Effective medical education is extremely challenging in these times of high competitiveness. With the evolving curriculum changes and shorter contact hours, it is becoming extremely difficult to perform TBL sessions and Flipped Classroom sessions of active learning. In order to strike a balance between short contact hours and effective learning, we tried adding a Pretest and a Posttest to the traditional didactic lecture session. This method works on the principle that by including a multiple‐choice questions based Pretest and Posttest session before and after the didactic lecture respectively, the educator can heighten the attentiveness of the students and make them actively seek information during the lecture session. In order to test this hypothesis, we divided the pharmacology class into two groups namely Group A and Group B and conducted a cross‐over study. On Day 1, Group A was given a Pretest and a Posttest while Group B was given only a Posttest. On Day 2, Group A was given only a Posttest while Group B was given a Pretest and a Posttest. The tests were scored, totalled and compared. Analysis of the results showed that the groups that took both a Pretest and a Posttest significantly scored higher percentages and passing grades compared to the groups that took only the Posttest, albeit not statistically significant. This study clearly demonstrates the advantage of sensitizing the student's minds with a Pretest before the lecture begins. Based on the results of this study, by including a Pretest and a Posttest session to the routine didactic lecture, we can help students not only gain considerably from the lectures but also measure the same.