to understand the fact that studying over and over again, helps us to remember what was read or studied.

WHY STUDY OVER AND OVER AGAIN?

It’s worthy since repetition practice help to master and remember what was learnt. This is the best method children used in learning, and that is why most children don’t forget that easily after learning over and over again for a very long time. This does not apply to children alone, students and adults learning new materials or studying a new event would need to study or learning over and over again, to master and remember most part of the information over a long time; this benefits us in the aspect of fast retentive memory, boost self-confidence, and reinforces the connections in the brain that support learning process.

Researchers believe that there are different types of learners which are illustrated by the time required to learn a piece of new knowledge or task compared to the time an average individual spent on studying such piece of information or material, which is being influenced by the ability to remember this new knowledge or task. We as individuals have a different rate of assimilating a piece of information quickly; for some, it takes a longer time, while for some it’s very fast, we should also remember that the fact that we can assimilate a piece of information as fast as possible, does not mean we would remember that information when being asked hours, days, years and even little as a few minutes later. The slow learner can have the ability to remember a piece of material learned even faster than the fast learner which means such individuals can retain a piece of information in a long term memory.

WHY HOUR PRIOR TO EXAM, TEST AND INTERVIEW?

So studying a few hours or even an hour before an exam, test or interview is never a bad idea, it helps to refresh the memory.

Studying again an hour before a test, an interview or an exam is an awesome strategy tailored at minimizing the effect of retroactive interference that is the tendency of later learning to obstruct the memory of formerly acquired piece information. Retroactive interference interferes with the recollection of old memories thereby making it difficult to remember things already known, the only way to suppress the impact is to study or learn over and over again even after satisfactory mastery of the material has been attained. Memory plays a vital role in learning and recollecting new information nevertheless, the absorption of information from short-term memory is a flexible process whereby new information added and can change what we have learned or lead to gradual forgetfulness of what has been learned.

Short term memory would keep adding information upon information, however, the ones that can be remembered are the ones over re-emphasized over and over again. Studying a material again one hour before a test, exam or an interview would boost memory retention and would ensure no information is lost as well, as information learned or read about in the material can drop off the memory with time and lost from the memory effort is not put in place to retain it.

Study shows that as humans, we tend to lose information from memory very quickly. I would also let my friend understand that over-learning is the best option to guarantee we pass the test to prevent storage decay as noted by Hermann Ebbinghaus’s analysis of memorization, which stated that average individual loses 50% of memorized information after 20 minutes and 70% of the information after 24 hours (Ebbinghaus, 1885/1964, as cited in OpenStax n.d.). The last hour review is a way of applying memory boosting and conservation which consequently, will help to refresh our memory, and doing this can help us remember about 90% of all we studied for the test.

With all being said, it is strongly recommended that we stay away from cramming, cramming would not help with long term memory retention and also ingesting foods that can impair sleep such as caffeine is not helpful in any way when it comes to studying for an exam, test or interview; all you need do, is to stay healthy, apply good time management skills and adopt studying methods that work best for you or the best method for studying the material.

REFERENCE

Ebbinghaus, H. (1964). Memory: A contribution to experimental psychology (H. A. Ruger & C. E. Bussenius, Trans.). New York, NY: Dover. (Original work published 1885) as cited in OpenStax (n.d.). pg. 276; Accessed at https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:[email protected]/Introduction