Quizzes after a session: when should you test the student to reveal the real gaps?

The best time for a revision quiz is not necessarily when everything is still fresh. A first test just after a private tutoring session checks what has been understood. A second one, taken after an interval and without looking at your notes, reveals what the student can genuinely retrieve on their own. The two provide different information. To spot the gaps worth working on, one method is to combine a short quiz at the end of the session, a new attempt a few days later and a check before the next session. Here is how to organise these steps without multiplying tests needlessly.

1. Why a quiz passed just after the session can be misleading

Imagine a private maths tutoring session on functions. The tutor explains the difference between image and preimage, shows several examples and guides the student through the calculations. At the end of the session, the student answers every question correctly. That is encouraging, but what exactly does this success measure?

The student has just heard the definitions, seen the procedures and practised with immediate help. They can still recall the examples used. The end-of-session quiz therefore tells you about their understanding and their ability to answer in that context. On its own, it does not allow you to conclude that they will be able to repeat the same approach several days later.

Conversely, always waiting a week before asking the first question would be impractical. A misunderstanding present from the session itself could go unnoticed when a quick correction would have dealt with it.

The solution is to give a different role to each testing moment:

• Straight away: identify what has been understood and correct immediate misunderstandings.
• After an interval: check what the student can retrieve without the explanation still fresh in their memory.
• Before the next session: determine what needs a new explanation, more practice or deeper work.

The quiz thus becomes a follow-up tool rather than just a mark. A wrong answer does not automatically prove a deep gap: it is a clue to be examined, particularly in light of the question asked and previous errors.

2. When should you do a quiz after a private tutoring session?

There is no universal interval that would be optimal for every subject, level and type of knowledge. Research supports the value of retrieval tests and spaced revision, but does not allow a single rule to be imposed, such as “exactly 24 hours after every session”.

To organise revision, you can nonetheless distinguish three complementary moments.

Moment	Objective	What to observe
End of the session or shortly after	Check immediate understanding	Definitions understood, method recognised, errors to correct quickly
The next day or a few days later	Test retrieval after an interval	Things forgotten, confusions, ability to answer without a model
Before the next session	Prepare the next piece of teaching work	Persistent errors, independence, skills to work on again

Just after the session: check before the context is forgotten

A quiz of three to five questions can be enough to test the essential objectives of the session. It should require the student to genuinely answer, without copying from the board or following the tutor’s prompts. You can check a definition, a condition of application and a small new situation.

If the student fails on the central concept even though it has just been explained, it is better to clarify the reasoning immediately. On the other hand, passing this first test does not justify treating the concept as permanently learnt.

After an interval: distinguishing recent understanding from available knowledge

The next day, or two to three days later, is a practical benchmark for a new attempt. The exact interval depends on the difficulty, the timetable and the school deadline. This time, the materials must be closed before answering.

The second quiz should cover the same skills without systematically repeating the same questions. If the student has learnt the answers by heart, the result risks overestimating what they can reuse. Changing the numbers, the wording or the context gives more useful information.

Before the next session: turning the results into work

Finally, a few targeted questions can check the points that are still uncertain. If the next session is very soon, there is no need to add a third quiz artificially. The aim is to give the tutor usable information: what has been learnt, what is still shaky and what needs a new exercise.

The Institute of Education Sciences guide on organising instruction recommends in particular re-exposing students to important content through quizzes and spacing their work over time. The calendar suggested here is a practical adaptation of these principles, not an experimental protocol validated with these precise intervals.

3. Why delayed tests provide different information

Rereading lets you go back over an explanation and check a piece of information. It becomes less reliable when used on its own to decide whether you have mastered a concept: recognising an answer in front of you is not the same as retrieving it without help.

Research on retrieval practice shows that trying to retrieve information can help to memorise it. In their review of ten learning techniques, Dunlosky and colleagues give a high overall utility rating to practice testing and to spreading learning over time, unlike rereading used as the main technique.

A study by Karpicke and Blunt published in Science also observed benefits of active retrieval on delayed assessments of scientific knowledge, including for some comprehension and inference questions. These results concern specific experimental situations: they do not establish that a digital quiz is enough to master any school skill.

A systematic review by Agarwal, Nunes and Blunt covering 50 experiments in educational settings found benefits of retrieval in varied conditions, while highlighting the limitations of the available research.

Two practical consequences follow. First, testing several times over a period is generally more informative than a single immediate success. Second, the type of question should match the skill being targeted. Remembering a formula does not show that you know when to use it or how to justify a solution.

To go deeper into the scientific mechanisms without confusing them with the choice of calendar, see how active recall works.

4. A concrete 25-minute routine after a session

Here is a 25-minute work session to do during the first independent revision after the session. It assumes the session has already covered and explained the concepts concerned. If not, you first need to go back over the explanation with the tutor or a reliable resource.

1. Minutes 0 to 3 — Set the objectives. Identify two or three skills worked on during the session. For example: “recognise a linear function”, “calculate an image” and “find a preimage”. Also note a difficulty flagged during the session.
2. Minutes 3 to 8 — Take a first quiz without help. Answer a few questions covering these skills. Avoid looking at your revision sheet, even to check a formula. If you do not know the answer, note it rather than guessing without saying so.
3. Minutes 8 to 13 — Examine the errors. For each wrong answer, look for what blocked you: a forgotten definition, two concepts mixed up, a misunderstood rule or an incorrect calculation. Then check the right answer in the lesson.
4. Minutes 13 to 21 — Correct with a suitable action. Something forgotten may justify a short review. A confusion requires comparing the two concepts. A method error calls for a new exercise. Do not mechanically redo the whole quiz.
5. Minutes 21 to 25 — Prepare the delayed test. Keep the skills that remain uncertain and plan a new attempt in the following days. The questions will need to be different enough to avoid simply recognising the corrections.

A 15-minute version can be limited to a few questions and correcting the main difficulty. If you have 30 minutes, use the extra five minutes to solve a new exercise, not to pile on easy questions.

The rule is simple: the quiz is there to decide what needs working on, not to fill all the time available. It should therefore stay short enough to allow a genuine correction.

5. Example: three quizzes around a session on functions

Let us take a fictional teaching example, built from a maths session on linear functions. These are not results observed in a NOEO user. The tutor explained how to calculate an image and find a preimage. The student gets the calculations right when guided, but sometimes confuses the two terms.

First test: checking immediate understanding

The session studied the function f(x) = 2x + 1. At the end of the session, three questions are asked:

1. What is the image of 3? Answer: f(3) = 2 × 3 + 1 = 7.
2. What is the preimage of 5? Solve 2x + 1 = 5, giving x = 2.
3. In the equation f(3) = 7, is 3 the image of 7? No: 3 is a preimage of 7 and 7 is the image of 3.

Suppose the student gets all three questions right. We know they can answer correctly at that moment. We do not yet know whether they will distinguish the two concepts without the examples from the session.

Second test: new wording after an interval

Two days later, the student is given another function: g(x) = 3x − 2. They have to answer without opening their revision sheet.

1. What is the image of 4? g(4) = 10.
2. What is the preimage of 4? Solve 3x − 2 = 4, so x = 2.
3. Complete: “4 is a preimage of …” Answer: 10, since g(4) = 10.

Now imagine the student answers “10” to the second question. They have probably calculated the image of 4 instead of looking for the preimage of 4. This answer suggests a confusion between the two approaches, but is not enough to establish a definitive diagnosis.

The correction should bring out the difference: calculating an image means replacing x with a given value; finding a preimage means looking for the value of x that produces the required image. To check that this distinction has been understood, the student can then tackle a question of the same type with other numbers.

Third test: checking transfer before the next session

Before the next session, the tutor can ask: “For the function h(x) = 4x + 1, find the preimage of 13 and explain the method.”

The expected answer is 4x + 1 = 13, so x = 3. The student also needs to explain why you solve an equation instead of calculating h(13).

If the student gets this question right alone, it indicates a better grasp of the distinction in this type of situation. If they still fail, the tutor has a precise problem to go back over: choosing the procedure, rather than a general difficulty with the whole chapter.

This is where the calendar adds something: it makes it possible to see whether a difficulty disappears after correction, reappears after an interval or persists despite several different wordings.

6. How NOEO can support this routine

To apply this method regularly, you need to find the session objectives, have revision materials and keep a record of the difficulties to revisit. NOEO links these elements to the support provided by the tutor, without turning the creation of a quiz into a guarantee of learning.

Using the session report to choose what to test

After the session, the session report is a structured teaching record. Depending on the information entered by the tutor, it can set out the topics covered, strengths, areas for improvement and the work to prepare. The student can use these pointers to select the important skills to test, rather than answering questions chosen at random.

If the tutor sends exercises to do after the session, they remain separate from the Learn pack. They can complement the quiz when a difficulty concerns solving a problem, writing up an answer or choosing a method.

Creating a Learn pack on your own initiative

In their student space, the student can choose to create a Learn pack from an eligible session. This pack contains a revision sheet, flashcards and a quiz. It is not generated automatically after each session, and the tutor does not create it in the student’s place.

The Learn pack quiz can be used for a first attempt or for delayed revision. The revision sheet helps check knowledge, and the flashcards can help rework certain targeted points of recall. It is still necessary to check the accuracy and relevance of the content, analyse the errors and add exercises when the skill calls for it.

The aim is to make the materials easier to access and use, not to remove the effort of retrieval or personal reasoning.

Finding an explanation again when necessary

When a session has been recorded with the required replay consent, a recording has actually been made and it remains viewable, the replay can help review a specific passage. Under these conditions, access is provided for 3 months from the start of the session, provided the consent remains valid. A session can perfectly well take place without a recording or a replay.

If the student gets stuck on a step, they can review the available explanation, then close it before attempting a new exercise. Watching it does not replace checking independently.

To understand how sessions, session reports and revision resources fit together, see how NOEO works before, during and after the session.

7. Common mistakes that skew the diagnosis

• Only doing a quiz immediately after the session. Success may reflect knowledge that is still very fresh. You also need to check what the student can retrieve after an interval.
• Repeating exactly the same questions. A higher score may come from memorising the answers. Change the data or the wording while keeping the same skill.
• Looking at the lesson during the test. The material is useful for correcting, but consulting it before answering prevents you from measuring independent retrieval.
• Looking only at the overall score. Two students scoring 7/10 may have completely different difficulties. You need to look at which questions were missed and why.
• Confusing an error with a lasting gap. A misreading, a one-off calculation slip or an ambiguous question do not prove a deep misunderstanding. A second targeted question can help clarify.
• Doing lots of quizzes without correcting. Repeating wrong answers without explanation can entrench a confusion. A useful correction should help you understand why an answer is right.
• Only testing definitions. Good knowledge of vocabulary is not enough to check the ability to analyse a document, write a proof or solve a problem.

The Education Endowment Foundation highlights the value of short diagnostic questions whose wrong answers correspond to identifiable confusions. The aim is not just to know who answered correctly, but to understand which step needs to be worked on again.

To go further in interpreting answers without repeating the whole method here, see why quizzes reveal gaps better than rereading.

8. How can you check that the student is really making progress?

A good quiz result is not, on its own, proof of general academic progress. Measurement becomes more meaningful when you observe an identifiable skill at several points in time.

After each attempt, keep three pieces of information: the skill tested, the nature of the errors and the level of help needed. You can note these in an exercise book or a revision document, without any special tool.

Observation	Cautious interpretation	Next action
Immediate success, delayed failure	Knowledge still hard to retrieve after an interval	Go back over the concept, then retest later
Correct definition, incorrect application	Possible difficulty in choosing or carrying out the method	Work through an explained exercise, then an independent one
Same confusion across several questions	Conceptual distinction potentially shaky	Compare the concepts and ask for a new explanation
Delayed success on a new question	A positive sign of retention and reuse	Gradually increase the difficulty

For the comparison to be valid, successive questions should target the same skill at a reasonably comparable level of difficulty. A much easier question does not show progress, while a significantly more complex exercise can cause failure despite real learning.

If errors keep recurring, avoid concluding too quickly that the student is not working enough. The difficulty may come from a prerequisite, a poorly chosen method, a misunderstanding or insufficient practice. The tutor can use the answers to test these hypotheses rather than going back over the whole chapter indiscriminately.

The final criterion is therefore not the number of quizzes completed. It is the ability to retrieve knowledge after an interval, recognise when it is useful and apply it with less and less help. A well-timed quiz makes this change more visible and gives concrete direction to the work between two private tutoring sessions.