Does reading a book that is faded, printed using a harder-to-read font actually help you learn better? That doesn’t make sense. If you have taken our ALS1010 Course, Learning to Learn Better, you will know that one of the curious findings in the science of learning is the concept of cognitive disfluency. When we learn something, we need to process it first before we store it in our memory. Some information is effortless to process, while other items take more work for us to make sense. Cognitive disfluency refers to the finding that when we work harder to understand information in a meaningful way, that extra mental effort results in remembering that information for more extended periods.

At the time of writing, 1 Singapore Dollar (SGD) could be traded in the foreign exchange market for 3.05 Malaysian Ringgit (MYR) (rounded of to 2 decimal places).[1] That is, “1 SGD = 3.05 MYR”. Suppose that, for some reason, Singaporeans experience a sudden decrease in preference for Malaysian goods. Will this cause the fgure of 3.05 in “1 SGD = 3.05 MYR” to increase, decrease or remain the same, assuming no government intervention? Even if you have little idea about how exchange rates work, try to draw on whatever you may know to predict which option is correct. Lock in an answer before reading on.