🧠 Study Strategies
Spaced repetition, active recall, interleaving — techniques with actual research behind them.
Spaced Repetition: The One Technique With the Most Evidence
Imagine you spend three hours on a Saturday cramming 100 GRE vocabulary words. On Monday you test yourself and recall maybe 60. By Friday, without any review, research suggests you'll retain fewer…
Active Recall: Why Re-reading Notes Doesn't Work
You finish reading a dense GRE vocabulary chapter, flip back to page one, and read it again. It feels productive — the words look familiar, the definitions click. Two days later, you blank on half of…
Interleaving: Why Studying One Topic at a Time Is a Trap
Most students preparing for the GRE or SAT build their study schedule the same way: spend Monday on algebra, Tuesday on geometry, Wednesday on vocabulary. It feels organized. It feels productive. The…
Elaborative Interrogation: The 'Why' Question Method
You're reviewing for the GRE's quant section and you've just written down: "the square of a negative number is positive." You highlight it. You move on. Three days later it's gone. Now imagine you'd…
The Feynman Technique: Teach It to a 12-Year-Old
Most students preparing for a high-stakes exam like the GRE or SAT spend the bulk of their study time re-reading notes and highlighting text. It feels productive. Research by Roediger and Karpicke…
Metacognition: Knowing What You Don't Know
Here's a pattern that shows up constantly in test prep: a student finishes a practice section, feels reasonably good about it, then sees the score and is genuinely surprised. Not because they ran out…