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Short Stuff: Cramming · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: on behalf of Chuck. Who's here? Say hi Chuck an
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: uh Dave see the producer Jerry the mega meta uber
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: producer Uber with an oom loud Even that was a
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: good Jerry. Um. This is short stuff, the stuff you
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: should know, A short version of stuff you should know,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: but shorter, that's right. And this has to do with
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  Speaker 1: something that I have been guilty of from grades kindergarten
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  Speaker 1: through my undergraduate degree, which is to say, cramming for
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  Speaker 1: the test. I've always procrastinated when it comes to my
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  Speaker 1: school testing. I always crammed. I always did pretty good.
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  Speaker 1: It's a sort of a B student, and I never
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  Speaker 1: thought it mattered much, and now I feel terrible about it.
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  Speaker 1: Right until that time the cop pulled you over and
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  Speaker 1: asked you how to explain Pythagoras Pythagoras theorem, and you
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  Speaker 1: were like, oh, man, I knew this, I knew this,
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  Speaker 1: and I forgot it. Yeah, because cramming is uh, it
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  Speaker 1: sort of works if you're looking to skate by and
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  Speaker 1: make that grade in and like walking in there minutes
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  Speaker 1: after you finished studying. You might do okay, but you're
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  Speaker 1: not gonna learn anything, and you're not going to remember
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  Speaker 1: that stuff. And that's the point. Like, yes, you can
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  Speaker 1: cram and do okay on a test, you could even
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  Speaker 1: get through college or high school like that. And that's
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  Speaker 1: why a lot of people who cram say, well, whatever
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  Speaker 1: it works, I'm fine with it. But the point of
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  Speaker 1: learning all this stuff is to actually learn it. So
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  Speaker 1: when you look at it like that, like you don't
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  Speaker 1: actually learn anything, you just are are doing rote memorization.
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  Speaker 1: And then then it kind of makes sense to look
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  Speaker 1: for other ways. And luckily, um, they figured out that
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  Speaker 1: there are plenty of other ways to learn aside from cramming.
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  Speaker 1: Before we get into that, let's talk about exactly why
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  Speaker 1: cramming is terrible. Yeah, so you know, obviously we're saying
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  Speaker 1: you're really not learning much. It's there have been studies
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  Speaker 1: done and there are a lot of people who study this. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: One of these guys from the House Stuff Works article
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  Speaker 1: is Dr Robert A. Bork from u c l A
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  Speaker 1: psychology department, and he's like, there's a dramatic forgetting rate
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  Speaker 1: after you take that test. And you might think, well,
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  Speaker 1: who cares, man, I pasked the test, but uh, that's
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  Speaker 1: a big deal when that test is a building block
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  Speaker 1: for more lessons, Like if it's a language class he
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  Speaker 1: points out, or math class, all of that stuff matters.
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  Speaker 1: You gotta learn that stuff. You can't cramp. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I guess you can cram for a language final or
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  Speaker 1: a language test, but it's not gonna do any good
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  Speaker 1: when the next test comes around and you never learned
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  Speaker 1: the first stuff. Yeah, you'll never be a French major
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  Speaker 1: like that. You SAP know what's SAP in French? Exepp
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  Speaker 1: perfect um. And then the other part is when you're
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  Speaker 1: cramming too. Usually you are you're you're adjusting your normal
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  Speaker 1: schedule to like really debilitating degree. You're not cramming from
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  Speaker 1: you know, um nine am, two ten pm the day
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  Speaker 1: before the test. That's that's studying. Cramming usually involves like
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  Speaker 1: just like squeezing whatever time you have out of the
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  Speaker 1: handful of hours right before the test. Maybe you sleep
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  Speaker 1: for a little bit right before and then going to
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  Speaker 1: take the test. In my experience, it's always just been
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  Speaker 1: going in and taking the test right after you finished studying. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: remember God, just remember this the Family Ties when Alex
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  Speaker 1: pe Keaton took speed, it's so great. Every study. Every
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  Speaker 1: family sitcom has always had somebody take speed, and it's
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  Speaker 1: always to study. Remember Jesse Spanoh, Jesse, I saved by
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  Speaker 1: the bell where she's like, I'm so excited. That's so excited.
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  Speaker 1: They were doing a performance of that song and she
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  Speaker 1: was like freaking out about getting it wrong. So she
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  Speaker 1: was rehearsing and rehearsing and taking speed. I know, like,
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  Speaker 1: you're too fast. I don't remember. It's it's great. It's
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  Speaker 1: one of watershed moments in television history, Jesse collapsing in
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  Speaker 1: Zack's arms because she's so excited. But I think that
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  Speaker 1: shows coming back. It is in the same stars are
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  Speaker 1: going to be like teachers, so cramming. Uh yeah, you
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  Speaker 1: cram right until the last second. No good, you're not
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  Speaker 1: learning long term. And there are some interesting ways to
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  Speaker 1: combat this though. And should we take a break now? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I think that's right. All right, it's a little early,
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  Speaker 1: but it's a perfect place, so we'll be right back.
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  Speaker 1: All right. Well, now we're on the road, driving in Chuck.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Want to learn a thing or two from Josh Man
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  Speaker 1: Chuck stuff you should know? All right, all right, I
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  Speaker 1: jumped the gun. We took an early break, but here's
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  Speaker 1: the deal. If you want to study effectively. Uh, they
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  Speaker 1: say that, you know, studying something twice is obviously the
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  Speaker 1: best way, and even three times and more is the
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  Speaker 1: best way to retain something and really learn something. But
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  Speaker 1: it gets even more specific. It's called the spacing effect.
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  Speaker 1: They say, if you study some and then you go
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  Speaker 1: and take a break and do something else and then
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  Speaker 1: come back to studying that same thing, you're gonna retain
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  Speaker 1: even more than if you just did it twice in
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  Speaker 1: a row. That's right. So this is like really really
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  Speaker 1: important to remember, because if you want to learn anything,
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  Speaker 1: there's just a certain thing you have to do and
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  Speaker 1: that is not cramp And like this could even be
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  Speaker 1: I didn't, I didn't see anywhere like how far spaced
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  Speaker 1: out it needs to be. But I got the impression
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  Speaker 1: that there's a sweet spot too far. And it's basically
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  Speaker 1: like seeing the material like brand new again and you
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  Speaker 1: don't even remember the first time, but too close. And
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  Speaker 1: studies have shown that you actually, um don't uh, you
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  Speaker 1: don't see it differently than you did the time before.
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  Speaker 1: Like if you read a chapter and then go back
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  Speaker 1: and read the chapter again, you're not doing anything to
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  Speaker 1: help yourself you want to space it out some and
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  Speaker 1: in doing that, you're they think you're you're encoding things differently. Yeah. So,
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  Speaker 1: like you said, if you do something twice in a row,
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  Speaker 1: it's so familiar to you, you're encoding it in the
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  Speaker 1: exact same way. If you take that little break, you'll
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  Speaker 1: encode it differently and remember it longer. And not only that,
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  Speaker 1: but there are different ways to encode uh. And they
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  Speaker 1: suggest like changing your um like where you study, Like
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  Speaker 1: if you sit down in your favorite fat chair in
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  Speaker 1: your office to study your thing, take a little break,
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  Speaker 1: go to a different room for the second take, and
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  Speaker 1: that will just mix it up in your brain enough
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  Speaker 1: so you'll encode it more permanently. That's right. Um, So
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  Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. That's a that's a good, good bit
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  Speaker 1: of advice. And there's there's there's other reasons why they
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  Speaker 1: think this works, um really well. Another one is that
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  Speaker 1: like if you struggle to recall um, whatever the information
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  Speaker 1: is for some reason, you're that that exertion of brain
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  Speaker 1: power UM makes you learn it more. And there's this
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  Speaker 1: there's a pretty good example in this article from House
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  Speaker 1: to Folks, where like if you meet somebody, um and
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  Speaker 1: you have to remember their name like thirty seconds later.
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  Speaker 1: That's great, and you'll probably remember their name because it's
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  Speaker 1: right there in your working memory. But the next day
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  Speaker 1: you're probably not going to remember it. But if you, like,
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  Speaker 1: you meet somebody and then an hour later you have
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  Speaker 1: to recall their name and you really try to recall it,
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  Speaker 1: you're probably going to remember it the next day because
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  Speaker 1: they think you're struggling with that recall. You're exerting an
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  Speaker 1: effort with recall. And it makes sense because you know,
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  Speaker 1: if you're like, what's that person's name again, and you
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  Speaker 1: don't even bother to try to recall, um, you will,
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  Speaker 1: You're not You're not going to learn it. Or if
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  Speaker 1: you even if you ask the person what their name
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  Speaker 1: is over and over again, you're not just getting it
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  Speaker 1: in there. Um, You're you're never going to learn it either.
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  Speaker 1: So it makes sense struggle struggle to recall might help
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  Speaker 1: with this, uh this learning. Yeah, I'm the worst with
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  Speaker 1: names like that, and I've tried. I know we both are.
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  Speaker 1: We I've tried all the things I try to remember
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  Speaker 1: to think of pneumatic devices, pneumonic devices, pneumatic and uh,
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  Speaker 1: I just can't do it. So you hear a lot
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  Speaker 1: of hey Man out of me, and it's no offense.
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  Speaker 1: I never forget a personality or a face, so you're encoded.
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  Speaker 1: It's just those names. I think everyone should wear name tags.
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  Speaker 1: But they've done plenty of studies about this. There was
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  Speaker 1: one in two thousand nine from u c l A
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  Speaker 1: from Dr Nate Cornell with a K and found that
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  Speaker 1: spacing was more effective than cramming for nine of participants,
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  Speaker 1: which is I mean, there it is, there's your proof.
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  Speaker 1: Well yeah, But the thing is they also surveyed those
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  Speaker 1: participants and found out that basically all of them still
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  Speaker 1: thought cramming was effective. And the reason why is because
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  Speaker 1: it is effective, but it's not effective for long term learning.
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  Speaker 1: So what they figured out in addition to spacing, um
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  Speaker 1: that spacing is well, I guess in kind of in
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  Speaker 1: conjunction with spacing, because another technique that really helps people learn,
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  Speaker 1: and it's called inner leaving. I think it should be
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  Speaker 1: called inter weaving. But whatever, it's where you take. You know,
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  Speaker 1: let's say you have two hours to study math. You're
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  Speaker 1: actually better off to study math for thirty minutes, then
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  Speaker 1: go study, say French or something else for another thirty minutes,
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  Speaker 1: and then yeah, and then right, and then study um
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  Speaker 1: model airplane building for thirty minutes and then go back
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  Speaker 1: to the math. You're gonna do better than you did
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  Speaker 1: if you spent two solid hours on math, even by
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  Speaker 1: breaking it up, which is very counterintuitive because it seems
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  Speaker 1: like to be distracted. But hey man, the studies don't lie. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Is two thousand fifteen study that tested middle school kids
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  Speaker 1: with algebra and geometry, two subjects at a very hard
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  Speaker 1: time with and a day after their lesson was complete, Uh,
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  Speaker 1: the students who enter wove or enter love scored better
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  Speaker 1: than students who got regular instruction. And then here's the
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  Speaker 1: real kicker. A month later, that interleaving group was up
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  Speaker 1: seventy six percent. And that's kind of the whole point,
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  Speaker 1: which is like long term learning something rather than just
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  Speaker 1: recalling something for a test. Right. Yeah, that's there's your
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  Speaker 1: proof right there. Seventy percent after a month is that's
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  Speaker 1: all I needed to hear. So from now on, it's
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  Speaker 1: inter leaving and encoding, uh, and spacing for me. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And I try to do that because our job is
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  Speaker 1: sort of like taking a test in ally, and I've
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  Speaker 1: gotten into and I know we both have our own
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  Speaker 1: sort of methods worked out now, But um, I've gotten
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  Speaker 1: into a groove now where I will read stuff like
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  Speaker 1: on the laptop and then not look at it for
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  Speaker 1: a bit, and then read and highlight the printed version
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  Speaker 1: and then leave it for a bit and then eventually
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  Speaker 1: underline the key parts on the highlighted printed version. And
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  Speaker 1: that in addition to just general like you know, videos
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  Speaker 1: and other like ways of learning, that's kind of the
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  Speaker 1: sweet spot for me. Yeah, because you're spacing it out
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  Speaker 1: and that's it works. Yeah, I know, writing something down
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  Speaker 1: has always been a suggestion, like if you write it out,
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  Speaker 1: then you're more likely to remember it. That's a big thing.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure. Like if there's a very difficult
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  Speaker 1: concept that we have to explain, it's way easier to
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  Speaker 1: write it out. On one hand, you're like proving to
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  Speaker 1: yourself that you understand it, but you're also definitely like
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  Speaker 1: re encoding it in a different way. And the other
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  Speaker 1: thing I find interesting too is if you actually physically
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  Speaker 1: move to like a different room or a different location
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  Speaker 1: or something like that, Um, just being surrounded by that
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  Speaker 1: different stuff or different sound, different smells, different sites. Even
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  Speaker 1: if when you're learning the exact same information, your brain
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  Speaker 1: is encoding it in a different way. I just find
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  Speaker 1: that endlessly fascinating and it makes total sense too. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and I've always, you know, seen over the years when
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  Speaker 1: you said across from me that your signature Josh Clark
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  Speaker 1: three point chicken scratch handwriting. No one else on the
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  Speaker 1: planet can see without a magnifying glass or read even
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: with the magnifying glass. Yeah, I sometimes can't. I'm like,
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  Speaker 1: what is I What did I say here? But the
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  Speaker 1: point is it's not even to go back and reread
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: almost never is. If it is, then I make it
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  Speaker 1: super legible. It's just writing it out. Help me remember it,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, it's good stuff. We have her tricks.
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  Speaker 1: Well that's it. Go forth and stop cramming everybody. You
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  Speaker 1: will be a more well rounded, happier, smarter human being. Okay, okay,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: And since I said okay twice, it's uh the end
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: of short stuff and short stuff. Oh wait, Stuff you
• 13:00
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