Most students revise by reading the chapter again. It feels like work, the page becomes familiar, and familiar feels like known. Then the exam asks a question with the book shut, and the familiar page is not there.
Testing yourself fixes this, because it is the exam's own task done early. You find out what you do not know while there is still time to do something about it. EdProcto's page for students is built for exactly this: paste a chapter, get a quiz from it, answer, see what you missed, come back when it is due.
This guide gives the method in five steps, the studies behind each one, and the mistakes that waste the effort.
Does testing yourself work better than re-reading?
Yes. Practice testing is one of the two study techniques that a major review of the evidence rated as high utility, and re-reading is one of five it rated as low.
Dunlosky et al. (2013) reviewed ten common techniques and asked whether the benefits of each held across different learners, materials and kinds of test. Practice testing and distributed practice, meaning study spread out over time, were rated high. Summarising, highlighting, the keyword mnemonic, imagery for text and re-reading were rated low. The authors' advice on re-reading and highlighting was that other techniques should be used in their place, and they named practice testing as the replacement for re-reading.
The classic demonstration is Roediger and Karpicke (2006). Students read passages and then either re-read them or tried to recall them without the text. Five minutes later the re-readers scored higher. Two days and a week later the students who had practised recalling scored substantially higher, although the re-readers had been more confident that they would remember.
That confidence is the trap. Karpicke et al. (2009) surveyed 177 university students about how they study. Most re-read their notes or textbook, and relatively few tested themselves. The authors' explanation was an illusion of competence: reading something again makes it feel known.
How do you turn a chapter into a quiz?
Take one section at a time and write a question for each idea you would be embarrassed not to know in the exam. The headings, the bold terms, the worked examples and the end-of-chapter summary tell you what those ideas are.
| What the chapter has | The question to make from it |
|---|---|
| A bold term | "What is ____?" or a sentence with the term missing |
| A list of steps or stages | "Put these in order" |
| A cause and its effect | "Why does X lead to Y?" |
| A worked example | The same problem with different numbers |
| A diagram | "What happens at the part marked A?" |
| Two things that are easy to confuse | "What is the difference between X and Y?" |
Aim for ten to fifteen questions a chapter. Mix quick ones (a term, a date, a formula) with a few that need a sentence or two of explanation, because the exam will ask for both.
Should you write the questions yourself?
You can, but it is not where the benefit is. Weinstein et al. (2010) compared three ways of studying a passage: re-reading it, answering questions someone else had set, and writing your own questions and answering those. Both question conditions beat re-reading. Writing your own questions was no better than answering the ones provided, and it took at least twice as long. Students also predicted they would do best after writing their own, and they were wrong.
So the answering is what helps, and the writing is the cost. If the questions can be written for you from your own chapter, the time goes where it pays. That is the reason EdProcto writes the quiz from what you paste.
What is the right way to take your own quiz?
Close the book and answer from memory, in writing, before you look at anything. An answer you only think and then check feels right far more often than it is.
- Shut the chapter. If it is open, you are reading, not recalling.
- Answer every question, even badly. A wrong attempt followed by the right answer still helps. A blank teaches nothing.
- Check each answer straight away. Read the correct answer and the reason for it, not just a tick or a cross.
- Mark the ones you missed. Be strict: nearly right is a miss.
- Retry the misses at the end, again from memory.
- Stop. Do not go round and round the same quiz in one sitting. Come back another day.
Answering in your own words is harder than choosing from options, and the harder version tends to teach more, as long as you see the right answer afterwards. Kang et al. (2007) found that when feedback was given, a short-answer test led to better retention three days later than a multiple-choice test did. This goes beyond memorising facts, too. Karpicke and Blunt (2011) found that practising retrieval produced more learning from science texts than drawing concept maps, including on questions that needed inference.
When should you take the quiz again?
Take it again after a gap, and make the gap longer as the exam gets further away. One test tells you what you know today. A second test, days later, is what makes it last.
Cepeda et al. (2006) pooled 317 experiments on spacing and found that how far apart the study sessions should be depends on how long you need to remember: the longer the delay before the final test, the longer the best gap between sessions. For an exam next week, a day or two between rounds is sensible. For an exam in three months, come back after a few days, then after a couple of weeks, then after a month.
Spacing feels worse than cramming, which is why few people do it. In one experiment by Kornell and Bjork (2008), participants learned better when the material was spaced out, yet they rated the bunched-up version as more effective, even after their own results had shown the opposite. Trust the score, not the feeling.
A plan for one chapter
Four sittings are enough for most chapters.
| Day | What to do |
|---|---|
| Day 1 | Read the chapter once. Take the quiz. Retry the misses. |
| Day 3 | Take the quiz again, book shut. |
| Day 10 | Again. Add the misses to the next chapter's quiz. |
| A week before the exam | Once more, mixed in with the other chapters. |
How does EdProcto make the quiz for you?
EdProcto is the best tool for this method because it does the two parts students skip: it writes the questions from your own chapter, and it brings the quiz back when it is due.
Paste what you are learning. Open the quiz maker on the home page, paste a chapter or your notes, and choose "Test yourself". Procto AI writes the questions from your text, not from a general bank, so they cover what your course covers in the words your textbook uses. Each one can be checked against the passage it came from, and you can edit or delete any of them.
Answer in study mode. After each question you see the answer and a plain explanation, which is step three above done for you. At the end you get the list of what you missed and a retry of only those questions.
Come back when it is due. The quiz comes due again a few days later, and your dashboard shows what is waiting. That is the spacing, scheduled so that you do not have to remember to remember.
A whole book. Upload the book and EdProcto splits it into chapters, makes a quiz for each, and keeps a map of which chapters you hold and which you do not.
If you have no material to hand, the kits are ready-made quizzes by subject and level, from primary school to professional exams. Many are made fresh by rule each time you open them, so the numbers change and you cannot memorise the paper.
It is free to start: a free account covers study mode, the kits, the re-tests and 20 questions a month written by Procto AI from your own material. The Learner plan raises that to 100 questions a month and removes the limit on self-tests. The pricing page lists the plans.
What mistakes make self-testing useless?
The mistakes are the ones that let you feel tested without being tested.
- Peeking. Looking at the answer "to check you were about to say that" is re-reading with extra steps.
- Only easy questions. A quiz you always pass is telling you nothing new. Keep the questions you got wrong and drop the ones you have answered correctly three times running.
- Recognising instead of recalling. If every question is multiple choice, add some where you have to produce the answer. A good fill in the blank question has nothing to recognise.
- One sitting. Ten rounds tonight are worth less than three rounds across two weeks.
- Memorising the quiz. If you know the answer is "B", change the question. You want the idea, not the letter.
- Stopping at the score. The score is not the point. The list of misses is.
One caution about the evidence. Self-testing is linked to better grades, but not by itself. Hartwig and Dunlosky (2012) surveyed 324 undergraduates and found that using self-testing was positively associated with grade point average. So, in that survey, was re-reading, and so was how students scheduled their study: lower performers were more likely to study late at night and to be driven by deadlines. A survey shows a link, not a cause, so the experiments above are the better guide to which technique does the work. Test yourself, and do it before the last night.
Quick questions
How many questions should I make from one chapter?
Ten to fifteen is enough for most chapters: one for each idea you would need in the exam. More than twenty and you will stop taking it, which defeats the purpose.
Is it better to use flashcards or a quiz?
Both are self-testing, and both work if you answer from memory before turning the card. A quiz has the advantage that it can ask for explanations and worked problems as well as terms. EdProcto's study mode shows the answer and the reason after each question.
How soon before an exam should I start?
As early as the first chapter is taught. Spacing needs time: the longer you want to remember, the longer the gaps should be, and the gaps cannot be longer than the time you have left.
What if the questions the tool writes are wrong?
Check them against your chapter. In EdProcto each question is written from the text you pasted and can be checked against the passage it came from, and you can edit or delete any question. The page for students explains how the checking works.
Does self-testing work for maths and problem subjects?
Yes, if the questions are problems and not definitions. Redo worked examples with new numbers and write out the full solution before checking. EdProcto's show your working shape marks each step.
References
- Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354
- Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266
- Hartwig, M. K., & Dunlosky, J. (2012). Study strategies of college students: Are self-testing and scheduling related to achievement? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19(1), 126–134. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-011-0181-y
- Kang, S. H. K., McDermott, K. B., & Roediger, H. L. (2007). Test format and corrective feedback modify the effect of testing on long-term retention. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 19(4–5), 528–558. https://doi.org/10.1080/09541440601056620
- Karpicke, J. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science, 331(6018), 772–775. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1199327
- Karpicke, J. D., Butler, A. C., & Roediger, H. L. (2009). Metacognitive strategies in student learning: Do students practise retrieval when they study on their own? Memory, 17(4), 471–479. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658210802647009
- Kornell, N., & Bjork, R. A. (2008). Learning concepts and categories: Is spacing the "enemy of induction"? Psychological Science, 19(6), 585–592. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02127.x
- Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x
- Weinstein, Y., McDermott, K. B., & Roediger, H. L. (2010). A comparison of study strategies for passages: Rereading, answering questions, and generating questions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 16(3), 308–316. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020992