The participants will perform better in the tests when they highlighted their own essays.

Memory

Memory refers to the ability of our brains to store information and recall it again when needed. It can be divided into long term memory and short term memory.
Long term memories are permanent and will remain with us for a long time. These are normally related to events that occur repeatedly in our lives. For example, we will never forget our names and the names of our family members. Important birthdays, anniversaries and telephone numbers are also unlikely to be forgotten. Long term memory is also useful for students when recalling what they have studied, and for adults to learn and remember new skills.

Short term memory is more likely to be used for a one-time event. We will not remember for long the faces we see when we walk down a street. Neither are we able to we recall what we had for dinner two weeks ago. These memories are easily forgotten as we do not try to actively recall these events, thus transferring them to our long term memory, unless they are important to us.
 

The hypothesis that the participants will perform better in the test when they highlighted their own essays has not been conclusively proven to be correct.

A good memory is very important for students who have to remember a lot of facts before sitting for an examination. There are a lot of techniques used to help them remember things better. Some students will make short notes while others will read their textbooks over and over again. Most students have the habit of highlighting their notes to mark the important points. This may help them to focus only on those points the next time they revise their notes.

This science fair project can also be done using participants of a different age group.

The experiment may be modified to test the effects of using different color highlighters on test results.