The Interleaving Study Technique

I want you to take some study inspiration from Arnold Swarzenagers routine…

He practices interleaving in his routine.

Arnie mixes up his training each week. His schedule looks something like:
– Shoulders on a Monday
– Back on a Tuesday
– Arms of a Wednesday
– Leg day on Thursday
– Rest
– Chest on Saturday.
– Rest

Mimic a Gym Routine

Good study routines are similar to good gym routines. They mix it up. If you block all your focus onto one area, you will stunt your progress. It might feel good to get better at Geography for a week solid, but it’s pointless. Your brain needs variety to build neurons. More neurons = more memory. More memory = better exams…. you get my point.

If Arnie Just Did Back Day

He wouldn’t fit through the door, never mind win Mr Olympiad. If you just focus on Algebra for your Maths exam, you won’t nail your exam. You won’t appreciate the relationships between topics. You won’t understand the big picture. That’s a huge issue for problem-solving subjects like Maths.

The Science of Interleaving Study

Interleaving study is backed by years of research. A 2015 study involved teaching 14-year-olds slope and graph problems. Weekly lessons, given by teachers, were largely unchanged from standard practice. Weekly homework worksheets, however, featured an interleaved or blocked design. When interleaved study was practiced, both old and new problems of different types were mixed together. Of the nine participating classes, five used interleaving for slope problems and blocking for graph problems; the reverse occurred in the remaining four. Five days after the last lesson, each class held a review session for all students. A surprise final test occurred one day or one month later. The result? When the test was one day later, scores were 25 percent better for problems trained with interleaving; at one month later, the interleaving advantage grew to 76 percent

Studying For An Upcoming Exam

Imagine you are sitting down to a study session. You have a summer Maths exam coming up, and all sorts of different Maths topics to study for it. How should you study them – one at a time, or switching between them?

Switch it up. Do maybe 20 minutes of Algebra, take a break. Come back and do 20 minutes of Calculus, take a break. Finally, finish off with 20 minutes of Trigonometry. Every time you switch topics, you freshen up your brain. It works on the Algebra material in your subconscious mind. And you begin to piece together the relationship between topics. You can piece it all together.

And that’s key – piecing it all together. If you can see the patterns between topics, in problem based subjects like Maths, you can perform better in exams. That overview understanding is key,

Hope that helps you study more effectively 💪

– T.J – CEO of Breakthrough Maths

Need help in Maths? Contact the Breakthrough Maths team here.