Better questions beat more effort, so write the test before the test

A common trap before exams or presentations is passive review. You read notes, nod along, and feel prepared. Then a real question lands and your mind blanks. Flip the script by writing the questions first. If you had to evaluate someone else on this topic, what would you ask that forces them to do the thing, not talk about it? Your pen scratches across the page as you surprise yourself with how quickly the gaps appear.

A student studying anatomy replaced “Study the shoulder” with “Draw and label the rotator cuff from memory.” The first attempt was rough, but the failure was useful. She spent ten minutes repairing the weakest muscle name and tried again. The second drawing looked like a shoulder instead of a potato. She repeated the cycle for three days and walked into the test with less dread.

A product manager did the same before a launch meeting. He wrote, “Show a 30‑second demo with no clicks over three screens” and “State our single success metric in a sentence.” Under the clock, he stumbled. That stumble saved him. He tightened the flow and practiced saying the metric without hedging. When his boss asked, the answer came out clean.

Educational research supports this. Retrieval practice builds durable memory by forcing recall, and desirable difficulties improve learning by making practice feel slightly hard. Action‑oriented questions also reduce illusions of competence that come from rereading. You become your own examiner, and your preparation matches the performance you’ll need.

Write ten questions you’d ask if you were testing or hiring yourself, then upgrade two into prompts that force you to do something measurable, not just talk. Run a short, timed attempt, notice where you stumble, and immediately plug one gap before trying again. Add two new, slightly harder action questions tomorrow and keep the loop going. You’ll feel the shift from passive review to active readiness—start by writing one tough question tonight.