Interleaving Explained: How to Revise Multiple Subjects at Once (Without Getting Confused)
If you have ever spent a whole Saturday on nothing but maths, then a whole Sunday on nothing but chemistry, you have probably noticed something frustrating: by the following week, both subjects feel hazier than you expected. There is a well-evidenced reason for this, and a simple fix. It is called interleaving , and it is one of the most consistently supported techniques in the research on how students actually remember what they revise. What Is Interleaving? Interleaving means mixing different subjects or different topics within a subject during a single revision session, rather than working through one topic in a long, unbroken block. Instead of doing twenty algebra questions in a row, you might do five algebra questions, five geometry questions, five trigonometry questions, and five statistics questions, all in the same sitting. It feels less tidy than blocked practice, and it usually feels harder while you are doing it. That difficulty is the point. Cognitive psychologists call...
