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These exercises are built on a research finding called the pretesting effect (Pan & Chua, NUS 2026): attempting an answer before you've fully learned the material — even when you'll likely get it wrong — strengthens later memory more than passive study, provided you receive immediate corrective feedback.

So: you'll be asked to guess, often without knowing. Wrong guesses are not failures. They're the mechanism. What matters is that you read the feedback after each item and let the correct answer land.

A few honest caveats. The evidence is strongest for discrete vocabulary (alphabet, numbers, colours, days). For the skills involving rule systems (the verb s'appeler) or integrated production (the capstone), the same idea probably helps, but the research base is thinner — treat those as practice runs more than guarantees.

The pretest score at the end of each skill is not a grade. It's a private signal of what to revisit. Class itself is where the actual learning happens; these exercises just prime your memory for it.

Inside each unit you'll see XP totals, streaks, and improvement bonuses. These aren't decorative. The XP system rewards attempts (the act of retrieval), retakes (spaced consolidation), and daily contact (regular spacing) — the three mechanisms the research points to. The expander on each unit page explains how each piece maps to the principle it serves.