A week before
You have a test in a week. You have highlighted your notes in three colors and they look beautiful.
What do you do now?
Step 1: What Would You Do?
There is often more than one good answer. Pick one and see what happens.
The night before
It is the night before and you have not started. There is a lot of material.
What is the best use of tonight?
Step 2: What That Was
The name for what you just worked out.
Rereading and highlighting feel like studying and do very little. They make the material feel familiar, and familiar is not the same as known.
Test yourself instead
Close the book and write down what you remember. It is uncomfortable and it is several times more effective.
Spread it out
Four half-hours across a week beats one two-hour session, even though the total is the same. Forgetting a bit and retrieving it is what builds the memory.
Why people do the wrong one
The effective methods feel worse while you do them. That feeling is the whole trap.
Step 3: Try It
These ones do have right answers.
Works, or Just Feels Like It?
Sort each study method.
Which of these actually build memory?
Tap something to move it.
- Empty
- Empty
Step 4: Quick Check
Two questions, then you are done.
Question 1 of 2
Why does rereading feel like it is working?
Question 2 of 2
Same total time. Which is better?
Step 5: Your Life Mission
Something to do away from the screen. Nobody is checking.
Test the two methods
- Take two topics. Reread one; self-test the other.
- Wait a week.
- Test yourself on both and compare.
Why: Being told is not convincing. Seeing your own two scores is.
Step 6: What You Learned
- Rereading and highlighting feel productive and do very little.
- Close the book and write what you remember.
- Spread it out. The forgetting in between is part of it.
For the grown-up
Retrieval practice and spacing are among the best-supported findings in learning research, and almost nobody arrives at them by instinct because they feel worse than the alternatives.
Testing them rather than telling them works better: two topics, one reread, one self-tested, compared a week later. The difference is usually stark.
Being tested by somebody else is the easiest way in. Offering to quiz them costs ten minutes and is worth more than an hour of supervised rereading.