I’ve never been that keen on studying before an exam. I rarely study for more than a half hour, even for big final exams worth more than half my grade. When I do study, I usually just skim over the material and do a few practice questions. For some of my math classes I have yet to do a single practice question for homework. Most people study by cramming in as much information before walking into the test room, whereas I consider studying to be no more than a light stretch before running.
Despite what some might point out as horrible studying habits, I’ve done very well for myself in school. I had the second highest marks in my high-school class with honors all four years. My first term university marks were two A+’s and an A, for calculus, computer science and ancient Asian history, all courses with high failure rates. I also won a national chemistry exam for a three province wide district that I didn’t even realize I was writing until I was called in and told to get started.
It’s very easy to look at my successes and apparent lack of effort and quickly deem that it is an innate gift, impossible to replicate. I think this is bullshit. I believe that myself and anyone else who can produce these results simply has a more effective strategy for learning new material. With my system of learning, you only have to hear or read something once to learn it. Best of all I believe it is a system that can be learned.
Webs and Boxes
The system I use for learning I’m going to call holistic learning. But in order to fully appreciate what holistic learning is, you need to take a look at it’s opposite – compartmentalized learning. Virtually all learning is done somewhere between completely holistic and completely compartmentalized learning. Although people rarely sit exactly on one extreme, people who are close towards learning through compartments will need to cram and study for hours just to hope for a pass where people who lean more to holistic learning can often breeze through heavy course loads.
People who learn through compartments, try to organize their mind like a filing cabinet. Learn a new chemical equation, these people will try to file that information. Hopefully they will file it near some other chemical equations so that they will stumble upon it when they need to on the exam. Compartmentalized learners make distinct file drawers for science, math, history and language arts. Placing all the things they know into little boxes.
Holistic learning takes an opposite approach. Learning holistically is not done by trying to remember information by using repetition and force. Holistic learners instead organize their minds like spider webs. Every piece of information is a single point. That point is then consciously related to tons of other points on the web. There are no boxes with this form of learning. Science becomes literature which becomes economics. Subject distinctions may help when going to class, but a holistic learner never sees things in a box.
When it comes time for exams (or any practical application for your knowledge) compartmentalized learners have to hope that they pounded the information hard enough into their head so it might come up during the exam. Holistic learners do the opposite. Holistic learners only need to start at one point on their web, but they can use that web to feel around and find all the associated information they need.
The chemistry exam I won for three provinces I wasn’t even taught over half the information on the test. Because my web was so heavily interrelated, even when a node on the web was missing I has a good chance at guessing at what it contained. This meant that on a multiple choice test I could only understand a third of what the question asked and still be able to eliminate answers. Winning a test that you don’t actually know half the information on it sounds impossible, but not to a holistic learner.
Compartmentalized learning is an exercise in insanity. A comparable strategy would be if the users of the web didn’t hyperlink anything. So to find any information you just had to keep typing addresses into your browser, hoping that it would pop up. Studying for these learners is akin to setting up thousands of domain names that all lead to the same information, so that you will hopefully get to the right place by just guessing enough. Not only is it ineffective when exam time comes, it takes hours to put in place.
Very few people are purely compartmental learners. For most people they manage webs of information holistically to a certain degree. But unfortunately, their webs simply aren’t interlinked enough. Each subject usually has a fairly distinct web and each unit of information has only one or two associations. Like trying to surf the net when each page only has one or two outgoing links. Possible, but far from effective.
If you look at the structure of your brain, it will become immediately obvious why compartmentalized learning, organized like a computers file folder system, doesn’t work. Your brain is itself a web of neurons. Creating hundreds of associations between ideas means that no matter where you start thinking, you can eventually get to the piece of information you need. If a road is closed for some reason, you can take one of the hundreds of other side streets.
Maximizing Your Holistic Learning
Understanding holistic learning is one thing, putting it into practice is another. I’ve been learning very close to the extreme of complete holistic learning for so long that my web is pretty well interconnected. But if you haven’t been really interweaving your web, then the best way to improve your ability to learn is to start now.
Here are a few suggestions for how you can better interlink your web:
1) Ask Questions
When you are learning something, you can make associations simply by asking yourself questions. How does this information relate to what we’ve been studying? How does this information relate to other things I’ve already learned? How does it relate to other subjects, stories or observations?
Be creative and try to find several different points of reference for every idea you learn. Figure out not only what things are similar too, but why they are what they are. As this becomes a habit, you’ll find that you automatically remember information because it fits into your web of understanding. Ask yourself after you hear something whether you “get it”. If you don’t go back and ask yourself more questions for how it fits it.
2) Visualize and Diagram
One of the best ways to begin practicing holistic learning is to start drawing a diagram that associates the information you have learned. Better than taking notes during a lecture is drawing a picture for how what you are learning relates to anything else you have already learned. Once you get good at this you will be able to visualize the diagram before it is drawn, but start drawing to get practice.
When I try to understand economics it often helps me to visualize the relationship between different factors. I view cycles of money, GDP or price levels as a structure that combines all the different elements. If you can’t immediately create vivid pictures of the information, try drawing them first.
3) Use Metaphors
Anything you are learning should be immediately translated into a metaphor you already understand. When reading Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, I understood his writings by relating all the examples of statecraft and war he offered to areas of business and social relationships which I already understood.
While visualization creates tight webs that interlink within a subject, metaphors create broad webs that link completely different ideas. You might not realize how that blog article on fitness you read two weeks ago relates to math, but through making metaphors you have a huge reserve of information available to you when you need it.
4) Feel It
Another technique I’ve experimented with to improve my holistic learning is feeling through ideas. This one is a little more difficult to explain, but the basic idea is that instead of associating an idea to a picture or another metaphor, you associate it with a feeling. I’m a visual learner, so I’ve found it to be ineffective for large pieces of data, but it is really helpful for data that is otherwise hard to relate.
I used this process to easily remember the process of getting the determinant of a matrix. For you math buffs, you probably already know that the determinant of a 2×2 matrix is basically the left diagonal minus the right diagonal. I was able to associate this information into my web through a feeling by imagining what it would be like to move my hands through each diagonal on the matrix. This is an incredibly simplified example, but feeling ideas can be very useful.
5) When in Doubt, Link or Peg It
Questions, visualization, metaphors and feeling should cover about 99% of the information you need to learn. They are the most effective ways to interlink ideas. But if you still need to memorize some information that you can’t understand or relate, your fall-back can be the link and peg system.
Explaining these memory systems is out of the scope of this article, but the basic idea of the link system is to create a wacky, vivid picture relating two seemingly unrelated ideas so that a connection between them is forced. The peg system takes it a step further creating a simple phonetic system for storing numbers and dates. You can learn more about these systems here.
Dirt Roads and Superhighways
An effective web should heavily interlink between ideas of a similar subject, but it should also have links that extend between completely different ideas. I like to think of these two approaches like comparing dirt roads and superhighways. You need lots of cheap dirt roads to interconnect closely related areas and a few superhighways to connect distant cities.
When I was learning history I would make dirt roads connecting the aspects of one particular time period and culture to itself. Linking the artistic achievements of the Song Dynasty with their political situation. But I would also make highways and superhighways. I would compare Song China to India and to the politics in the United States.
Some people build a lot of dirt roads but forget the highways. They understand things well within a subject, but they can’t relate that subject outside of the classroom. Hamlet is one of my favorite literary works because in the classroom where I learned it, our teacher went to great lengths to help build superhighways. We would discuss how aspects of Hamlet related to our own life, politics and completely different areas. As a result I remember more from that play than almost any other piece of literature I studied.
The End of Studying
Studying should be like stretching before a big race. It isn’t a time to get in shape. I lied a bit when I wrote the title of this article. I do study. But I don’t do it for the same reasons that other people do. I study to ensure my web is functioning, not to start building it. Even when I do study, it is just a quick review, never an all-night cramming session.
Some of you may read this article and start thinking that going to the trouble of drawing out diagrams and thinking hard about metaphors to practice holistic learning is going to take too much time. I believe the opposite is true. I have saved a lot of time using these techniques so that school has become just a minor time investment in the overall work I do each day. Practice holistic learning and you can spend less time cramming and more time actually learning.
Looks like I can’t help but start a bit of controversy.
I’ve addressed many of the confusions and concerns this article has generated with a follow up post on what holistic learning is, precisely, and how you should really be using studying to learn. Ultimately holistic learning isn’t about passing exams but understanding anything, a skill anyone can use.
Check it out here: Studying and Holistic Learning
Edit: April 26, 2006 – Wait! There’s more. Check out the Holistic Learning E-Book for 27 Full Pages. Full color illustrations and best of all, it’s completely free.
Check it out here: Holistic Learning E-Book
Edit: September 10, 2008 – Still want more? I’ve written a full e-book guide covering holistic learning, answering common questions, dozens of techniques, productive studying skills and exercise templates to get you started onto holistic learning. Plus, if you don’t love the book, it comes with a 120-day money back guarantee.
Check it out here: Learn More, Study Less
I'm a speed-reading, vegetarian, holistic learning, productivity hacking university student.
I tend to use this kind of learning for history because it is quite easy to interlink all the subjects. I have gone into big tests and done well with only studying for 30 minutes or so. However, when it comes to sciences and math this type of learning does not work for me because i have not done enough practice for exam type questions.
Scott!
You’re doing such an amazing thing spreading the word about holistic learning. It has truly helped me a LOT in school. Not only has it given me higher grades, but it has also made learning so much more interesting! When I first tried holistic learning, it took some time for me to make these connections between ideas, but today I make connections all the time, and it’s almost as though I can “feel” how I’m getting smarter. I learn in an entirely different way that helps me understand things at a deeper level.
However, I still have some problems with making connections for mathematics. What techniques do you personally use the most for math – metaphors, visceralization or diagraming? I suppose I’m not the only one having problems with math.
Thanks a lot!!!
Scott, first of all, I would like to thank you for your articles and ebooks. I have read your ‘Learn More and Study Less’ and it works perfectly well to me, thanks for the idea of holistic learning. It really makes learning process fun and easy! No words can really help me express my gratitute to you
Like Mark said in his comment, it took me a period of time when I started using this approach in my learnig process. It took me around 3 weeks for it. Slowly, I’m able to create efficient flowing charts immediately when listening to lecturers and when reading books. Experience really plays an important role here, I can only improve in making these maps by practising.
While making maps, I will do the thinking process – interlink ideas that I have just learnt together before I link them up with ideas that seem unrelated at first sight.
I will also compress the substantial information I have required and personally I think compression of ideas is very important when learning holistically.
Mark, for mathematics, you might want to visit this website for its articles – http://oakroadsystems.com/math/
I hope you get something from there!
Thanks again, Scott!
That’s really interesting. I think that I do learn quite holistically anyway– actually, I sort-of have to, because my revision memory is strictly short-term in its shortest sense!– and it’s interesting to actually think about it. Sort-of like how you don’t think about moving your hand, and all that.
I find that one of my best ways to learn (and I think you’ve mentioned this in part) is to put everything into the context of something you understand well, or find interesting, by reading around what you’re doing. Some things like maths I do find hard to do without compartmentalising because I’ve never been able to connect it, for some reason, to anything else in my life. Which is a pain!
It’ll be interesting to see whether actually consciously thinking about what you mentioned and purposely trying to connect things will help. I’ll have to try it out!
Although holistic learning (the way I do it, anyway) has never been useful when it comes to doing things which aren’t quite generalised, or which aren’t processes. Things which are discrete facts are very difficult to slot in– like colour changes in chemistry, or enthalpy values etc.
Thanks for the article. I’m very happy to have stumbled upon this site, and while I’d like to agree, I think your method only works for subjects where understanding is a main part of learning. Not the case for fact intensive stuff, like biology or medicine. I have to memorize lists of medicines in particular formulas and their respective weights and functions. Around 200 medicines, 150 formulas in one semester. Could you perhaps offer advice on that?
“With my system of learning, you only have to hear or read something once to learn it. Best of all I believe it is a system that can be learned.”
Awesome
Yeah I can totally relate to this especially for math and chemistry. Math always seemed to come easy to me without doing much homework because I could use all the concepts I learned to solve a problem. Doing some homework was all I needed just to make sure I understood how to do the question but I never did the questions over and over because I thought it was a waste of time. What I really like about your system is that it can be learned but the more you use it, the better you get. I made many associations at a young age so remembering things is hardly a challenge for me. Great article!
It’s been over a year since I first read this post. It along with other articles of information relating to the similar topic, learning, have allowed me to create a certain philosophy of what learning truly is and how it is done.
Thank you Scott for publishing your thoughts in a form where all were welcome; it was a spark that created a new wave of insight for me.
Sharma
[...] his keen how-to eye onto his own student life, and published a controversy-generating post titled: How to Ace Your Finals Without Studying. In this week’s Disruptive Thinkers interview, Scott explains the ideas behind this bold [...]
this is bullshit! wtf is holostic or wtv it is learining this is some made up nonsense skim pages spider web of information or wtv bullshit bullshit!!! to ace a test u have to listen to the teacher ask questins study for about 30 min take a fuckin break! and review and ull be fuckin fine!! this article is fuckin assshole bulshittness!! lol that made no sense. ANyway thats my fuckin comment dont fuckin reply to this comment on y im being such an ass its my comment on the article my opion my life!
This is very useful. Building a holistic web works extraordinarily when I find a subject that I have natural aptitude for. The webs are constructed quickly, effectively and without conscious effort.
When I have less aptitude in a subject matter, I find that I must fall back on compartmentalized thinking that doesn’t serve me well. Accounting is a great example. The way accounting systems are designed is much like a filing cabinet. I am currently using spider-thought to prepare for the CPA exam. I fail miserably in the professional world of accounting, but seem to do well on the various exams have taken, mainly because of a more holistic approach to learning. My coworkers marveled at how well I under the job but couldn’t seem to do the paperwork involved. It was tough to explain to them how I learn. My background is in math/physics which I find naturally holistic with some compartmentalization needed to master.
Good article.
[...] Scott H. Young offers an interesting take on learning, and I think it’s probably the closest I’ve seen an article come to describing how I feel like I learn and remember things. I like the “web” analogy; I think that’s very accurate. And perhaps this helps explain why it is that I, like the title of the article suggests, could usually ace my tests without studying. Excerpt from How To Ace Your Finals Without Studying [...]
[...] [Story] Come superare gli esami senza studiare Gennaio 17, 2008 Posted by viasenzanome in vsn.com. trackback By Scott YoungTraduzione a cura di Manuel PaccagnellaLink all’articolo originale [...]
good one… liked it, particularly the web analogy
I do this too, but when I try to explain this to other people they chalk it up to me being ‘nerdy’ or exceptionally ’smart’, and go back to their cramming.
Basically what works the best for me is to use whatever comes to mind whenever I first encounter a piece of information and link it to the actual definition, meaning, or application of that information.
Whenever I see, hear, or encounter anything at all, my mind cannot help but have some kind of reaction to it, a knee-jerk reflex thought that comes up. This reflex thought is usually totally unrelated to the idea being learned. I then do a little linking of that reflex thought to whatever is being learned. What then happens is that the next time I encounter that same information, if I haven’t already learned the true meaning or application of it, then at the very least the same knee-jerk reflex thought will pop up. From there it’s a simple matter of recalling that little link I manufactured to the actual information.
Once the information has been truly learned, I find that the knee-jerk reflex thought fades away and is replaced by the actual information.
Of course when in class sometimes the new information comes so quickly that there is no time to sit and think of a way to link the reflex thought to the information, or there’s no time to even have a reflex thought, so I have to take the time to do the linking myself at home when I’m studying the info at my own pace.
A little example, the Chinese term for ‘Hello’ is ‘Ni Hao’. Now my reflex thought at the moment for the sound ‘Hao’ used as a greeting is an American Indian like you see in the movies waving his hand in the air and going ‘How’. So now I imagine a really flexible Chinese kung fu guy meeting someone on the street, lifting his knee in the air to wave it and going ‘Knee How!’ as a greeting.
So what’s in that little image there. First I linked the sound by finding two other words that sounded the same but had a different meaning for me. I also added the detail of a Chinese guy so that I know it’s the Chinese language, and the kung fu added in for good measure because in my mind a kung fu guy is really flexible and can lift his knees really high, and kung fu originated in China so there’s that link to the country again. Now the next time I hear or see ‘Ni Hao’ in Chinese I have so much stuff in my brain to link to, aurally and visually, that it’s almost impossible for me to not remember what it means or how to use it. If I were a tactile learner I would even go so far as to imagine meeting someone on the street, lifting my own knee in a circle and saying ‘Knee How!’. And it’s a funny, interesting image for me, so I have fun thinking it up and have no trouble recalling it.
So where in there am I being ‘nerdy’ in any way? I’m actually linking the information to stuff I watch in my free time, to movies I watch for fun. I didn’t have to study anything before to have something to link the Chinese word to.
If you’ve lived for any length of time and can use your memory, then there are millions of moments, images, sounds, smells, and other tidbits in your mind that you can draw from and use when learning new information.
For me all it really requires to be able to create these kind of connections is to be playful enough to let yourself be silly for a while. I think everybody has the ability to imagine, play, and be silly. Weren’t we all kids before? Anybody can do this, you just have to disregard what you’ve been taught in school to be the proper way to ’study’ and do something that really works.
It’s just that ’studying’ in our minds has become so far detached from the idea of ‘fun’ and ‘play’ that we refuse to allow the two to become linked together, and studying becomes a boring and tedious chore for us. When it becomes boring and tedious, then learning becomes difficult.
Your brain doesn’t like boring and tedious, it likes to be stimulated, it likes fun and interesting! So why work against your brain when it’s so much easier to work with it?
It’s like taking your car up a mountain. You could turn the car off and push the car up the mountain. You’d probably still get to the peak if you persevered, but the car really wasn’t meant to be used that way. You’d have it much easier if you just got in the car, put on some music, turned on the ignition and cruised your way up.
Dude….you are doing a great job. Really, it has helped me a lot both in my lecs and my exams. i feel lucky that i stumbled upon this site. I have a friend who just doesnt study at all.Every time i see him, hes out there enjoying, roaming,anything but studying. still he manages to be at the top. im glad that now i know his secret.
Thanks again
But up until now,I still don’t know where to start to practice this style of learning?Can you explain to me a little further,hopefully I will understand deeper and send to me an example on how you learn with this style?
Hey! You are great but I need to practice it. I understand all. My problem is how can I be more interested in studying? Pls. email me. I need your help.
[...] this change of heart was my blog post on CCK09.Jeff Fong left a comment on that post pointing me to Scott Young’s post on studying. Reading that post (and subsequent posts) sparked something in my mind. It was the created a [...]
[...] learning. It’s no secret I barely study for exams. My grade point average for my first year of University was a 4.2 out of a 4.5 (my lowest mark was [...]
[...] devoted to one idea: how to get more from life. Whether that involves doubling your reading rate, learning more with less studying, beating procrastination or just understanding other people—and [...]
yeah this might work if all you had were a bunch of multiple choice exams
Well kinda depends on your program. Im in engineering and theres no way that would work for mine, but for the majority im sure it would work
Granted, I didn’t read the whole thing, but from skimming, it appears you taught people how to study more efficiently… I thought this was ace your finals without studying. You have displayed prep-studying. In the end, you have to put in a lot of work to ace a final. Whether you ‘prepare’ all semester or cram at the end.
Scott,
Funny you say that. I’ve actually found technical courses (computer science for me though, not engineering) are the *easiest* to use with this method. To each his own though.
-Scott
[...] about changing habits, staying productive and learning over at his blog. Check out his articles: How to Ace Your Finals Without Studying and his e-book, How to Change a [...]
[...] devoted to one idea: how to get more from life. Whether that involves doubling your reading rate, learning more with less studying, beating procrastination or just understanding other people—and [...]
This is likely the best advice I’ve ever received, and I feel that I am a holistic learner already. Though I didn’t even realize what I was doing, odd as that sounds. I have in the past connected things internally and related them to myself, and other things because the idea of each piece of information being separate never occurred to me. What is really interesting, is now that I have more of a real design of what I’ve been doing, I can apply it in areas where previously I attempted to use the compartment method. Working towards total integration in all of the subjects I am currently involved in. Thanks for the wonderful article. I will ‘update’ my process, if you’re at all curious!
i think this is full of b.s and there is no concrete evidence to support this
One “H” learner to another:
I try to learn as much as possible during a class – in that very moment itself – but usually end up only constructing a layout, blueprint, for my thoughts, visions, and connections. I’ve reflected as to why this happens – the professors, as I feel, don’t go deep enough into the material to satisfy my hunger; the origins, of why and how the topic under focus came to be, how it “looks” – a more artistic point of view. It’s then, outside class, I answer my thirst by doing self-research and learning, which I def. enjoy; thereby creating, as you say, my full “construct”.
But my question is, coming from and going towards a similar learner, do you face similar circumstances where you need more than what is offered during a class in order to feel fulfilled?
P.S. I’m an engineering student; where most profs. are not to concerned with teaching the origins, how, and why of a topic. Whereas, I’ve noticed profs. of the arts are more inclined towards what the needs of deep a learner itches for; I guess it’s just how school’s been regulated over years and years.
Hey Scott, I’m just curious as to whether I can apply these principles for Law School. I’m going into one in a couple of months, so I was wondering if you can say that this stuff applies there as well.
Great read, as always.
ok i get the idea, holistic = non conscious learning, focus on right brain, visual approach, forming more neural connections, btw, use of metaphors is very NLP.
I always had difficulties in learning until I discoverd the linking strategy.
Not only is it a fantastic tool to learn a new language in a very short time, but also to memorize names of people you meet (something I was really awful at).
Scott, thanks for this wonderful and inspiring blog. Lots of ideas and insights for me.
I agree with the comment that this would not work for engineering. Yes, this can probably be applied to essay-evaluated classes or MC exams…but tests that require detailed knowledge of circuit theory or an understanding of the complexities of heat transfer? I don’t think so. There are some fields of study where you just can’t take shortcuts–you just have to learn it like the back of your hand, you have to master it. No one just innately knows all the crap engineers have to learn…you may have an intuitive grasp of physical principles, but that is only a start.
This is a great strategy to help learn complex stuff, but it certainly is no substitute for sitting down and devoting some quality time to studying. And just running through a problem once does not cut it in a field like engineering–there are lots of different complexities that can be introduced in different forms in problems. As a student, you must become comfortable with these different forms. Sure, once you are a seasoned professional you pretty much know how to approach every problem, but it takes PRACTICE!
Annemarie,
The point isn’t to not spend time learning. It’s not spending the time obsessively memorizing that dominates the majority of student’s time. Obviously this article is merely a skim of the detailed information, but I’ve used it in more technical courses which are definitely *not* multiple choice. You may not learn circuit design overnight, but that doesn’t mean you should default to hours of memorization.
-Scott
If only the pedagogy of my time in school was truly interested in a person understanding something, instead of spewing it back verbatim. Perhaps I would have had better grades.
In my time, which wasn’t long ago at all, you could talk all about how an event came to be and what the result was. Miss a date or spell a name wrong and you failed. Don’t even ask the professor what is the point of marking like that; you’ll get docked further.
Hopefully some educators that teach this way, and mark this way, will read this and change their ways. There is a great difference between teaching and training.
[...] actually useful stuff that will change your life. Also, he’s done the best job of dissecting how we learn information that I’ve ever seen, and wrote a best-selling e-book around that [...]
Kate,
Hey scott, do you study everyday? for how long each day?
this`s awesome site, i would like to read more.
[...] How to Ace Your Finals Without Studying http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2007/03/25/how-to-ace-your-finals-without-studying/ [...]
Wow. I found this website while searching for information about ironclad warships, and it’s really great. I’d never heard of or tried holistic learning, but it seemed to work for a lot of people so I tried it. I aced my history test and my teacher was quite surprised. So thank you, and your method works even for middle schoolers!
umm. in response to ;kg;jk ’s comment, you’re a dumbass. you come here and say that this is bullshit, but u make like, EVERY single spelling mistake! so whatever dude.
[...] that, and both parts are important, you need to link the ideas. Linking ideas is how smart people learn. Put simply: the more links, the better your understanding of the topic (that’s why I link so [...]
Thanks for the article…! I find it useful