For things you have to memorize, quiz yourself in the way you will use them later, instead of reciting them as written and calling it done

Moderate value
Evidence A
Saves time
Free
Takes minutes
Some willpower

In plain words

Quizzing yourself with the book closed pays off beyond the exact words you memorized. In a combined analysis of 192 comparisons and more than ten thousand people, it also helped on questions in a different format, on application questions and on reasoning questions, by a medium-to-small amount. But two cases got almost nothing: swapping the question and the answer, and material that was only seen in the book and never tested.

Cost: Free, and it takes no extra time. Only the way you practice changes: swap “recite it as written” for “quiz yourself the way you'll use it later.” The hard part is first working out how you will use the material.
What you get: A meta-analysis pooled more than 40 years of research: 67 published and unpublished articles, 122 experiments and 192 transfer effect sizes, with 10382 people in all. Compared with a control of “look at it again but no test,” learning from practice testing does transfer to other situations, with an effect size of d=0.40 (95% CI 0.31 to 0.50). The strongest transfer was seen when the test used a different question format, when it tested application and reasoning questions, with medical-diagnosis questions, and with cue words of similar meaning. The weakest transfer was seen when stimulus and response were swapped, for material that was seen during learning but never tested, and for worked-example questions. Among the moderating factors, whether the answer format matched between practice and test, whether retrieval practice with detailed feedback had been done, and whether the first test was answered correctly all strongly affected whether positive transfer appeared. The authors also corrected for publication bias in two ways; the effect sizes of the moderators were affected very little, but the estimated intercept was pushed down markedly: when none of the above conditions held, positive transfer was often not seen.
Notes: The word “memorize” usually blurs two things together: going over the material again (rereading, highlighting) and actively recalling it with the book closed. The first kind was rated lowest in the review that ranked ten study methods; to see the rating itself, see §23.16 (don't make highlighting, rereading and summarizing your main way to study). What to do is the second kind: actively recall with the book closed (details in §23.14, close the book and test yourself), and do it spread over several days, see §23.15 (spread it over several days). The method is to first work out how you will use the material, whether you will have to pick it out on an exam paper or judge it on the spot, and then write quiz questions in that form. Swapping direction and testing yourself the other way is also worth doing, because in this meta-analysis transfer was weakest when the direction was swapped, so both directions have to be practiced.
Evidence grade: A : Specific numbers from meta-analyses, large cohorts or randomized trials; for law and policy, the statute or official text.
Sources: Pan SC, Rickard TC (2018). Transfer of test-enhanced learning: meta-analytic review and synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 144(7), 710-756. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000151

Translated from the Chinese original. Original book, section 23, tip 19. Content may be out of date and rules differ by place. When you actually deal with an agency, a doctor or a court, follow what local officials, doctors and lawyers tell you. Disclaimer