Those who do self-testing often want to wait until right before an exam, when they feel most ready, to do it. They assume that self-testing is most effective when they have studied enough to get correct answers.
In reality, struggling to answer questions about new material–and even getting them wrong–improves understanding and the likelihood that you will remember that information later. To return to a point made on a previous page, difficulty makes for more efficient learning.
If your textbooks have review questions, do them. If you can access practice tests online, do them. If your instructor provides practice problems, do them. Do all of them. And try to do them without looking at other sources.
If your course is heavy on terminology that you need to define, you can use flashcards to test yourself. It’s important to avoid passively flipping through them, though.
Explain or Teach It to Someone Else
If you really understand a topic, you should be able to explain it to someone else. Tell your friends, parents, or dog about what you’re learning to identify where you need to review. Or simply write down everything you can recall to see where your gaps are. Once you’ve done it once, go back and try to simplify your explanation or translate it into a new medium, like a diagram.
If your textbooks don’t have review questions, or you’ve simply gone through all of them already, you can create your own self-tests. It’s a good idea to do this ahead of time so that you don’t remember your own answers, or to use them in a study group.
