Learning Science and the LSAT – Part 1: Interleaving
Learning science has come a long way in recent years, and we’ve been learning with it. On March 23rd, we’re launching a new kind of class that will revolutionize efficiency and efficacy in LSAT prep. Intrigued? Try it out for free.
We’ve all had this experience: We take a class with a few friends. It’s a hard class. Some of you spend more time studying than others. And, many times, those who put in the least amount of effort end up doing the best.
It’s painful. It seems unfair. And we could rally against the inequity of the situation—or chalk it up to natural ability, which really doesn’t help those who put in more effort.
Or we could learn from it.
Studies into how people learn have come a long way in recent years. In this blog series, we’re going to explore what recent studies tell us about how to maximize gains while minimizing effort. Because it’s usually not studying hard that gets you to where you want to be; it’s studying smart.
Interleaving
Let’s say you’re learning to play tennis, having never picked up a racket before. No matter what, you’ll need to fumble around for a while just to become proficient enough to get to the point where lessons would help. But once you get to that point, there are a couple ways to proceed:
Blocked Practice
Blocked practice involves hitting a couple hundred forehands; then switching to backhands; then practicing your serve; then practicing serve returns.
Interleaved Practice
Interleaved practice involves mixing up forehands, backhands, and serves.
Which one would you do? If you’re like most people, blocked practice sounds like the best option. After all, you need to learn the mechanics behind each type, and then drill them in, before you can start to mix things up, right?
Well, not so fast.
Many recent studies have found that interleaving your work actually leads to substantial gains over the traditional, blocked practice model. In one math class, the effect was an advantage of 76% after a month of interleaved practice over blocked practice.
There are many theories as to why interleaving works, but the two most prominent have to do with discriminating between strategies and strengthening associations.
The first theory—discrimination between strategies—essentially states that, by mixing things together, you learn to use each strategy in the proper context. In a blocked set, the task and strategy are defined for you at the outset: “Do these Ordering Games,” “Complete these Necessary Assumption questions,” “Use frames in this practice set.” Those strategic decisions on the LSAT are the hardest ones to make, and, with blocked practice sets, the hard part is already done for you.
The second theory—strengthening associations—essentially states that, by forcing your brain to constantly juggle different strategies, each of them is more likely to form deeper connections and then be stored in long-term memory. Each time you have to think about and recall a different approach, the associations become a little stronger, both for that strategy and between strategies. In short, if you have an approach for Necessary Assumption questions, and you just rotely apply it to a problem set, you’re likely to forget that strategy as soon as you get done with the blocked set of questions. If, however, you practice it between other problem types and strategies, you’re more likely to ingrain it into your long-term memory, and more likely to not revert to bad habits on test day.
So, How Can We Use This to Learn the LSAT?
For too long, the “common knowledge” of LSAT prep is that you should focus on blocked practice for each question type until you have each one down. However, as any LSAT instructor can attest to, under this model, the first full PrepTest taken after switching from blocked to interleaving practice is a disaster. And these recent studies tell us why.
With blocked practice, you didn’t have to consider which strategy to use for each question. As such, you never develop the skill of picking the right strategy for the right question—what any LSAT instructor worth their salt will tell you is the hardest skill to develop. And since blocked practice sets include questions that require you to use the same skill set for each of them, you never moved that skill set from short-term memory into long-term; never forged deep associations that would let the material stick.
Prepping for the LSAT will absolutely require you to do some blocked work to get the basic concepts down. As the studies linked show, you need a baseline of competency in order to gain the most from interleaving. But instead of making 80% of your work blocked before shifting to mixed sets, you should aim for the opposite ratio. Use that first 20% of your time learning a new concept, and then spend 80% mixing it with the old skills you’ve worked on. It’ll be much harder but, in the long term, pay off in your score increase.
We’ll be incorporating this and other recent discoveries in learning science in a brand new LSAT course that starts on March 23rd. Interested? Try it out for free.
Enjoy this post? Check out Part 2 of our Learning Science and the LSAT series. ?
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Matt Shinners is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in New York City. After receiving a degree in Biochemistry from Boston College, Matt scored a 180 on his LSAT and enrolled in Harvard Law School. There’s nothing that makes him happier than seeing his students receive the scores they want to get into the schools of their choice. Check out Matt’s upcoming LSAT courses here!