Page 113 - A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science

problems on the relevant pages of their textbook so everything is readily
available. (Use painter’s masking tape or sticky notes if you plan to later return a
book.) The handwritten solution is important because writing by hand increases
the odds that what is written will be retained in memory. Alternatively, keep a
binder handy with important problems and solutions from the class and the book,
so you can go over them again before tests.

WORDS OF WISDOM ABOUT REMEMBERING FROM ONE OF HISTORY’S
GREATEST PSYCHOLOGISTS

“A curious peculiarity of our memory is that things are impressed better by active than by
passive repetition. I mean that in learning by heart (for example), when we almost know
the piece, it pays better to wait and recollect by an effort from within, than to look at the
book again. If we recover the words in the former way, we shall probably know them the
next time; if in the latter way, we shall very likely need the book once more.”

—William James, writing in 1890 12

Testing Is a Powerful Learning Experience—Give Yourself Little
Mini-Tests Constantly

Here’s one of the most important reasons to have well-chunked solution methods

readily in mind: They help prevent choking on tests. Choking—panicking to
the point where you freeze—can happen when your working memory is filled to
capacity, yet you still don’t have enough room for the additional critical pieces
you need to solve a problem. Chunking compresses your knowledge and makes
room in your working memory for those pieces so you don’t go into mental
overload so easily. Also, by making more room in your working memory, you

have a better chance of remembering important problem-solving details. 13
Practicing like this is a form of mini-testing. Research has shown that testing
isn’t just a means of measuring how much you know. Testing in itself is a
powerful learning experience. It changes and adds to what you know, also
14
making dramatic improvements in your ability to retain the material. This
improvement in knowledge because of test taking is called the testing effect. It
seems to occur because testing strengthens and stabilizes the related neural