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> Repetition can be incredibly useful. I can't imagine memorizing vocabulary or simple facts (when was FOO born?) without repetition. Of course, actually using the facts (or vocab) makes them stick better. But use is also repetition.

What exactly do you mean by repetition? If I'm memorizing vocabulary, repetition to me means recalling and writing the words down in some way (often according to some prompt or quiz). The repetition with this method works because of 1) recall strengthens the memory and 2) muscle memory of writing helps solidify it. But repetition by repeatedly reading? That simply doesn't work for me (and going by studies, it's a very poor strategy compared to retrieval/recall practice). Nobody who recommends retrieval practice says repetition by recall and producing it on paper (or however else) is a bad idea. Spaced repetition is also just a form of repetition. He doesn't demonize these forms of repetition.

Let's go back to what he said:

> One of these false beliefs is that repetition is the key to remembering; the more someone encounters material, the better the likelihood of retaining the information long-term. I can still remember, after receiving a test grade that I wasn’t thrilled with, believing that I would’ve done better if I’d just gone over the material more times.

Key words are "the more someone encounters material" (note the passiveness) and he emphasizes it with his own experience of thinking how he should've "gone over the material more often". It's really not that uncommon. I knew plenty of people in school and even in university whose only conception of learning was reading, re-reading and highlighting and maybe making notes. It was sub-optimal in so many ways. So to pretend that nobody does it ("Does anyone actually ever just read a thing over and over again hoping that it sticks?") seems a bit ignorant to me of how many people simply never learn good studying strategies.

Btw, found this while I was looking at research

https://www.apa.org/images/2016-06-psa-karpicke-fig2_tcm7-20... (Source: https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2016/06/learning-memor...)

> An emphasis on getting knowledge in memory shows up on surveys of students' learning strategies. In one survey (Karpicke, Butler & Roediger, 2009), college students were asked to list the strategies they use while studying and to rank-order the strategies. The results, shown in Figure 2, indicate that students' most frequent study strategy, by far, is repetitive reading of notes or textbooks. Active retrieval practice lagged far behind repetitive reading and other strategies (for a review of several learning strategies, see Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan & Willingham, 2013). A wealth of research has shown that passive repetitive reading produces little or no benefit for learning (Callender & McDaniel, 2009). Yet not only was repetitive reading the most frequently listed strategy, it was also the strategy most often listed as students' number one choice, by a large margin.

> Does anyone actually ever just read a thing over and over again hoping that it sticks?

I think that's what he's saying, yes. He opens with that exact anecdote about himself: "I can still remember, after receiving a test grade that I wasn’t thrilled with, believing that I would’ve done better if I’d just gone over the material more times."

I think I agree with his final point (as you seem to do), but I think he doesn't communicate it very well. I was going to object to his penny example, saying that although I've seen probably tens of thousands of pennies, I've never been once been asked to pick out the real one: that particular neural pathway I've never used. (Also, it's likely if these were actual pieces of copper that I could pick up and look at, I'd have a better feeling for which one looked right.)

But in a sense, that is his point: What neural pathways are you using? Simply passively consuming material ("going over it") can make you think you've "got" it when you don't. Retrieving it exercises the "retrieval" pathway; so if what you're trying to do is pass an exam where retrieval of facts is an important factor, you should practice that.

But you can't stop there; even practicing retrieval can get boring quickly, so maybe you need to add in ways to make it more interesting, so that you can actually get more retrieval in.

And finally, sometimes retrieval isn't even what you want at all. I find this particularly when learning a language: that being good at flashcards doesn't translate well into being able to read or understand words in context. And reading a word in the same context over and over again quickly looses effectiveness too. If your goal is to be able to fluidly recognize a word in an unknown context, you need to actually see it in a lot of unknown contexts.

His thing mainly seem to be about making it hard though, which is a bit confusing to me.

funny, i noticed that if i dont want to know why FOO was born, i wont. so i spend time figuring out why i want to know when FOO was born. this makes things so much easier for me. im creative so i can always figure our a reason FOO was cool somehow. its like my brain needs to "stick around for a while" on a topic and create more connections to it. if i just repeat it, i dont remember it when i need to. specially under stress or if im annoyed.