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Icon of a white brain on orange circle background听Learning Guide: Learning & Memory

Many different variables impact your ability to learn and to remember.听 People learn new material best when they encounter it multiple times and through multiple means.听 Use the information and strategies below to help retain what you learn for longer.

The Forgetting Curve

We hold on to information longer when we have encountered that information multiple times in different ways. The forgetting curve explains how our brains hold on to or let go of what we learn.

Illustration (graph) of the forgetting curve.  Immediately upon receiving information we retain 100% of it, after 31 days we retain under 25% of it.  With regular review, after 31 days we can retain around 90% of information with a short 2-minute review.

Our brain remembers 100% of what we have learned immediately following a lecture or learning period. Within 20 minutes, we forget almost 50% of what we learned! After one day, we remember 33%. After six days, we retain about 25%. This pattern of forgetting continues until you have lost everything.

To be ready for final exams, this means you must reteach yourself any material you learned earlier in the semester.

Review Your Material

We can interrupt the forgetting process by going back to our material on a regular basis. It only takes a 10-minute review about 20 minutes after class ends to bring our memory back to 100%. One day later, it only takes a 5-minute review to bring back 100% of our memory. Six days later it only takes 3 minutes of review, and one month later it only takes 2 minutes!

Reviewing material on a consistent basis makes it easier to commit long-term memory, and it will take you less time to study before exams.