You may not remember, but not too long ago, the egg was considered the miracle food. Then it became known as a cholesterol bomb. And now it’s gaining acceptance in our South-Beach-diet-accepting world. The same thing happens in education. Just a few days ago, the New York Time published an article about a study that concludes that testing helps us remember what we’ve read. This seems to debunk the idea that “concept-mapping” leads to long-term retention. You don’t remember concept-mapping? Apparently it’s because you used concept-mapping to learn concept-mapping. It’s basically the strategy of drawing a map of a passage, or taking lots of notes. The scientific study also debunked straight-up studying, as in reviewing multiple times. You may not have been dabbling in the dark arts of concept-mapping, but studying what about you’ve read? That’s something we all know/have done/felt we were supposed to be doing during college, and something you might be trying to do to do well on the LSAT. Hmmm.

The basic gist of the study is that they had college kids read a passage. One group simply read it. A second group reviewed the passage a few times (i.e. “studied it”). A third made a concept map while reading. And a fourth took a short test right after reading it. Then, a week later, everyone was tested on what they had read. The final group did 50% better in terms of retaining information than the studyers or the concept-mappers. This might mean that poor high school students will find that after reading a story or essay in class, instead of having a deep conversation (in which they try to impress some girl, boy or teacher), they’ll find themselves immediately taking a test.

Don’t jump to conclusions yet, all of that is predicated on the idea that the goal is long-term retention. That brings us to what this study might mean for the LSAT. We already know that we should exercise to become smarter, but what do the folks in white coats have to tell us now? On the one hand, this isn’t necessarily a relevant study since the LSAT doesn’t test whether we can retain information over the long term. However, anyone who’s struggled with the LSAT’s reading comprehension section knows that “holding on” to what you’ve read is a great skill (note, this is not the same as remembering every single detail, though if you can do that and still read fast, more power to you). So, in terms of what to do during the LSAT, I’m not sure we can take much from this.

What you can consider is whether how you study for the LSAT is effective. It seems that what won’t work very well is trying to memorize everything you read in your book (and some books actually suggest you memorize a gazillion question categories), but what will work is trying to immediately implement whatever you read. In our program, we assign drill sets right after each chapter, and if you can, try to do those sets immediately after reading the chapter – put what you read to the test right away. Perhaps even slow down the time pressure for the first few questions to practice what’s just been preached to you. The takeaway – don’t keep re-reading what to do on the LSAT; read it, practice it, review it, rinse and repeat as needed.

I’m excited for the moment when the New York Times proclaims that we should study only in red clothing made from organic wool.