Another 60 Seconds Shaved

I shaved another 60 seconds off of my all presidents time for all 128 questions without loosing any accuracy.

Score: 98%
Questions: 126 of 128
Time: 11:30

I knew all of the questions, but still missed two by misreading the text, in one case I read thirty-first as twenty-first and in the second case read 89 as 98. I suspect a risk of going faster will continue to be misreading the questions. As I take the test I tell when I have really memorized a fact and when I still have to figure it out (for example who is the 28th president I still have to figure out in my head so it slows me down in answering the question).

Still, being able to answer correctly 126 questions in 11 minutes and 30 seconds is a significant improvement in time over just a few tests ago. I am amazed at how quickly our memory can improve if we simply give it a little exercise. Will I shave off another minute if I take the test again in the next few days? I'll try it and let you know.

All Presidents Progress Report

I find myself interested in the relationship of speed and accuracy. How fast can I answer all of the 128 presidents questions and still retain a great score? Is it beneficial to learn to do the presidents faster and faster? How does it affect long term memory when I learn to answer the questions fast?

On of my goals for StudyTag is to provide authors with real facts and data on how people actually learn. By reviewing StudyTag data over time we hope to continually improve how StudyTag operates and the learning experience. I suspect we will discover many different learning styles and StudyTag will ultimately change how it presents information to each member based on a style that works best for that member - talk about custom education!

For a simple experiment I took the All Presidents Final again today (128 questions), trying to beat my previous best time for 128 questions. My results:

Test Score
Percent Correct: 98%
Time: 12:33
No. of Questions: 126 of 128
Points Just Earned: 6,659
Points This Lesson: 80,612

I shaved another two minutes off of my time (improving my speed a little over 13% again) and was able to keep my accuracy score at 98%. Interestingly enough I got two different questions wrong from yesterday, both of which I'm sure I would have answered correctly if I was going slower! Clearly going faster pushes the brain in different ways. I wonder how many more minutes I can shave off my time while still keeping a solid score. Eventually I should be limited by how fast I can type.

I believe one common mistake students make in studying for tests is they stop studying after they can get the correct answers once. I suspect my data will show that they will greatly benefit by continuing to practice until they can get the correct answers fast.

All Presidents Final Revisited

Took the All Presidents Final Today

All 128 Questions
Percent Correct: 98%
Time: 14:34

I've shaved 2 minutes off my time in June, but have been confusing the portraits of Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison (they are both standing with a hand on a table which must be what my memory is triggering on).

Currently the Final Exam is not set to display all 128 questions at a time, only 20 questions. I figure nobody other than me really wants all 128 questions. In the future we will have a way to configure a test on the fly so you can display more questions if you want or even only fill in the blank questions - wouldn't that be fun!

Milestone 16

I haven't been posting the milestones to the blog but this one was so cool I had to feature it here.

Over sixty-five improvements were made to StudyTag during this milestone including providing significantly enhanced navigation and sorting and searching for lessons and groups. Browse lessons and groups pages were added as the default landing pages and many additional features were implemented based upon requests from our members including paste all, remove all, identifying visually linked content, control of the test modes, expanded BBcode, staff favorites, popular lessons, two letter tags, expanded tag cloud, options for suppressing multiple choice questions, options for suppressing randomizing foil order, hot keys to start lessons, smiley faces, enabled number pads, and perhaps most importantly of all an ability to “watch this forum,” so authors are notified when students are posting to their forums.

Check out StudyTag on your summer vacation at StudyTag.com!