Scientists say this ridiculously simple strategy can help you learn anything

Business Insider:

Testing yourself on the material you’re trying to learn is more effective than studying and re-studying that material.

In his book “Fluent Forever,” opera singer Gabriel Wyner suggests that one of the best ways to learn a new language is to practice remembering it.

In other words, instead of reading and re-reading a list of vocabulary words, you should read it once and then test yourself repeatedly.

The same strategy works for pretty much anything you’re hoping to commit to memory, and there’s a growing body of research behind it. Psychologists call this phenomenon the “testing effect.”

A 2003 study, cited in a meta-analysis by Henry L. Roediger, III and Jeffrey D. Karpicke, highlights the power of testing for making information stick. In the study, researchers led by Mark Wheeler had participants either review a list of 40 words five times or review it once and take four recall tests. Then they took a recall test either five minutes or one week later.

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