Active recall vs rereading: what the research says

Active recall means pulling information out of your memory instead of putting it back in. Answering a practice question with your notes closed is active recall. Reading the same notes again is not. The effort of remembering is the point: each time you retrieve something, it gets easier to retrieve next time.

Students read short passages. Some then reread them; others took recall tests on them instead, with no feedback. On a test 5 minutes later, the rereaders did better. On tests 2 days and a week later, the students who had tested themselves remembered substantially more (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006).

Exams are days or weeks after you study, not 5 minutes. That's the whole argument in one line.

In the same study, rereading made students more confident they'd remember the material. Familiar text reads smoothly, and smooth feels like knowing. Testing yourself feels harder because you find out what you don't know. That discomfort is useful information, not a sign it isn't working.

A review of ten common study techniques rated two as most useful: practice testing and distributed practice (spreading study over time). Rereading, highlighting and summarising were rated low (Dunlosky et al., 2013).

Spacing multiplies the effect of testing. A review of 317 experiments found that coming back to material after a gap beats cramming it all at once, and that the best gap gets longer the longer you need to remember (Cepeda et al., 2006).

1. 01Close the source first. Answer from memory, even if you're not sure.
2. 02Then check against the source. Find the exact slide or page so you correct the right thing.
3. 03Track what you miss. A mistakes list is your most valuable study material.
4. 04Come back later. Retest your misses the next day, then a few days after that.
5. 05Mix topics. Exams don't ask questions in lecture order.