Back to the on-screen lesson ·
Write a prediction before you attempt anything, check, work out the gap, and turn sure-but-wrong items into the start of the next session.
Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.
You will write a prediction before an attempt, work out the gap afterwards, make judgments later from the cue alone, and sort items into what to study next.
In lesson 6 you read a mismatch after the fact: a session felt good and a later check went badly. This lesson moves the judgment to the front. You write down what you expect before you attempt anything, so that afterwards there is something definite to compare — and a record that tells you exactly where your sense of what you know runs ahead of what you can do.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Prediction | What you expect before an attempt, written down: a score, or sure or unsure against each item. |
| Gap | The prediction take away the result. Positive means you expected more than you produced. |
| Delayed judgment | A judgment made some time after study, from the question or term alone, with the answer out of sight. |
| Sure but wrong | An item you predicted you knew and then missed: the one to restudy first. |
| Overconfidence | Predicting more than you produce. It is the common direction, not a personal flaw. |
Everyone has a sense of what they know. The trouble is that it is usually formed with the material in front of you, where everything looks known. So make the sense into a prediction you can check.
The routine has four moves. Predict: before a practice quiz, write the score you expect; before a set of flashcards, mark each one sure or unsure. Attempt: answer with the material out of sight. Check: mark each answer against the key. Compare and act: work out the gap, and sort the items. Sure and right can be spaced out. Sure but wrong goes first — nothing else would have sent you back to it. Unsure but right is fragile; check it again soon. Unsure and wrong is a known gap to learn.
Make judgments later, from the cue alone. A judgment made the next day, from the term with the definition covered, is worth far more than one made the moment you finish reading.
Another way: picture
Think of a weather forecaster who writes down tomorrow's forecast and checks it the next evening. A forecaster who never checks cannot get better, however experienced they feel.
Another way: steps
Dunlosky and Rawson (2012) had college students learn definitions of key terms and, after each attempt to recall one, judge whether their answer was right. Many judged incomplete definitions as correct. Those overconfident students stopped studying terms before they really knew them, and on a later test they remembered fewer definitions. Accurate judgments were linked to better retention.
Timing matters. Nelson and Dunlosky (1991) found that judgments of learning made after a delay, from the cue alone, predicted later recall far better than judgments made right after study. The IES practice guide (Pashler and colleagues, 2007) recommends teaching students to use such delayed judgments to decide what to restudy. And Kornell and Bjork (2009) found that people expect to forget less than they do, which is one reason predictions tend to run high.
A gap is a fact about one prediction on one day. It is not a grade on you, and it is not compared with anyone else's. Most people predict high, especially on material they have just read. The point of writing predictions down every week is to watch your own gaps shrink as your judgments start coming from attempts rather than from how the page looked.
A negative gap — scoring more than you predicted — is information too. It may mean you are spending time on material you already have, and that time could go elsewhere.
A prediction record needs no app. A line in the margin of a practice quiz — predicted 7, got 5 — is enough. For cards, a small mark on each (S or U) before you test yourself, and a tick or cross after. The sorting takes a minute and tells you exactly what the next session is for.
Introductory psychology courses ask students to define dozens of terms. Two are easy to confuse: proactive interference, when something learned earlier gets in the way of learning something new, and retroactive interference, when something learned later gets in the way of remembering something older. These are the kind of definitions Dunlosky and Rawson used.
A fictional student, Keisha, has 24 terms on cards. The day after studying, she marks each card S or U from the term alone, then writes the definition and checks. She marked 15 as sure; 4 of those were wrong, including both interference terms, which she had swapped. Of her 9 unsure cards, 3 were right. So she got 14 right, while her sure marks alone had promised 15. Tomorrow's session opens with the 4 sure-but-wrong cards; the 3 lucky ones are checked again in two days; the 11 sure-and-right cards wait a week.
"I'll judge how well I know it while I read." With the answer in view, everything looks known. Judge later, from the cue alone.
"A big gap means I am bad at this." A gap is information about one prediction. Most people predict high; the record is how you close it.
"If I got it right, it is done." An unsure answer that happened to be right is fragile. Check it again soon.
"Predicting is a waste of a minute." Without a written prediction there is nothing to compare, and the same feeling misleads you next time.
Write the prediction before starting.
Top of the page: expect 8 of 10
Written first, it cannot quietly change once the answers are known.
Take the quiz with notes away, then mark it.
Score: 5 of 10. Missed: questions 2, 3, 6, 7, 9.
The attempt was made cold, so the score is about producing, not recognizing.
Work out the gap.
8 − 5 = 3
Three questions' worth of material felt known and was not.
Turn the misses into the next session.
Tonight: the kinds behind 2, 3, 6, 7 and 9. Friday: predict again.
The next prediction shows whether the gap is closing.
Judge straight after studying, for comparison.
Tonight: I know 18 of 20
An immediate judgment, made with the cards still fresh.
Judge again the next day, from the front of each card.
Next day: 13 marked sure, 7 unsure
A delayed judgment from the cue alone is the more accurate kind.
Attempt every card and check it.
12 right: 11 sure and right, 1 unsure but right. 2 sure but wrong.
The attempt is what turns the marks into evidence.
Sort the next steps.
First: 2 sure but wrong. Soon: 1 unsure but right. Learn: 6 unsure and wrong. Later: 11.
Last night's 18 would have sent her to bed with 8 cards unlearned.
Predict each section's score on the practice test.
Moles: 8 of 10. Balancing equations: 9 of 10. Gas laws: 6 of 10.
One prediction per section shows where the judgment is off, not just by how much.
Take it cold and mark it.
Moles: 5. Balancing: 9. Gas laws: 6.
The attempt with notes away is what gives the predictions something to meet.
Work out the gaps and order the study.
A fictional student has looked back over her solved statistics homework and feels ready for Friday's quiz. What would turn that feeling into something she can act on?
Before a fictional 20-question chemistry quiz, a student predicts 15 right. She scores 9. Complete the worked comparison in percent.
Turn the prediction into a percent.
15 ÷ 20 × 100 = a percent predicted
Percents let her compare quizzes of different lengths over the term.
Turn the score into a percent.
9 ÷ 20 × 100 = b percent scored
The same scale for both numbers makes the gap easy to read.
Find the gap.
a − b = d points of overconfidence
Writing the gap down each week shows whether her predictions are getting closer to her results.
A fictional student learning key terms for a psychology course makes four judgments of what she knows. Which are worth acting on?
| Worth acting on? | |
|---|---|
| Right after reading, definition on screen | |
| Next day, from the term alone, after an attempt | |
| A practice-quiz score checked against the key | |
| A sense that the chapter went fine |
Before a fictional 27-question practice test for a civics class, a student writes down that he will get 18 right. He gets 9. By how many questions did his prediction miss?
Answer:
A fictional student marks each of 21 key terms *sure* or *unsure* the day after studying, then writes each definition from the term alone and checks. She marked 13 sure; 3 of those were wrong. Of the unsure ones, 2 were right. How many did she get right, and by how many did her *sure* marks overestimate that?
Terms right: a
Overestimate: b
A fictional teenager is preparing for the written test for a learner's permit. Before a practice test with ten questions per section, she predicts her score in each section. Fill in each gap and her next step.
| Predicted | Scored | Gap | Next step | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Road signs | 9 | 8 | ||
| Right-of-way | 8 | 4 | ||
| Speed limits | 7 | 5 | ||
| Parking rules | 6 | 6 |
Lesson test: one question per skill, one attempt each, no hints. Your answers are checked when you submit.
A fictional student's record from a key-term check the day after studying: each term's prediction and whether her definition, written from the term alone, was right. Name each outcome and choose what she does next.
| Outcome | Next step | |
|---|---|---|
| Encoding (sure; right) | ||
| Proactive interference (sure; wrong) | ||
| Retroactive interference (unsure; right) | ||
| Working memory (unsure; wrong) |
You can predict and then check. Before your next practice quiz or set of cards, write your prediction at the top, then compare it with the result. Next: why fluency is not knowledge. You can stop in the middle of any of this. Closing the page is the whole of stopping — your place and anything you had typed are already saved, and the lesson opens again where you left it.
12. Your turn: a chemistry test in three sections, step 3
Gaps 3, 0, 0 → moles first; the others get a quick check
The biggest gap is where her sense of knowing ran furthest ahead.