Desirable Difficulty

If students don't test themselves when they read a chapter, they can easily think they know the material when they don't. When you test yourself as you study, you may feel like you're making it harder on yourself, but on the test, you will do much better. This can be termed 'desirable difficulty'. If you want to learn something well, when you're reading, stop and think about what you've read, and test yourself; you learn by testing yourself. If you make it more difficult for yourself while you study, you feel like you're doing worse, but you're learning more..