Testing Recall
Recall Testing
I’ve been wondering how to test my recall of the things I learn, both immediately after reading/listening, and also in the future.
Once again, Andy Matuschak has some thought-provoking examples. I am going through Quantum Country, a tool designed by him and Michael Nielsen to learn the fundamentals of how quantum computing works (something I’ve read multiple articles about but I still don’t know it at more than a superficial level). It’s not like any regular article, but actually incorporates ways to make the concepts stick over time through the use of spaced repetition, a well-known way of committing material to long-term memory.
Not only does this method help in remembering the core concepts but also shows a reader where the gaps in their knowledge are. It does this through the use of key questions interspersed with the other text. These questions are asked multiple times in line with the spaced repetition paradigm. Failing to answer these questions due to a lack of recall instantly exposes my weaknesses and resultantly makes my learning rock solid.
The first time I encounter these questions, I am forced to review what I have just learnt. Recall is not as easy as I suppose the further I get in the text.
The questions themselves need to be well designed, triggering recall of core concepts while not being complex. That’s a hard ask but I feel it’s been done really well in Quantum Country.
It seems worth my time to study this way of designing questions for my other reading:
- Questions trigger recall of core information/concepts
- Questions are simply phrased, to the point and are simple to answer
- Multiple questions tackle the same concept in different ways, ie desirable redundancy
- Questions are repeated over increasing intervals as in any spaced repetition system (like Anki flashcards)
I’ll see how well I can learn about quantum computing with this tool and that should give me further insight into how to proceed with learning strategies.
Changelog:
originally written 20 October 2023
