5 reasons why you should test yourself during studying

Studying can be very exhausting. Sometimes it seems like we spend our entire days studying and it’s still not enough. The answer isn’t to invest more and more hours into studying, but to study more intelligently. If we use more effective methods, we can get more out of each hour we put in.

Here are 5 reasons why testing is the right method for all of us:

1. If we learn by testing ourselves, we will remember more. The testing effect has been proven time and time again. Testing yourself is the most effective form of studying. If we want to make the most of our learning time, we need to learn by testing ourselves.
2. By testing ourselves, we discover gaps in our knowledge. When we have to explain something ourselves or answer a question, we can quickly identify where we are stuck. We can then quickly fill in the gaps and successfully answer the question next time. Instead of this happening during an exam, where we lose points and grades, it happens during the learning process with no negative consequences. On the contrary, by identifying these gaps, our knowledge will ultimately be better.
3. If we test ourselves, we will remember more during future learning. Imagine two groups of students. Both groups are learning the same material five times. The first group studies it by reading the material once, then testing themselves, and repeating this process (i.e. Read-Test-Read-Test-Read). This is followed by a final test, which is graded. The second group learns by reading the material five times (i.e. Read-Read-Read-Read-Read), followed by a final test. Studies have shown that the students in the first group remember significantly more material. They correctly answered almost 90% of the questions on the final test, while the students in the second group answered less than 60%. Therefore, the first group receives a very good grade on the exam, while the second group barely passes or fails. Remember that both groups of students spend the same amount of time studying; the difference is only in the better learning method.
4. Testing makes knowledge more organized. During testing, especially open-ended testing, the brain must create a complete answer on its own. During this process, we recognize important information and connect it to create a whole that is more firmly embedded in our memory.
5. Testing improves the transfer of knowledge to new situations. People's reaction to hearing about testing as a learning method is often, "that's just memorization, that's not real learning." Numerous studies have shown that this is not true. In one study, they compared how successful students were at learning to recognize different types of birds. The first group was shown pictures of birds with their corresponding names. The second group was shown pictures of birds without any names. The students in the second group had to answer which type of bird it was. After they answered, the researcher told them the correct answer. They were then shown new pictures of birds. The students who learned by testing themselves were better at correctly identifying new pictures of birds into the right category. This simple example shows that knowledge gained by testing ourselves is more easily transferred to new situations than knowledge gained by repeatedly reading material.

Testing is therefore the most effective method of learning. Now you can gain more knowledge from every invested hour than before and with that, better grades. But if you are satisfied with your grades, you can spend less time for the same results and do other things in life that make you happy.