FocusFlow LabWhy re-reading feels like it works
The second time you read a chapter, it feels familiar, and familiar feels like knowing. But recognizing something on the page isn’t the same as being able to recall it in an exam. In one well-known experiment, students who practiced recalling material remembered far more a week later than students who kept re-studying it (Karpicke & Roediger, 2008).
Read once, then test
- Read a section once, carefully.
- Close the book and write down the main points from memory.
- Open it again and check. Add what you missed in a different colour.
- Move on. Don’t read it again until a review day.
This is slower per page the first time, but you won’t need three more passes.
Use past papers early
Past papers and practice questions show you what the exam actually asks. Look at a few before you start a topic, then study with those questions in mind. You’ll spend less time on details that never come up.
Plan by the week, not the day
List every topic, then spread them across the weeks you have, with the biggest and weakest first. A weekly target bends when a day goes wrong. A daily schedule usually breaks. The exam countdown shows how many study hours you really have, and the study plan generators lay out the weeks for big exams.
Review on a schedule
Come back to each topic a day later, a few days later and a couple of weeks later, recalling first each time. The spaced review calendar gives you the dates.
Watch the video
Watch on the FocusFlow Lab YouTube channel
Source: Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(5865).