Actively retrieving information from your long-term memory, so that you can do it more easily next time and thus forget less quickly. By actively retrieving information from your long-term memory, you strengthen the connections 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). • Writing down from memory what you know about something after you have read or heard about it. It is important that there is some time between practice sessions. It is especially effective if you have partially forgotten the information and need to actively engage your long-term memory to retrieve it. Otherwise, it becomes automatic and therefore not educational. By repeating the retrieval of information, spreading it over increasing amounts of time (see spaced practice), and alternating topics and types of practice questions (see interleaved practice), the material will stick better.
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