Practice Makes Perfect! Or… does it?

Ever since we were kids we were told the concept of practice makes perfect. As long as you put enough hours into something you will become an expert at it. Although we’re not aiming to debunk the existence of the 10,000 hour rule (although that is already being done by many psychologists), we at Lanterna question if the notion of ‘practice makes perfect’ is the best way to approach the IB.

Time and time again we see students believing that the more they study, the better grades they get. What inevitably ensues is students dropping out of extracurricular activities, getting rid of relaxation time, or cutting down on sleep in order to increase their study time. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that getting rid of 1. hobbies, 2. relaxation, and 3. sleep will inevitably start resulting in your grades dropping rather than increasing! 

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As a result of the IB Diploma carrying this myth of it being impossible to complete unless you devote every waking hour to it, IB students are misled to thinking that the most successful graduates are those that had no life. This couldn’t be more wrong! At Lanterna we have hundreds of IB graduates who all scored 40+ in their diploma and one thing they all have in common? They focused on studying smarter, not harder. 

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We don’t believe in the concept of practice makes perfect. Studies have shown again and again that any studying you do after the first 45-60 minutes has little to no return. Instead of doing 6 hours of lackluster studying which is not only wasting your time but taking up mental energy, we endorse shorter spurts of studying. If our mentality changes to thinking about how we can make 30 minutes of studying the most efficient they possibly can be, your productivity will start increasing whilst reducing your study time. 

It’s not ‘practice makes perfect’, only perfect practice makes perfect as the legendary football coach Vince Lombardi is credited with saying. 

So, how do we make our practice perfect? Check out these articles that show the following:

1. The 80/20 Rule – Study Less and Get Better Results!
2. Eliminate Distractions
3. How to Learn more Quickly

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