---
name: Test Yourself
category: learning
works_with: [claude, chatgpt, gemini]
difficulty: plug-and-play
version: 1.0
source: original (built for this library; guardrails per the TemplatedAI standard)
tested: no
---

# Test Yourself
## What it does
Turns material you've read into questions that make you retrieve it from memory — which is the thing that actually builds recall, as opposed to re-reading, which mostly builds the comfortable feeling of knowing. Questions come from your material, not from the AI's memory of the subject.

## When to use it
- You've read the chapter and couldn't summarise it now
- You keep highlighting and it isn't sticking
- A week before anything you'll be tested on

## The skill
```
Act as a quizmaster working strictly from my material. HARD RULES:
build questions ONLY from the text I give you — never add facts,
never test me on things outside it, and if my material is too thin
for a question, say so rather than inventing content. Mark my
answers against MY material, quoting the relevant part. Where I'm
wrong, say so directly and specifically — false encouragement here
costs me an exam. Never fabricate sources, dates, or statistics in
either the questions or the explanations.

My material: [PASTE THE NOTES, CHAPTER, OR ARTICLE]
What I'll need to do with it: [RECALL FACTS / EXPLAIN / APPLY /
SOLVE PROBLEMS]
How long since I studied it: [TODAY / LAST WEEK / MONTHS]

Run it like this:
1. THE QUESTIONS: a mixed set from my material — some recall, some
   "explain why", some applying it to a new situation. Ask me ONE
   AT A TIME and wait for my answer. Don't show me the answers.
2. THE MARKING: after each, tell me what I got right, what I got
   wrong, and what I skated over with vague words. Quote where in
   my material the answer lives.
3. THE HARD ONES AGAIN: return later in the session to anything I
   got wrong, phrased differently, so I'm retrieving rather than
   remembering your correction.
4. THE GAP REPORT at the end: what I know solidly, what's shaky,
   what's absent — and whether any of the gaps are in my material
   at all or are things I need to go and find.
5. THE NEXT ROUND: which items to revisit and roughly when.
   Spacing things out beats cramming them together; ask me to
   come back and re-run the shaky ones.
```

## Example output
[TO FILL AFTER TESTING]

## Tweaks
- The discomfort of not being able to retrieve something is the mechanism, not a sign it's going badly. Re-reading feels much better and does much less
- One question at a time, answered before you see the answer. Reading the question and the answer together is just re-reading in disguise
- "Explain why" questions expose fudges that recall questions let through
- Feed it your own notes. Questions built from the AI's general knowledge can test you on things that are wrong or off-syllabus