How to Study Smarter, Not Harder

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Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. But some students seem to get so much more out of their study time than others — better grades, deeper understanding, and less stress. What’s their secret?

It’s not that they study longer. It’s that they study smarter.

Think about a typical high school student preparing for college: school all day, sports or activities in the afternoon, home by evening completely drained — and homework still waiting. In that kind of environment, efficient studying isn’t just nice to have. It’s essential.

In this post, we’re sharing three study methods that educational researchers consistently rank as the most effective — and explaining why they work. We’ll also cover two common habits that feel productive but actually aren’t.

First, Let’s Talk About What Doesn’t Work

Before diving into what works, it’s worth addressing two study habits that are extremely popular — but surprisingly ineffective.

Highlighting and Underlining

How many students do you know with color-coded highlighters and textbooks full of neatly underlined passages? It feels productive. It looks like studying. But research tells a different story.

A major 2013 review of study techniques by John Dunlosky and colleagues rated highlighting as “low utility”: in most of the studies they examined, highlighting did little to improve test performance. The problem is that highlighting is passive — you’re marking information, not engaging with it. Unless a student already knows how to identify what’s truly important and understands it deeply, highlighting simply creates colorful pages without improving memory or comprehension.

Highlighting can be a helpful organizational tool, but it should never be confused with actual studying.

Summarizing and Re-reading

Re-reading notes and writing summaries is another extremely common study method. And while there’s value in deeply understanding and organizing material, research shows this technique doesn’t work well for most students.

The same review found that summarizing is only effective when students already know how to summarize well, which requires “extensive training.” For the average student without that training, time spent summarizing is largely wasted effort.

3 Study Methods That Actually Work

1. Retrieval Practice (Testing Yourself)

Retrieval practice is exactly what it sounds like: instead of re-reading material, you actively try to recall it from memory. The most familiar form of retrieval practice? Taking a test.

This might sound counterintuitive — testing yourself before you feel “ready” can be uncomfortable. But that difficulty is exactly the point.

In a landmark 2006 study by Roediger and Karpicke, college students who used retrieval practice (testing themselves) outperformed students who re-read the material on a test taken one week later — by a significant margin.

Why does retrieval practice work so well? It comes down to how memory is stored.

Our brains have two types of memory storage: short-term memory (limited and temporary) and long-term memory (vast and durable). Effective studying means moving information into long-term memory. As Larsen (2018) explains in a review of this research, each act of retrieval makes a memory more durable, and easier to access later when it’s needed most, like during an exam.

The harder you have to work to recall something, the stronger the memory becomes. Struggle is part of the process.

How to use retrieval practice:

1. Read and understand the material first. Before you can recall something, you need to genuinely understand it. Read the textbook, watch videos, ask questions — whatever helps it click.
2. Test yourself. Close the book and try to write down or say out loud everything you remember. Flashcards, practice problems, and old exams are all great tools.
3. Explain it out loud. Imagine explaining the concept to a friend or family member who knows nothing about it. If you can explain it simply and clearly, you truly understand it.
4. Repeat and refine. Go back and check what you missed. Then try again.

2. Distributed Practice (Spacing It Out)

Distributed practice means spreading your studying over multiple shorter sessions rather than cramming everything into one long session. Instead of studying for 7 hours the day before a test, study for 1 hour a day over 7 days.

This one might seem obvious — and yet most students still cram. We’ve all been there.

A large review of spacing research by Cepeda and colleagues (2006) found that spreading study sessions out leads to better long-term retention than cramming the same material into one sitting.

Here’s why distributed practice is so powerful:

• Better long-term retention: Each time you revisit material after a gap, your brain has to re-retrieve it, strengthening the memory further.
• Deeper understanding: Returning to the same material on different days allows new connections to form. Things that seemed confusing on Monday often click by Thursday.
• Less stress: When you’re not cramming, there’s no last-minute panic. You can actually get a good night’s sleep before an exam.

While other students are pulling all-nighters before finals, the student who spaced out their studying can do a calm review — and be in bed by 10 PM.

3. Interleaved Practice (Mixing It Up)

Interleaved practice means mixing up different types of problems or topics within a single study session, rather than doing all problems of one type before moving to the next.

For example, instead of doing 20 triangle problems, then 20 circle problems, then 20 quadrilateral problems, you would mix them together: triangle, circle, triangle, quadrilateral, circle, and so on.

It sounds chaotic. But the research is clear.

Taylor and Rohrer (2010) found that students who used interleaved practice scored about twice as high on exams compared to students who used traditional “blocked” practice.

Why does mixing things up help? Interleaved practice is closely linked to retrieval practice. Each time you switch topics, your brain has to retrieve the previous concept and then apply it again — reinforcing both understanding and memory.

So, What Should You Do Differently Starting Today?

As teachers who work with students day in and day out, here’s the honest truth: very few students naturally use these methods. Most rely on highlighting and re-reading because it’s familiar and comfortable.

Switching to better study habits takes effort upfront. But the payoff is real — and it compounds over time.

Here’s a simple starting plan:

• This week: After your next class, close your notes and write down everything you remember. Then check what you missed.
• This month: Build a weekly study schedule that revisits each subject multiple times instead of one big session.
• This semester: When doing practice problems, mix up different types instead of doing one type at a time.

Small changes in how you study can lead to big differences in results. And those results add up — over months, over years, over a lifetime.

Have questions about building better study habits for your student? Reach out — we’d love to help.

— The IC Math & Science Team