It’s October. The first tests are behind you, autumn break is coming up and the December exams still feel far away. Yet this is a good moment to start preparing for your exams. If you review a little on a regular basis from now on, you build up the material step by step and have less to learn from scratch in December.
Why starting early helps
What you learn and then stop using fades. You forget part of it fairly quickly, especially if you’ve only seen the material once. That doesn’t mean you study badly: it’s simply how memory works.
Two forms of active learning keep coming up in research as particularly effective. The first is active recall: quizzing yourself instead of rereading the material. The second is spaced repetition: practising the same material several times, spread over days or weeks, instead of all at once. In a large review of ten study techniques, exactly these two received the highest rating (Dunlosky et al., 2013).
Learning with flashcards combines both: you retrieve the answer yourself first, and you review the cards over a longer period. Spacing does take time, though. Three days before the exam, there’s little left to space out. In October, there is.
7 tips to prepare for your exams with flashcards
1. Make your flashcards shortly after class
Don’t wait until the chapter is finished. Put today’s key terms, words or formulas on cards while the lesson is still fresh. That keeps it a small job each time, and your set grows naturally towards December. Got your course as a PDF, or a photo of your notes? With a paid plan or AI credits, Flipeezy can make flashcards from your PDF or photo. Do check them: you know best what your teacher considers important.
2. One question, one answer
A good flashcard asks about one thing. For example:
Why does that work better than a card with a whole paragraph on the back? With a focused question, you know right away whether you really retrieved the answer. With a long text, you often recognise a few words and feel like you know it, while you couldn’t have explained it yourself. So break big chunks into small questions. More tips in making flashcards that stick.
3. Test yourself instead of only rereading
Rereading feels familiar and can help you understand material the first time. But for remembering it, quizzing yourself usually works better: come up with the answer first, and only then flip the card. In a well-known experiment, students who tested themselves remembered more after two days and after a week than students who reread the same text, even though the rereaders felt more confident (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006). A smooth reread doesn’t always tell you much about what you’ll still know in the exam.
4. Let the app schedule your reviews
Here’s an example of what reviewing over several days can look like:
- Day 1: you make your first cards and practise them.
- Day 2: you test yourself again on the same cards.
- A few days later: you mainly review the cards that were still hard.
- After that: cards you know well come back less often. Your time goes to what you haven’t mastered yet.
That’s an example, not a fixed recipe: the best gaps depend partly on how far away your exam is (Cepeda et al., 2006). In Flipeezy you don’t have to track this yourself. In Spaced repetition mode you only see the cards that are due that day. After each card you choose Again, Good or Easy. If you didn’t know it, the card comes back the next day. If you did, the gaps get longer: first a day, then about a week and then longer still. With Easy, they grow faster. Read more on the page about spaced repetition in Flipeezy.
5. A little every day, ideally at the same time
Ten to fifteen minutes a day is a realistic start and helps you build a habit. Whether it’s enough depends on how much material you have. For a big subject you’ll need more time in the weeks before the exam, and flashcards don’t replace exercises or understanding the material. Link your study time to something you already do every day, like after dinner or on the bus. In your profile you can set a daily goal, so you can see how many cards you still wanted to practise today.
6. Mix up how you practise
Can you flip a card without hesitating? Try it as multiple choice, or type the answer yourself. With multiple choice you recognise the right answer; when typing, you have to retrieve it completely. That’s harder, but you’ll spot the cards you only half know much faster.
7. Study together, but keep practising yourself
Share your board with a classmate. You practise the same cards and the leaderboard shows where everyone stands. A bit of competition can make reviewing more fun.
Splitting the work is fine, but the learning mostly comes from what you do with it yourself. Writing your own questions, trying to retrieve the answer and explaining the material to someone else can all help. So don’t copy someone else’s cards blindly: check that they’re correct and clear, then practise them yourself.
And in December?
If you’ve reviewed regularly over the past weeks, you start exam season with a good part of the material already in your head. You can then spend your time on the cards that are still hard, on exercises and past exam questions, and on getting enough sleep.
Studying with autism or ADHD, or does planning not come naturally? Also read studying with autism or ADHD: tips for small, predictable steps.
Sources
- Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J. & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58. doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266
- Roediger, H. L. & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249-255. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x
- Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T. & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354-380. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354