What is the best way to prepare yourself for a test? What research suggests is that the best way to prepare yourself for a test is with your own testing.
In the many pieces of research that have been done around testing and its effects, the conclusion is that testing yourself is better than studying and restudying or rereading your notes.
It would be more than reasonable to expect to understand why testing yourself is better than studying your notes. So, let's look at it this way: if you want to think about anything in real life, or you are asked in an exam to explain or write about anything, what you need to do is be able to recall the material that you will put together to form your answer.
What makes a great deal of sense is that you should practice the kind of recalling that you need to do before you go into the exam. Logical, yes?
If exams are about testing what you know, but that test is asking you in a limited timeframe to recall things, then it makes a great deal of sense to have practiced recalling in the first place.
What seems to happen in your brain is that when you recall, or more particularly try to recall something, you make that piece of information more readily available because the pathways that connect to that information grow with each piece of recalling you do.
So, just to be clear, answering multiple-choice questions as a practice, or rereading your material, or your own study notes, is not trying to recall. Recall requires open questions and clear effort.
Also, the fact that you practice recall multiple times means that the pathways to that piece of information become more flexible and more accessible when you need them in different circumstances. The practice of recalling also appears to make the information available when you are thinking about other subjects. So, what that means is that piece of information is not stored somewhere in some place, and you're not sure where that some place is, but it is stored where you know it is and it is easy to get.
The kinds of tests that you give yourself should, as much as possible, be relatively open. Questions like, for example:
* What can I recall about this?
* What do I know about this?
* How can I explain this?
* What do I remember about this?
* How would I do this?
You will notice that all of these are open questions, and not easy gifts. They are not the same as convincing yourself that standing on the escalator is exercise because, after all, you are moving. :)
These kinds of questions, and simple quizzes immediately after your learning, and then repeated a day and one week later, are much more effective in terms of your memory of what you studied than simply studying, or even answering questions that have been set on the topic.
Why is this? Just to reiterate: your effort to retrieve information for which the only prompt is your question serves to consolidate that memory. The act of searching for information has the effect of making it more accessible – the pathways to that information become easier to access, and this serves to make that piece of memory more permanent in your memory banks.
Let me refer you to an article on the Washington University site (https://source.washu.edu/2006/04/repeated-testing-better-than-repeated-studying/ Gerry Everding April 20, 2006), which references Roediger III, H.L. & Karpicke, J.D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning, Psychological Science, 17(3): 249-255.
Tested one week later, the study-test-test-test group scored dramatically better, remembering 61 percent of the passage as compared with only 40 percent by the study-only group.
The study-only group had read the passage about 14 times but still recalled less than the repeated testing group, which had read the passage only 3.4 times in its one and only study session.
Let's take this a little step further: if you have practiced recalling data you have learned, your memory will be more accurate, and the ideas that you generate with that data will be more accurate. Uncertain memory and uncertain recall may produce ideas for which there is no actual evidence. Sound like Trump?
So, when it comes to your study in the evening, or on the weekend, and you think that looking through your notes is an effective way to spend your time, think again. The most effective thing to do is to close up your notes, close your laptop, and ask yourself what you know. If you don't get the correct answer, this also serves to suggest to your mind that you need to learn more in order to correct it.
Even testing yourself before you study, as in "What do I know about this subject?" is an effective way of increasing what you learn when you study. This is because you are raising your own awareness of the difference between what you think you know and what you actually know.
I am not saying that you shouldn't do note-taking following various well-accepted procedures around notes like the Cornell Note-Taking Method (see Simon Gillow's inclusion of this in the Global Ready culture course), but what I am saying is that when it comes to effective learning, don't be distracted by the idea that reviewing what you have learned is sufficient.
Also, don't be distracted by doing multiple-choice questions (especially those with quick-check answers) and then checking your answers. Multiple-choice questions give you a selection of answers, and they are not answers which you have to retrieve from your own memory. This is much less effective than open questions.
You may quite rightly have the impression that if you study something hard or review something for a period of time, your memory immediately after that will be good. It is. And it is, in fact, correct: your memory at that point will be better than if you just tested yourself. However, after one week, or one month, or an even longer period, the material which you have only studied will have low recall, and the material which you have tested yourself on will have a much higher level of retention.
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Bibliography
Atabek Yiğit, E., Balkan Kıyıcı, F., & Çetinkaya, G. (2014). Evaluating the testing effect in the classroom: An effective way to retrieve learned information. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 54, 99-116.
Everding, G. (2006, April 20). Repeated testing better than repeated studying. Washington University Source. https://source.washu.edu/2006/04/repeated-testing-better-than-repeated-studying/
Furst, E. (n.d.). Retrieval practice and its benefits for long-term learning. The Education Hub. https://theeducationhub.org.nz/retrieval-practice-and-its-benefits-for-long-term-learning/
Roediger III, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249-255.
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