Test yourself in different ways to see what you know by heart. By actively retrieving information from your long-term memory, you strengthen the connection between the neurons in your brain, making it easier to retrieve information from your long-term memory (see forgetting curve). Ways to do this include: • Answering practice questions (test questions, quiz questions) • After you have read or heard something, write it down without any aid • Use flashcards: cards where you write a question on one side and the answer to the question on the other side. This way you can immediately check if you got the answer right. By repeating this, spread over more and more time (see spread your learning moments), the learning material will stick better. By answering different types of practice questions about the learning material (see alternate topics), you will also master the material better. Reading a text again is not testing yourself: because you recognize things when rereading the text, you feel like you understand the material better. In reality, it's purely about recognition and it hardly contributes to remembering it: there's a good chance you won't be able to write it down from memory any better. You're actually fooling yourself (see Illusion of Fluency).
Carpenter, S. K., Pashler, H., Wixted, J. T., & Vul, E. (2008). The effects of tests on learning and forgetting. Memory & Cognition, 36(2), 438-448.
Roediger, H. L., Putnam, A. L., & Smith, M. A. (2011). Ten benefits of testing and their applications to educational practice. In J. Mestre & B. Ross (Eds.), Psychology of learning and motivation: Cognition in education, (pp. 1-36). Oxford: Elsevier.
Agarwal, P. K., Karpicke, J. D., Kang, S. H., Roediger III, H. L., & McDermott, K. B. (2008). Examining the testing effect with open‐and closed‐book tests. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 22, 861-876.
Butler, A. C. (2010). Repeated testing produces superior transfer of learning relative to repeated studying. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 36(5), 1118.