No matter how smart you think you are, the chances are that you sometimes fail to make the most of your memory. A series of surveys have shown most students fail to use proven methods of learning effectively, instead wasting their time on ineffective methods.

　　无论你觉得自己有多聪明，有时候可能还是无法充分利用记忆力。一系列的研究显示，大多数学生并不能使用行之有效的学习方法，反而把时间浪费在无效的方法上。

　　One of the problems is that we often receive a lot of conflicting information from parents, teachers, and scientists, so that we are unsure what works and what doesn’t.

　　问题之一在于，我们常常从父母、老师和科学家那里得到许多矛盾的信息，使我们无法确定哪些方法可行，哪些不可行。

　　Fortunately, a new paper, published in one of the top psychology journals, has examined the biggest misconceptions, with a list of the five most popular study strategies, the potential pitfalls, and the ways that they can use them more effectively.

　　幸运的是，在一份顶级心理学期刊发表的一篇新论文检视了最常见的错误观点，列出了五种最受欢迎的学习策略、这些策略的潜在问题，以及如何更高效地运用这些策略的方法。

　　Strategy 1: Rereading

　　策略1：反复阅读

　　Learning new vocabulary? The most common strategy is to read the words and their meanings until they stick. Unfortunately, psychologists believe that it is too passive, meaning that most of the information fails to leave an impression.

　　在学习新词汇吗?最常见的策略就是反复阅读这些词和它们的含义，直到印在脑子里。很可惜，心理学家认为这个方法过于被动，大部分信息并不能给人留下印象。

　　Strategy 2: Underlining and highlighting

　　策略2：划重点

　　Like rereading, this study technique is nearly ubiquitous. The idea makes sense: the process of underlining key words and phrases should help you to engage more with the information, and it makes it easier to identify the most important passages later on. But although it can be more effective than passive rereading, underlining and highlighting often fails to work, with most students mindlessly marking up almost every paragraph without much discernment.

　　和反复阅读一样，这种学习方法几乎人人都用。这个方法很好理解：划出重点词句有助于加深印象，让你随后更容易找到最重要的段落。不过，尽管划重点可能比被动阅读更有效，但总是涂涂划划就没有太大帮助了。大多数学生缺乏洞察力，几乎把每个自然段都标为重点。

　　Strategy 3: Note-taking

　　策略3：记笔记

　　Visit any lecture theatre or library and you will find students judiciously copying the most important facts into their notebooks. Like underlining and highlighting, the problems come when you fail to be judicious about the material you are including. Your overenthusiasm – and propensity to include everything that is mentioned – can easily become a vice.

　　随便去哪个教室或图书馆，你会发现学生们都很谨慎地将最重要的内容记在笔记本上。和划重点一样，当你无法合理地判断哪些内容需要记下来时，问题就来了。过度热衷于记笔记，以及倾向于记下所有内容很容易养成坏习惯。

　　Strategy 4: Outlining

　　策略4：列提纲

　　Many teachers encourage their students to take a ‘bird’s eye’ view of the course they are studying, presenting an overview of the key points to be learned in a structured, logical manner. Sometimes these outlines are created by the instructor themselves, but they may also encourage the student to do it for themselves.

　　许多教师鼓励学生"鸟瞰"学习的课程，用结构化、符合逻辑的方法来概述学习要点。有时这些要点由老师本人列出，但也可鼓励学生自行完成。

　　Strategy 5: Flash cards

　　策略5：抽认卡

　　Self-testing (or “retrieval practice”, as psychologists call it) is now considered to be most reliable learning strategy, particularly for specific, detailed facts, with considerable evidence that it can boost memory. Even so, there are still more and less effective ways of doing it.

　　自我测试(或者用心理学家的说法，叫做"提取练习")现被认为是最可靠的学习策略，对具体、详细的内容而言更是如此，有足够的证据证明这种方法可以提升记忆力。尽管如此，使用这种策略的方法不同，学习的效果也可能迥然不同。