Reading content once more feels productive: you take in information one more time.
However, Test yourself is the opposite: you pull the material out of your own memory. Instead of looking at an external source, you pull it from your brain and check afterwards. This is a Remember strategy. When you need to produce the answer, your brain kicks into action. You access your working memory purposely, and that helps move facts into long-term memory.
Method
- Read through what you have to know by heart: definitions, formulas, dates, vocabulary.
- Put the book away. Write or say out loud what you remember: keywords, the order, the whole sentence.
- Check against the book. Mark what stuck, and what did not.
- Continue only with what you did not remember. Test yourself again after a break.
You can use flashcards if you want the question on one side and the answer on the other. Strategy the eraser does the same thing, only with a sheet over the text. The point is the same: you have to produce the answer, not recognize it.
Feel free to ask for five minutes at the end of class. By then, the forgetting curve has not kicked in yet. Once it does, you’ll forget most of what was discussed.
If it turns out you only recognize the answers when they are sitting in front of you, you have not crammed yet. Test yourself, and you own the learning process (and you get more time for other things).