In a world as fast-changing and full of information as our own, all of us need to know how to learn well. Yet evidence suggests that most of us don’t use the learning techniques that science has proved the most effective.
The scientific literature evaluating these techniques goes back to decades and across thousands of articles. It’s far too extensive and complex for the average parent, teacher or employer to look through. Fortunately, a team of five leading psychologists have done the job for us.
Professor John Dunlosky and other psychologists closely examined 10 learning strategies and rated each from high to low utility(實用) on the basis of the evidence they’ve gathered. Here’s part of their conclusions:
In contrast to familiar practices, the effective learning strategies with the most evidence to support them aren’t well known outside the lab. Take distributed practice, for example. This strategy involves spreading out your study time, rather than engaging in one marathon. Cramming (死記硬背）information at the last minute may allow you to get through that test or meeting, but the material will quickly disappear from your memory. It’s much more effective to look through the material at intervals over time.
And the longer you want to remember the information, whether it’s two weeks or two years, the longer the intervals should be.
The second learning strategy that is highly recommended by Dunlosky is practice testing. Yes, more tests---but there not for a grade. Research shows that the mere act of calling information to mind strengthens that knowledge and aids in future retrieval (檢索). While practice testing is not a common strategy---despite the strong evidence supporting it ---there is one familiar approach that captures its benefits: using flash cards. And now flash cards can be presented in digital form. Both distributed practice and practice testing were rated as having “high utility” by Dunlosky.
小題1:How did the psychologists study and rate the learning strategies?
A．By analyzing the materials gathered in the past years.
B．By asking some students questions about their study.
C．By doing some experiments on the objects in the lab.
D．By asking parents and teachers to look through the articles.
小題2:The underlined word “extensive” in Para.2 means _____.
A．small in amount
B．easy or quick to do
C．more than is needed
D．dealing with a lot of information
小題3:About distributed practice and practice testing, it’s true that _____.
A．many students have benefited a lot from them
B．they were first put forward by John Dunlosky
C．only a small number of experts know about them
D．psychologists are studying whether they are effective
小題4:The strategy of distributed practice shows that ______.
A．we should not study for long hours every day
B．reviewing what we have studied is of little help
C．the shorter the interval is, the better we’ll study
D．doing repetition at intervals is the best way
小題5:The evidence shows that the strategy of practice testing ______.
A．is a way to use flash cards to help study
B．is mainly used to help us remember well
C．helps know about students’ grades in time
D．is a way widely used to strengthen memory
