The Best Way to Prepare for a Test

guest written by John J. Walters

Active studying — that is, turning studying from a passive “cram session” into a back-and-forth process of asking and answering — is a common theme on the TestSoup blog.  This can take many different forms, although the most obvious one is organizing a study group where you take turns quizzing each other on the course material.

Of course, there are ways to make studying an active process even if you don’t have the luxury of human interaction.  My favorite way to do this when I was in college was to first figure out all the topics that I thought would be covered on an exam and list them off (sometimes a professor was kind enough to do this for me) and then write out as much as I could on each one without looking at my notes or text book.

In other words, I tested myself before the test.  Then I would go back through the list with my notes and text book at the ready and make notes on all of the important information that I had forgotten.  By the time I was done I had a fully-fledged study guide that I had made from scratch under similar conditions to what I would experience during the test itself.

Why did I do this?  Simply put: it was the fastest way for me to internalize the information in a way that would carry me to the exam and beyond.  They say that the best way to learn is by teaching, and writing explanations of course topics seemed like a reasonable approximation to teaching to me.

If the best way to learn something is to teach it, then what’s the best way to study something?  As a matter of fact, it turns out that the best way to prepare for a test is by taking a test.  It may seem counterintuitive, but if you think about it test taking is very similar to teaching — answering specific questions on a given topic requires a deep, well-rounded understanding of the topic and forces you not just to regurgitate memorized sound-bites but express ideas in new ways, thus solidifying and increasing the number of connections that information has to your brain.

This might explain why study groups are so popular.  You get the benefits of taking a test along with the enjoyment that comes with hanging out with your college buddies.  But when you find yourself studying for tests that your buddies aren’t taking (like the GMAT or the Air Force PDG) and you don’t have the time to sit down and write exhaustive study guides because you have too much “real life” to deal with, it’s time to look for alternatives.

Flash cards are a great alternative in situations like these because they can be used on your own or with someone else.  Still, making flash cards can be a time-consuming prospect as well, and then you have to worry about toting them around with you wherever you go just in case you get a few minutes here or there to study.  If only there was a program with thousands of premade flash cards and quizzes for the most popular tests and subjects that worked on mobile devices we carry with us all the time…