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The Forgetting Curve in Nursing: How to Beat It

November 9, 2026
The Forgetting Curve in Nursing: How to Beat It

The forgetting curve is the pattern in which memory drops steeply soon after you learn something, then declines more slowly. For nursing students, the fix is not more rereading. It is spaced review built around retrieval: pulling answers out of memory on a schedule, ideally with practice questions, before they fade. Below you will find what the curve says, what the research supports, what it does not tell you, and a routine for the NCLEX and other nursing exams.

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TL;DR

  • The forgetting curve describes a large early drop in memory, then smaller losses over time. The first days after a lecture are the riskiest window.
  • Spacing your reviews and testing yourself both help. A systematic review in health professions education found that 43 of 56 eligible studies showed significant benefits from distributed practice, retrieval practice, or both.
  • The famous percentages come from nonsense syllables. Treat them as a shape, not a prediction for your pharmacology lecture.
  • A simple plan: quiz yourself within a day of learning, again within a few days, then weekly, and target the topics you miss.

Table of Contents

What the forgetting curve actually is

In the 1880s the psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus tested his own memory using three-letter nonsense syllables, checking recall at intervals from 20 minutes up to 31 days. He published the results in 1885. When he plotted how much he retained against time, the line fell fast at first and then flattened.

That shape is the point. The National Academies describe it as a large initial drop in performance followed by smaller losses as the retention interval grows. The rate of loss is greatest early and diminishes over time.

This has been checked in modern times. In 2015, Murre and Dros ran a replication in which one subject spent about 70 hours learning and relearning lists at the same range of intervals. The results looked similar to Ebbinghaus's original data. They also noted a possible upward bump at the 24-hour mark.

The numbers you will see quoted

A widely repeated figure says that an average person loses about 50% of memorized information after 20 minutes and 70% after 24 hours. That is drawn from Ebbinghaus's data. It is a useful picture of how steep the first stretch is.

More recent work describes the decline with a power law instead of a simple exponential. John Wixted explains that the proportional rate of decay slows as time passes. His illustration: retrievable information might decline by 40% in the first 24 hours, by another 20% over the next 24, and by another 10% over the next 24. Older memories also tend to decay more slowly than younger ones of the same strength, because memories consolidate and stabilize.

Illustrative memory loss slows across three days

For a student, the takeaway is practical. Whatever you learned today is the most fragile. Whatever you have already recalled several times is sturdier.

Why this matters more in nursing than in most programs

Nursing content piles up fast. In a single term you may cover cardiac medications, acid-base balance, maternal-newborn care, lab values, and prioritization frameworks. Then the NCLEX asks you to pull from all of it, months later, under time pressure and in new clinical scenarios.

The forgetting curve is the reason a topic you felt confident about in week three can feel unfamiliar in week twelve. It is not a sign that you are a poor student. It is how memory behaves when material is not revisited.

There is also evidence from clinical skills. In a study cited by the National Academies, factory and office workers were trained in CPR until they reached mastery. When they were tested three years later, skills and knowledge had fallen to about 15% of their original level, following the classic curve. Learning to a high standard once did not protect against decay without reinforcement.

What the curve does not tell you

The curve is a useful model, but it is easy to over-read.

The percentages are not about your lectures. Ebbinghaus memorized meaningless syllables in a single session. That was deliberate, because it stripped out meaning and prior knowledge. Real nursing content is meaningful: you can connect a drug's mechanism to its side effects, or a disease process to its assessment findings. Those connections change how quickly material fades, so quoting a precise percentage lost per day for a pathophysiology chapter goes beyond what the original experiments measured.

How well you learn it first matters. The National Academies report that the degree of original learning is the single most important factor in whether something can be remembered. In the studies they describe, people who had three learning trials recalled more at every interval than people with one trial, even though the two curves had the same slope. Stronger initial learning gives you a higher starting point.

Some forgetting is normal. Researchers at Carnegie-Mellon have argued that forgetting can be adaptive, since keeping a huge number of memory traces for long periods has biological costs. The goal is not to remember everything forever. It is to keep exam-relevant knowledge available when you need it, which is a scheduling problem.

Two tools that flatten the curve

The research points to two strategies that work together: spacing and retrieval.

Spaced review

Spacing means returning to material at intervals instead of cramming it into one session. In a study by Karpicke and Bauernschmidt, repeated retrieval with long gaps between tests produced a 200% improvement in long-term retention compared with retrieval without spacing. They also found that no particular relative spacing schedule was inherently superior, so you do not need to hunt for a perfect formula. Spacing out is what counts.

A nursing-specific example comes from Chamberlain University's study-strategy guide. It describes one study in which students who recalled information at three different times during a session remembered 80% of the material after one week, compared with 30% for students who repeated correct information three times in one session. Students who did not practice recall at all scored below 1%. Treat that as one study summarized in a university blog, not a promise, but the direction matches the wider literature.

Spaced review

Retrieval practice

Retrieval practice means pulling information out of memory instead of looking at it again. Practice questions, flashcards where you answer before flipping, and blank-page recall all count. Serra and colleagues describe it as active recall that strengthens memory and comprehension, and report that the health professions have widely embraced it for course exams and high-stakes licensing exams.

Why does it work against the curve? Wixted notes that the testing effect does two things. Retrieving an item makes it more likely you can retrieve it again, and it also slows the later rate of forgetting, effectively restoring the original degree of learning.

Two experiments show how this plays out against rereading:

Rereading feels productive because the material looks familiar. Retrieval feels harder, and that difficulty is part of why it sticks.

What the nursing education evidence says

The Trumble et al. review covered 56 eligible studies in health professions education and concluded that both distributed practice and retrieval practice are effective at improving academic grades. The authors also found that retrieval practice that demands more thought, such as fill-in-the-blank, short-answer, or free recall, is likely to improve learning more than recognition-style multiple choice. A practical reading: after you answer a multiple-choice question, try to explain the rationale in your own words before you read the official one.

A 2024 state-of-the-evidence review in the Journal of Nursing Education looked at classroom strategies in nursing programs. It found that spaced learning and testing were among the approaches generally reported as effective, alongside others such as concept mapping and case-based learning. It did not find any single strategy to be better than the rest, so a mix is sensible. Spacing and testing are simply the easiest to add to a busy schedule.

A weekly routine for the NCLEX

Here is a simple structure that applies the evidence. Adjust the intervals to your calendar, since the research suggests that the act of spacing matters more than exact timing.

  1. Learn it once, properly. Since initial learning depth sets your starting point, connect new content to things you already know. Ask why each finding occurs, not only what it is.
  2. Quiz within 24 hours. Do 10 to 15 questions on what you covered that day. This is when the curve is steepest. Do not worry about your score. The goal is to practice pulling the information out.
  3. Review again after two to four days. Revisit the same topic with fresh questions. Mark the ones you got wrong or guessed correctly.
  4. Return weekly. Mix older topics into your current sets. Wixted's point that older memories decay more slowly suggests that each successful retrieval makes the next gap more forgiving.
  5. Spend extra time on weak areas. Keep a running list of missed topics. Rework those first, and write short rationales yourself instead of just reading them.
  6. Practice with the exam's style. Pair your recall work with NGN-style case scenarios. Our guide to clinical judgment and test-taking strategies for the NCLEX covers how to move beyond memorization, and our overview of NCLEX question types shows what to do with each format.

A worked example

Say you study heart failure medications on Monday. On Monday evening you answer a short set of questions on ACE inhibitors, beta blockers, and diuretics, then write one sentence on why each is used. On Thursday you answer another set, including a case about a patient with new edema. On the following Monday you mix those questions into a broader cardiac set. By the second week, heart failure is one of several topics in your rotation instead of a chapter you finished and abandoned. The total time is not much greater than rereading the chapter twice, but the work is spread out and active.

For more habit-building ideas, see our piece on study retention techniques for nursing exams.

Common mistakes that feed the curve

  • Cramming one topic in a single block. Massed practice feels efficient but concentrates all your effort at the start of the curve.
  • Rereading and highlighting as your main method. Familiarity is not recall. Close the notes and test yourself.
  • Only reviewing what you are good at. Strong topics are comfortable. Weak topics need the repetition.
  • Skipping the rationale. Each question you miss is a map of what to revisit.
  • Waiting until a month before the exam to start practice questions. Start earlier and keep sets short so that spacing happens naturally. Our NCLEX practice question study guide can help you plan the volume.

Perspective

We built RecallOS around one idea: the curve is not a verdict, it is a schedule. Nursing students are not short on content. They are short on a reliable way to see it again at the right moment.

Most students we hear from reread their notes the night before an exam and wonder why the details slipped. What helps is small, daily, active practice. That is why our Daily Recall Run is a short set of high-yield questions aimed at the blueprint of the exam you are preparing for, not random trivia.

The second half is knowing where you are weak. Our content is developed by practicing nurses and CRNAs, and the app is designed to bring your missed topics back for personalized review, so your time goes to the material that is still fragile. Streaks and peer challenges are there because consistency is what makes spacing work, and it is easier to stay consistent when it feels like progress.

If you take one thing from the research, let it be this: test yourself early, test yourself often, and let your misses decide what comes next.

Caleb

Putting a schedule on autopilot

Spacing is simple in theory and hard to keep up in a semester full of clinicals. That is the gap RecallOS is designed to fill. The Daily Recall Run gives you a focused set of practice questions each day, and the app is built to resurface your weak areas for review. You can also upload your own notes and have custom flashcards, quizzes, and summaries generated from them, so your spaced review uses your course material.

Recallos

There is a free trial and limited free daily access, so you can see how a daily routine fits your week. If you are preparing for a specific exam, we have dedicated pages for the NCLEX, CRNA and SRNA exams, and CCRN. You can also see how our adaptive nursing quiz app works, or start from the RecallOS home page to compare Recall+ and Recall Pro.

FAQ

How fast do nursing students forget what they learn?

Most of the loss happens early. A commonly cited figure from Ebbinghaus's data is that about 70% is lost after 24 hours, but that came from nonsense syllables. Meaningful, well-connected nursing content usually fades differently, so use the figure as a reminder to review soon, not as an exact measure.

Does the forgetting curve apply to NCLEX content?

The general pattern of fast early loss that slows over time has been replicated, and health professions research supports using spacing and retrieval practice for course and licensing exams. The exact percentages do not transfer to a specific lecture. What transfers is the strategy: review soon, then at widening intervals.

How often should I review to stay ahead of forgetting?

There is no single proven schedule. Karpicke and Bauernschmidt found that no relative spacing schedule was inherently superior, while spaced retrieval beat unspaced retrieval. A practical pattern is to quiz within a day, again after a few days, then weekly, and to revisit missed topics more often.

Are practice questions better than rereading my notes?

In the studies above, retrieval practice outperformed rereading when tests came days or weeks later. Rereading can look better on an immediate test, but the advantage fades. Use practice questions as your main review tool and read your notes to fix the gaps you find.

What if I miss a day or two?

One missed day does not erase your progress. The research on stronger original learning and retrieval suggests that memories you have already recalled several times hold up better. Pick up with a short set the next day and include the topics you missed.

Sources