diff --git a/spacy/language.py b/spacy/language.py
index 08fb63d4c..6abbc6f56 100644
--- a/spacy/language.py
+++ b/spacy/language.py
@@ -1369,6 +1369,9 @@ class Language:
             scorer = Scorer(**kwargs)
         # reset annotation in predicted docs and time tokenization
         start_time = timer()
+        # this is purely for timing
+        for eg in examples:
+            self.make_doc(eg.reference.text)
         # apply all pipeline components
         for name, pipe in self.pipeline:
             kwargs = component_cfg.get(name, {})