The Mix-It-Up-Study Drill

Mizz C. learns something new every century. This century she learned that students can boost their test results by copying successful musicians and athletes. They mix it up before performances and games. Musicians run through scales, rhythms, and different exercises. Athletes do strength and speed drills. 

Mizz C’s bottom line:

Practice different skills at the same time when you prep for tests. For example, when you study for your next language arts test, memorize a few spelling words. Throw in some vocabulary examples, then mix in grammar rules. In math, smoosh together word problems, computation, and other skills when you work out problems before math tests. Mix it up so you won't be mixed up at test time.

You may be excused now, Middle Schoolers. 


If you want to stick around, here’s the long version of what brain scientists have learned about why this "mixed up" way of studying works:

In a study recently posted online by the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, Doug Rohrer and Kelli Taylor of the University of South Florida taught a group of fourth graders four equations, each to calculate a different dimension of a prism. Half of the children learned by studying repeated examples of one equation, say, calculating the number of prism faces when given the number of sides at the base, then moving on to the next type of calculation, studying repeated examples of that. The other half studied mixed problem sets, which included examples of all four types of calculations grouped together. Both groups solved sample problems along the way, as they studied.

A day later, the researchers gave all of the students a test on the material, presenting new problems of the same type. The children who had studied mixed sets did twice as well as the others, outscoring them 77 percent to 38 percent. The researchers have found the same in experiments involving adults and younger children.

“When students see a list of problems, all of the same kind, they know the strategy to use before they even read the problem,” said Dr. Rohrer. “That’s like riding a bike with training wheels.” With mixed practice, he added, “each problem is different from the last one, which means kids must learn how to choose the appropriate procedure — just like they had to do on the test.”