How to study with a worksheet answer key

Do the worksheet yourself first, then check it against the key. Trying to recall an answer before you see it helps you remember it later, and checking your work afterwards fixes mistakes.

Updated

Try first

Roediger and Karpicke (2006) had students study a passage and then either reread it or take a recall test on it. Five minutes later the rereaders did better. A week later the students who had been tested remembered more [1].

A review of ten study techniques by Dunlosky and colleagues (2013) rated practice testing and distributed practice, which means spreading study out over time, as the most useful. It rated rereading, highlighting and summarising lower [2].

Then check and correct

Butler and Roediger (2008) gave students multiple-choice tests with or without feedback. Feedback increased correct answers on a later test and reduced answers that repeated the wrong options from the first test [3]. Checking against a key is that feedback.

A routine

  1. Do the worksheet without help. Leave a blank if you do not know the answer.
  2. Check each answer against the key. For every miss, write the right answer in your own words.
  3. A day or two later, redo only the ones you missed.

If the key came from Fillscribe

A filled copy from Fillscribe is an AI answer, so it can be wrong. Where it disagrees with you, check your notes or textbook before you decide who is right. Making an answer key covers how to produce one and check it.

Sources

  1. Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249-255. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x
  2. Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58. doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266
  3. Butler, A. C., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). Feedback enhances the positive effects and reduces the negative effects of multiple-choice testing. Memory & Cognition, 36(3), 604-616. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18491500/