Me vs. Blurting: Who won?

What is blurting?

It is an active recall study method where you read a chapter, close the book, and write down everything you remember. Yep, that’s it. Sounds easy right? Well, I wouldn’t be so sure.

It looks simple, but it’s not. For example, you need the mental strength not to get distracted and actually write down everything. Also, sometimes it just gets overwhelming. 

My experience with it

I decided to try this method while studying for a history and geography test. 

Before continuing, here’s how these subjects work in my school: in my school, history is difficult and needs to be learned neatly by the book and textbook. A chapter in our history book is 4 pages and usually one test consists of 4-6 chapters, so 16-24 pages. In geography, we use worksheets most of the time and hardly ever use the textbook. As well, we have a presentation and learn most of it in class. So how did I use blurting and what’s my feedback?

I studied by reading each paragraph (around four to eight sentences) three or four times and then blurting it, because I didn’t want to have too much information to write down at once. Although, it depends on the level of difficulty of the text, because with certain paragraphs, topics or subjects one could definitely blurt more than one paragraph at a time. If I missed any information, I wrote it in a different colour, which I really recommend doing. I do know that when blurting you can also read once, write down as much as you remember and repeat that until you remember everything. But because I want to save my energy, I prefer rereading until I feel ready to blurt everything out once.

When studying for history, I LOVED this technique and I still use it, because it’s the only way I actually remember things. However, after doing it for a while I chose to incorporate the Feynman technique (teaching others), because that way I don’t try to learn the text word by word, but I try to explain it in my own words.

When studying for geography, I have to admit that it wasn’t the best - let’s be honest - it didn’t work at all. And that wasn’t the technique's fault!! I made the stupid decision of learning the subject from the book even though we don’t use it very often. What was I even thinking? Because as I said earlier, in class we mostly use the presentation and worksheets for studying so it doesn’t make sense why I started with the book. Anyways, I still learned the topic, but missed a few important points that I had written down on the worksheets. When the next test came I changed my method (to making a table of all the important points) and got better results.

Here is an overview of the blurting method:

Preparation: None needed, just grab a piece of paper and a pen.

Time: Using the history test as an example - it was a 5-chapter test so I learned three chapters on the weekend and two on school nights. It took me about 10-13 hours to complete, because on school nights I was far more tired and therefore it took more time to understand the text. BUT with less material or more speed you could easily learn faster than me.

Efficiency: Even though it took a lot of time, I barely needed to revise afterwards, only skimming the textbook questions before the test, but you should definitely recall it when you leave bigger gaps, like a few days or weeks, because then it stays in your long-term memory. Since I had the test quite soon I didn’t need to do it. So after all, it's pretty efficient.

Annoying: At the start I had the biggest urge to procrastinate and I didn’t really want to write everything out, but once I reached the flow state, it wasn’t that annoying. Although, near the end I got so excited when I finally reached the last page:)

Result: For history, blurting helped me remember details much better than usual. For geography, it didn’t work that well, because I used the wrong study material - oops!

Will I try it again: Yes, 100%, no explanation needed. BUT mostly when studying history and biology, because these require the most detailed understanding from my subjects. Although it doesn’t mean you can’t use it to learn simpler concepts too. For example, sometimes I also use it to study music, human studies etc.

Personal tip: When I first started blurting, I tried to write everything perfectly, I’m not kidding, basically word by word. Later I realized it’s better to focus on ideas instead of exact sentences, because it takes less room and you don’t have to write that much, quality > quantity.

When to use it: It works with subjects requiring detailed recall, such as biology, history, or learning definitions and formulas.

When NOT to use it: When you need to practice solving problems (like math), you don’t understand the material yet or you have too much material to recall.

Common mistakes: 

1) Not taking breaks. Please take them, because blurting is reallyyyyy intensive and tires you out quite fast! Trust me, I’ve tried to blurt all at once, but it was too much information and at the end I don’t think I even had any brain cells left, to be honest.

 2) Trying to copy the info word by word - it doesn’t get you anywhere when you can’t explain the topic in your own words. And I know it takes more time to write it down in your words, but it’s sooo worth it.

3) Blurting too much at a time. Like the first point, it can be too overwhelming and also you won’t remember that much information. So blurt out manageable chunks of the chapter.

4) Not marking down forgotten information with a different colour marker. I usually mark my missed facts in red, but you can do it in any other colour. Then I reread the part I missed and only then move on. This helps to register what you missed and what to revise.

5) Giving up too early. Don’t panic, when you don’t remember everything on the first try. It’s totally normal and you’ll get past it after a few times of blurting. I think it took me a good three or four times before starting to get the concept. And sometimes you can cheat a bit and look at the first sentence of the text if it helps.

The final verdict:

Blurting is an extremely effective technique for subjects that require remembering a lot of information. However, it takes time and can feel tiring at first. If you’re studying subjects like history or biology, I definitely recommend trying it.

In the end, blurting won, but so did my memory, so I’m not even mad about it:)