"I study a lot and I still can't get it" is the most common complaint in high school, and it's almost never a matter of hours. The most popular techniques—rereading notes, underlining, rewriting them—are precisely the least effective ones.
They work at one thing: making you feel like you've studied. And that feeling is exactly the problem.
Why do we forget what we have studied?
There is a mechanism that explains almost everything, and it is worth knowing because it is counterintuitive: recognizing something is not the same as being able to retrieve it.
When you read your notes for the fourth time, everything seems familiar. Your brain interprets that familiarity as "I know it." But in the exam, they're not going to give you the text to recognize: they're going to give you a blank question, and you're going to have to figure it out yourself.
They are two different operations, and you've only practiced one. Hence the surprise of "I knew it."
The three that do work
1. Ask yourself, don't reread
Close your notes and write down what you remember about the topic. Then open them and check what was missing.
It's uncomfortable, it's slower, and it feels like you're getting worse. That's precisely why it works: the effort of retrieving something from memory is what fixes it. Rereading costs nothing and leaves nothing behind.
Three practical methods: cover the sheet and recite, ask yourself questions and answer them in writing, or explain the topic to someone who doesn't know it. The third method is the hardest and reveals the most gaps.
2. Spread over time, don't accumulate
Four one-hour sessions on four different days teach considerably more than four consecutive hours, even if the total is identical.
The reason is the same: every time you revisit a topic after having forgotten it for a while, it takes effort to regain it, and that effort is what consolidates the knowledge. Studying all at once eliminates that effort, and with it, the learning.
Practical consequence for a Baccalaureate course: it is better to cover each subject several times a week in short blocks than to dedicate a whole day to it.
3. Mix up types of exercise
In math, physics, or chemistry, the trap is doing twenty problems of the same type in a row. You end up solving them automatically without making any decisions, because you already know which method to use.
You won't know on the exam: the difficulty there is identifying what type of problem it is . And you only practice that by mixing things up. Do sets of problems from different topics, even if they go harder at first.
The three that feel good but are useless
- Reread. The most used and the weakest. It generates familiarity, not memory.
- Underline. Deciding what's important has some value; highlighting it in yellow has none. And underlining half a topic is equivalent to underlining nothing.
- Rewrite the notes neatly. It takes up hours, feels productive, and is just copying. If you end up with beautiful notes that you can't explain, you've decorated them, not studied.
They shouldn't be abandoned entirely—a first reading is necessary—but they can't be the method. They are step zero.
Why this matters especially for the university entrance exams
Because the exam has changed. The university entrance exam (PAU) is now competency-based : it gives you a text, a graph, or a case study and asks you to interpret it, connect the dots, and provide arguments. It doesn't ask if you know the material, it asks if you can use it.
Studying by recognizing past experiences prepares you for an exam that no longer exists. The three techniques above train you for exactly what is now assessed: recalling information without support, applying it to something new, and deciding which method to use.
And there's a resource that no one takes advantage of: past exam papers are published with their marking criteria . These criteria literally state what counts towards the score. Reading them is worth more than any summary.
One week, specifically
- Monday: First reading of the new topic. This is step zero, not the study.
- Tuesday: Closed notes, write down what you remember, check what's missing.
- Thursday: exercises mixed with a previous topic.
- Saturday: Explain the topic to someone, or out loud to no one.
- The following week: Go back to that topic for five minutes before starting the new one.
Four short interventions spread out are more effective than a whole afternoon, and fit into a real course.
What is not technical but also decides
- The mobile phone off the table. Not silently: out. Each interruption costs several minutes to get back in.
- Start with what's hardest. Leaving it until the end is the usual way of never doing it.
- Sleep. This is when what you've learned is consolidated. Sacrificing sleep to study is working against what you've learned.
- A plan for one week ahead. Nothing more is needed, but this is it: knowing what's on today saves half an hour of deciding.
If you want to apply this to a specific subject with someone who knows it, that's what private lessons are all about . And if you're looking to organize your entire course up to the exam, it's all in the study time management guide.
FAQ
What is the most effective study technique?
Ask yourself questions with your notes closed and then check what you missed. It's awkward and slow, and that's why it works: the effort of retrieving something is what sticks it.
Why do I forget what I study?
Because recognizing is not the same as recalling. Rereading creates familiarity, which the brain mistakes for knowing, but in the exam you have to demonstrate it without any support.
Does underlining help?
Little. Deciding what's important has some value; highlighting it doesn't. And if you underline half the topic, the highlighting stops being informative.
Is it better to study for many hours at a time or to spread it out?
Spread it out. Four one-hour sessions over four days teach more than four hours straight, with the same amount of time invested.
How many hours a day is it advisable to study in high school?
Consistency is more important than total time. Short blocks of study across several subjects most days are more productive than one long day a week.
Is there any point in rewriting your notes?
As a study method, no: it's just copying. It consumes many hours and gives a sense of progress that doesn't correspond to what's actually learned.
Which techniques are best for the university entrance exams?
Those who train to apply, because the exam is competency-based: recover without support, mix types of problems and do real exams reading their correction criteria.
