In the course, they advocate trying to do practice problems at the back of a chapter before you read the chapter. The act of trying to work on a problem with keys your brain to pay better attention when you read.
In Ultralearning by Scott H. Young, his chapter on retrieval makes some of the same points with the examples of the genius mathematician, Ramanujan and . Both had limited resources, so they had to retrieve and work the problems in their heads. Closed book, as it were. Ben Franklin tried to replicate essays he'd read. This active effort to solve, or retrieve makes the material stickier.
In this chapter, Young has a few strategies for this.
For actual academic subjects, the pretesting makes sense.
Flash cards and spaced-retrieval online apps can help. But there are many subjects or projects where the answers aren't so clear.
For those types of projects, he reiterates the "directness" or just going straight into the skill or project you want to accomplish can help. It is uncomfortable, but that's kind of the point. You immediately become aware of what your gaps are and can drill down on them. I think, again, at least in my case, you need to ignore the inner voice that tells you that this just isn't something you're good at and urges you to do something easier. I like to think that more things can be learned than we realize.
Another way to self test is to ask questions on a sheet of paper, instead of taking notes. Just by putting the material in the form of a question it can help to make the brain work a bit.
Another strategy is to ask yourself "what is the bigger concept or question?" To try to understand basic concepts, not just the facts.
The whole idea is to test before you're ready. That lack of comfort and strain makes the learning process faster.
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