Study Skills
📋 What it is
The best study methods make you RECALL — quizzing yourself beats re-reading, and spacing beats cramming.
🗣️ Coach says
Re-reading feels productive but fools you — the words look familiar without being learned. RETRIEVAL (closing the book and testing yourself) and SPACING (a little each day) are proven far stronger. It feels harder, and that "desirable difficulty" is exactly why it works: struggling to recall is what builds the memory.
🧠 Memory hook
Quiz yourself (retrieval) + a little each day (spacing) beat re-reading + cramming. Harder = stronger.
😂 Giggle
The clock and the timer got into an argument — they just couldn't find the right time to resolve it.
😲 Whoa!
Testing yourself is so powerful that a single self-quiz can beat hours of re-reading — scientists call it the "testing effect".
✅ Quick check: Which studies better: re-reading your notes, or closing them and quizzing yourself?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
Quizzing yourself (retrieval practice) — it builds far stronger memory than re-reading.
Effortful recall strengthens memory; re-reading only feels familiar.
🪄 Trick question: Re-reading a chapter five times means you’ve really learned it, right?
Careful — think it through, then reveal.
Not necessarily — familiarity isn’t memory; a self-quiz reveals what you actually know.
Re-reading breeds a false sense of knowing; retrieval tests the real thing.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
After reading a page, close the book and write everything you remember. Then check what you missed.