Sometimes – perhaps when we’re particularly motivated to find an excuse not to revise – we’ll open a textbook and immediately feel familiar with the topic. ‘I know all of this!’ we might say, ‘I remember when the lecturer mentioned this. Quite quickly we are lured into a false sense of confidence: ‘I remember all of this! There’s no need to spend time going over this again, especially when I could be doing something much more pleasant instead.’
Yet, if we were to test ourselves at that moment, if we closed the book, or turned over our notes and tried to reproduce all the information from memory, how would we fare? Probably rather poorly. How can this be?
Recognition vs. recall
Understanding this seeming contradiction requires knowing the difference between recognition and recall.
This post will teach you the difference and show you how you can leverage this to make revision more effective.
Recognition refers to the feeling of familiarity we get when previously encountered information is presented to us again.
It’s one of the reasons multiple choice tests are easier than essay-based exams. You might not be able to remember what GDPR stands for, but if I were to give you two options: say, General Data Protection Regulation vs. Graphic and Digital Programme Regulation, somewhere in the recesses of your mind there’s the dim echo that GDPR is related to protecting personal data. In this case, you don’t really have to ‘know’ what GDPR stands for, it’s enough just to vaguely recognise that GDPR is related to ‘data protection,’ and you’ve got the answer. The information was already stored in your brain, but it needed a cue (e.g., the phrase ‘Data Protection’) before it could be retrieved.
Essay-based exams, however, require a slightly different (and much more difficult!) skill: Recall.
Recall is a type of memory retrieval that involves remembering information without any specific cues or prompts. There’s no option to rely on familiarity, you have to independently retrieve the information.
Have you ever tried your hardest to remember something, like maybe the name of an actor in that one movie and then, drawing a complete blank, you kick yourself as soon as someone else says their name? That’s because you were able to recognise but not recall the actor’s name.
Why recall wins
With that established, let’s focus on why it might be better to use recall rather than recognition when studying.
Firstly, it’s a more reliable indicator of how you’ll perform in an exam. Research shows that the feeling of familiarity we get when we recognise something (like re-reading a chapter in a textbook) can be misleading. The feeling that we know something is not the same as actually knowing it. In other words, recognising information can make it feel as though it has been learned, even when it cannot be retrieved independently.
Secondly, study after study shows that practicing free recall is one of the best methods for long term-learning. Known as the ‘testing effect,’ the effort of remembering previously learned material leads to better long-term retention than studying the same information a second time. The implication here is clear: You’re better off reading a chapter once, closing the book and trying to remember as much as you can than reading the same chapter a second time.
So, if you want to gauge your exam readiness, don’t rely on recognition. Sit down with a blank piece of paper and practice free recall. It will give you a more accurate estimate of how much you’ll remember on exam day, and it’s one of the best ways of revising to boot.
