Active Recall

Close the textbook. Put away the notes. Try to remember what you just read from scratch. That painful feeling of struggling to retrieve information is your brain building stronger neural pathways. A landmark 2011 study in Science found that students who practiced retrieval scored 50% higher on tests than those who re-read or made concept maps. Active recall works because it strengthens the retrieval routes in your memory — the exact thing exams test. Self-testing beats every passive study method ever measured.