Why Should We Study For Tests?

Many people complain that our school system makes us "memorize" "useless" things, but I would argue that somehow it and the culture has made it common for people state that they don't want to learn something because they're never going to use it in life. And, though this may verge on intolerance, I admit it makes me sad that there are people who wouldn't learn something in school if it wasn't for grades, and that there are people who don't learn because grades don't matter to them.

The interesting thing is that students are encouraged to study for tests, when they should have learned and understood everything that is on the test before, because, after all, schools (as opposed to tests) are supposed to teach, not grade. Of course, a brief refresher on the material isn't unexpected, but I remember the school showing us this graph, with the black curve representing the amount people remember of a one hour lecture over time if they do nothing with the material and the orange curve representing the difference reviewing the information for ten, then five, then four minutes makes:


(From https://uwaterloo.ca/counselling-services/curve-forgetting)

This was the argument for why we needed to regularly review our notes, and I believed it until I got to high school and discovered I didn't need to study that much for the final because we were reviewing the concepts we learned in class by the very novel technique of using them again.

I would argue that this curve does not show that students* need to regularly review the information they learn, but that if schools really want students to remember what they learned, they need to bring up previously taught information again in class several times. And of course, teachers do, because usually topics are relevant enough that they come up again.

Either way, tests are not merely assessments of knowledge but motivators for students to learn, though that often happens the day before and is short-lasting. Is it any wonder that memorizing dates, for instance, is seen as meaningless when the official motivation is the grade? I use dates as an example because, to me, they were barely knowledge, with little significance, until I had a conversation involving different countries and couldn't say the order of important events. I still don't want to be a historian, and still have no practical use for dates, but I don't consider them meaningless because they no longer feel arbitrary.

That isn't to say that students shouldn't have to do work at home. Far from it. As much as I just want to collapse on my bed and go to sleep sometimes, homework is helpful for solidifying understanding of concepts learned in class. But when it's become the norm for students to reteach concepts to themselves for the purpose of passing the test, then the norm needs to be questioned.

Perhaps the bottom line is this: Studying used to be synonymous with learning and reflecting. It isn't anymore.

*College students could more understandably be expected to take charge of their own education in that way, but pre-college students aren't even trusted to go to school on their own will.