In Class 10, I owned four highlighters and had a system. Yellow for definitions. Green for examples. Pink for "important". Orange for "very important", which by March was most of the book. My NCERT Chemistry looked like a Diwali rangoli.

Then in a surprise test the teacher asked us to write the steps of a reaction I had highlighted in orange. Twice. My mind went completely blank, as blank as the page I was staring at.

That was the day I found out the thing nobody tells you: a highlighted page feels like learning, but it mostly isn't. And with half-yearly exams happening right now, that's worth knowing before you buy another pack.

When everything is important, nothing is. Also, my wallet disagreed with this system.

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The feeling that lies to you

Here's what happens when you read a highlighted page for the third time. The words look familiar. Your brain says "haan, I know this". It feels smooth and easy, so it feels like you've learned it.

But that's recognition. You recognise the sentence when it's in front of you.

The exam doesn't give you the sentence. It gives you a blank answer sheet and asks you to recall, which means pulling the answer out of your head with nothing to look at. Those are two different skills, and highlighting only trains the first one.

Researchers even have a name for this trap: the illusion of competence. You feel ready because the material feels familiar, not because you can actually produce it.

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What the research actually found

This isn't one teacher's opinion. It's one of the most tested ideas in learning science.

In 2009, researchers Karpicke, Butler and Roediger surveyed 177 university students about how they study. 84% said they reread their notes or textbook, and 55% said rereading was their number one method. Only 11% practised recalling information while studying, and just 1% made it their main method.

In an earlier experiment, Karpicke and Roediger had students learn Swahili words. A week later, students who kept testing themselves remembered about 80%. Students who stopped testing once they'd got a word right remembered just 35%.

The wildest part: before the final test, every group predicted they'd remember about 50%. Nobody could feel which method was working. The feeling of "I know this" simply wasn't a reliable signal.

And in a 2011 study published in Science, Karpicke and Blunt found that students who practised recalling a text learned more than students who built detailed concept maps, even when the final test asked them to draw a concept map. The students had expected the opposite.

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So what do toppers actually do?

Quick honesty check: I'm not claiming no topper has ever touched a highlighter. The difference is what they do after reading. The people who do well consistently spend most of their time getting information out of their heads, not putting it in.

Book closed. Blank page. Uncomfortable. That discomfort is the part that's working.

Here's what that looks like in practice:

1. Close the book and write everything you remember. Set a timer for 10 minutes. It'll feel embarrassing how little comes out the first time. That's normal.
2. Turn headings into questions. "Types of Chemical Reactions" becomes "What are the types of chemical reactions and one example of each?" Now you have something to test yourself on.
3. Do past papers early, not in the last week. Previous years' questions are the most honest recall test you'll get, and they show you how the board actually asks things.
4. Space it out. Recall the same chapter on day 1, day 3 and day 7. Forgetting a bit between sessions and pulling it back is what makes it stick.
5. Check, then fix only the gaps. Open the book, compare, and go back only to what you missed or got wrong.

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A 45-minute chapter session

If you want something concrete to try tonight, here's the split I use now:

*Notice that reading is only one-third of the time. The other two-thirds is recalling and checking. That ratio is the whole trick.

Previous years' papers: the least exciting stack on your desk and the most useful one.

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If you still love your highlighter

Keep it. Just change when you use it.

Don't highlight while reading. Highlight after you've tried to recall, and only the lines you got wrong or forgot. Now your highlights mean something. They're a map of your gaps, not a colouring of the whole book.

The night before the exam, you don't reread the whole chapter. You just go through the few lines you know you tend to forget. That's a much shorter, much smarter revision.

Two highlighted lines instead of two hundred. Each one is something I actually forgot.

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The honest bit

I'll be straight with you, yaar: this feels worse. Rereading highlighted pages is calm and pleasant. Sitting in front of a blank page trying to remember the steps of electrolysis is frustrating, slow and a little humiliating.

Learning researchers call this a desirable difficulty. The struggle to remember is the part that builds the memory. If studying feels too smooth, it usually means you're recognising, not learning.

My first closed-book attempt at that Chemistry chapter got about a third of it right. By the third round, a week later, I got nearly all of it. I didn't study for longer. I just stopped colouring and started testing myself.