Bruce cannot change his past exposure to the material, of course, but he can change his study habits. A critical problem may be Bruce's overreliance upon semantic memory, or rote memory of facts and names. Other types of memory may be more indelible and evocative, such episodic memory, or memory of a specific incident, and associating different concepts and facts with episodes from Bruce's own life rather than simply memorizing may be helpful on the next exam. Bruce's study habits may not deploy effortful encoding, in other words, he may feel that a brief scan of the material is enough, as if simply rolling the book across his eyeballs registers the material in his brain, or that memorizing a 'cheat sheet' of names and dates is enough.

Bruce may have poor study habits in general. Even hormonally, Bruce may have studied on little sleep, with more on his mind than the test. He may have been cramming, studying for several tests at the same time, thus reducing the amount of time the information would be resident in his long-term memory. Another important physical component of effective studying is creating a distraction-free environment. The 'three-box model' of information storage that suggests information is taken in, stored or forgotten in the short-term memory, and if not forgotten then retrieved from the long-term memory 'box' is problematic in many ways. Individuals possess the ability of individuals to take multiple kinds of stimuli from a variety of different channels, all at once. While this is good, or can be good, when, for example, you are driving...

Today, there are more distractions than ever, from iPods to the Internet, to divert a student's attention while studying and make reading the textbook and taking practice tests 'count' less than might be suspected.
Getting enough sleep, getting enough proper food, focusing on the material and using mnemonic devices are all possible methods that might benefit Bruce when studying for the next test. But most important is paying attention in class so more of the material is lodged his long-term memory, rather than through a cramming session. Ultimately, effortful encoding is the goal of good study practices, in other words, the ability to retain material and associate with previously recalled material. This type of association cannot take place in one session. The knowledge must be built over time throughout the course. The more there is reinforcement, the more Bruce builds up associations with past knowledge, and the more comfortable he will be with the material. In a history course, where material is cumulative, and events from the present link with events from the past, this is especially vital -- those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it in the present, it is said, and thus Bruce must learn from his past mistakes studying for his history test, or he is doomed to repeat them yet again.