Here's some recent research showing that "learning by testing" is a very robust technique, and is superior to a couple of other study techniques.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/science/21memory.html?src=me&ref=homepage

Sorry if this is a duplicate, I'm on a slow connection from the wilds of Colombia.

James

Education goes through fads like everything else.

The studied showed that their active method (recalling what you wrote while not looking at it by writing it down, or what they call a test) is better than their three passive methods (just reading, or writing "concept map" notes while reading). Anyone who has tried to learn characters just by reading tracing knows this applies to Chinese.

It's weird to see it summarized as "learning by testing" for me since I'm so used to the idea that active learning works and passive learning is not nearly as good. Passive learning is much easier to do in higher volume, since it's not hard; I can read a book about a topic, no sweat. But I'm under no illusion that I'm learning much. If I want to actually learn, I need to actively make use of what I learn from the book. If I want to remember it, I have to repeat that over the long term, preferably with a spaced repetition system for efficiency.

reading fast less comprehension, reading slow better comprehension. learning requires you debate what you read and be able to recall it when you need. however my current goal is learn until becomes natural to recall these hanzi, test only shows me how well i have achieved my goal. and if it was a real test as in university of course i would remember my mistakes for ever.

@nick Yeah now that you mention it it looks like that choice of words might be more than a little loaded, given that the educational establishment is in a frenzy because of standardized testing.