A research on students was recently held at Washington University. There were two groups of students participating in the research.
-
1 group was given 5 minutes to study a text passage and then immediately was given 3 tests on the passage. It was study-test-test-test for them.
-
The 2nd group was given 5 minutes to study the same passage as the first group but were not given the tests. Instead they were asked to study the same passage again for another 5 minutes each time the first group took the test. So the 2nd group studied the passage for a total of 20 minutes. It was study-study-study-study for them.
-
1 week later both groups were tested again on the text they had studied. The suprising thing is that the first group which studied for just 5 minutes scored remarkably better than the second group remembering 61% of information versus 40% of the second group!!
So the lesson learnt for people who self-study before an important exam is that a large portion of your study time should involve finding and creating ways to test yourselves.
It is recommended to revise what you have studied at least once within the next 24 hours, then again within a week, once more after 15 days and then after a month.