Practice versus review exams and final exam performance

Two randomly assigned groups of inrroductoq psychology student^ recewed hfferent but cumparabk presentations ofthe same sample multiple-choicefrmzl exam. The practice-examgroup took a test on the q~cestirms and immediately aftenuardscored tkir tests according to the key (i.e., quest & and answers), whereas the reuiew-exam group saw only tk key and performed a control task concurrently. On a final exam.@wen I week later, t k practice-exam students scored signifuantly higher than the review-examgroup. In oddition. they rated their taskas more klpful in preparing them for the final. These effects did not interact with students ' class sfanding. Appar-ently, students at all leuels of academic a b i l i ~ benefit from an objective assessment oftkir preparation for a final exam. Research on self-assessment in college students shows that learners generally overestimate their mastery (Balch. 1992; Sjostrom & Marks, 1994) or potential mastery (Prohaska. 1994) of material before testing as well as their performanc