tested sentences were italicized

• Predicted that pretesting would be better than more time studying, “even when differences in attention direction were minimized by italicizing key sentences in the text in both conditions”
• 61 undergraduates who were given extra credit-sampled from a upper level psych course
• Same study materials except that the 10 testable items were italicized-done so that the participants are equally alerted to what is important like the way textbooks do
• Same procedure as study 1
• Participants answered 22% of the pre-test questions correctly
• Recall for the pre-test condition with italicizing was better than the extra study time with italicizing-M=71% & SE=5.6 vs. M=54% & SE=3.7
• In the pre-test condition, pre-tested items were recalled more than the untested italicized items-M=71% & SE=5.6 vs. M=53% & SE=4.3
• This shows that the testing effect does still apply to failed tests-it has a benefit besides just directing attention to the things that matter the most in the text