Brainlift · flashcard format evidence · two citation timelines · 54 sources
Cloze deletion is the dominant format because it is easiest to author, not because it is the best for learning.
Read the timeline POV 2Multiple choice is actually the best for learning, but most difficult to author. It is even better when explanations for all answers are given.
Read the timelineFill-in-the-blank helps only the exact blank you practised. The benefit is verbatim and item-specific: it roughly halves the moment the exam rewords the question.
Competitive distractors teach more than the tested fact. Multiple choice with plausible rivals also improves recall of related, untested material. Cued recall never does.
The learner must do the reasoning. The advantage fires when distractors are competitive and the learner works out why they fail, not when explanations are merely handed over.
One prosecutes the incumbent default. The other stress-tests the replacement.
From First Aid and Woźniak's twenty rules to the Michigan card audits: how fill-in-the-blank became the format of every major medical deck, what the lab evidence says it actually trains, and the randomized comparison nobody has run.
Read the timeline Timeline 2 · the replacementTwenty-six years of argument about multiple-choice testing and feedback: the lure-intrusion charge, the feedback rescue, the Bjork lab's exoneration by competitive distractors, and the boundary conditions on explanation itself.
Read the timeline