Massed practice
Massed practice means studying or practicing the same material in one block, with little or no break between repetitions. Cramming the night before is the classic case. It can get you through tomorrow, but memory fades faster than with distributed practice, where the same hours are split over several days.
In more detail
The term comes from memory and skill-learning research, where massed practice is the comparison condition: the repetitions come back to back, or all in one long session. Its opposite is distributed, or spaced, practice. The total study time is the same. Only the gaps differ.
Massed practice feels better than it works. Going over an item again right away is easy, so you feel fluent and confident, which is the illusion of competence. In Nate Kornell's 2009 flashcard study, spacing beat massing for 90 percent of the learners, even though most of them believed massing had worked better. A large 2006 review by Cepeda and colleagues, covering 317 experiments, points the same way: spaced practice wins on later tests, and the best gap grows with how long you need to remember.
Massed practice is not useless. For a test in a few hours, one long session still gives you something. For anything you need to keep, it loses. Use a block for the first pass, then come back to the material on other days. Do not confuse it with blocked practice, which means working through one problem type at a time, the opposite of interleaving.
Example
Sam has 4 hours for one biology chapter. Plan A is one 4-hour session the night before the exam. Plan B is four 1-hour sessions on four earlier days. The hours are the same. Research on spacing predicts that Plan B is remembered better, and that the gap between the plans grows the longer after the exam you need the material.
How to use it
- 1
Count the hours you have before the exam and split them into at least 3 sessions on different days.
- 2
In the first session, learn the material. In every later session, start by recalling it from memory before you open your notes.
- 3
Leave at least a day between sessions, and more if the exam is weeks away.
- 4
If you have to cram, break it into several sessions with breaks and end each one with a short self-test.
- 5
Spend later sessions on what you missed, not on everything again.
How StudyPDF does this
StudyPDF is built against the one big block. Set an exam date in a course's Plan tab and it spreads sessions over the days you actually study, with weak concepts getting earlier and repeated sessions. Flashcards and quizzes track mastery per concept, so each return visit goes to what you still miss.
See also
Common questions
What is massed practice in psychology?
Practice or study in one block, with repetitions close together and little rest in between. Researchers use it as the comparison for distributed practice, where the same repetitions are spread out over time.
Is massed or distributed practice better?
For lasting memory, distributed practice wins in most studies. Massed practice can help for a test within hours, but the knowledge fades faster. If you only have one day, split it into several sessions with breaks and test yourself in each one.
Put it to work on your own course
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