How To Use Active Recall And Spaced Repetition

Active Recall And Spaced Repetition

Active recall and spaced repetition might be the most iconic combo when it comes to study tips. You can compare them to things such as:

• Peanut butter and jelly
• Day and Night 
• Bacon and Eggs
• Pen and Paper
• PSG and Champions League trophy

Okay, maybe not that last one, but you get the point. Active recall and spaced repetition are bread and butter (I will stop mentioning food after this, in case anyone gets hungry) when it comes to studying.

But what are they and why are they so useful?

Short Answer: Active recall is a way to help you remember something easier, and spaced repetition is a way for you to remember what you learned for a longer period of time. As for the long answer, let’s start with active recall.

Active recall

My story with active recall

I don’t know how much you care about this, so if you don’t just skip this part you won’t miss anything relevant (unless you care about my past and all of the stupid things I have done, just like this one).

I learned about active recall around fifth grade. To be fair, I didn’t know it was the active recall method, I didn’t even know that much English at the time. I just found that if you test yourself instead of reading the material over and over again you will get better results.

Want to know what was the best part about that?

You may think that an aspiring pro gamer like myself thought that the extra free time to play games and achieve my dreams was the best thing I could get.

But you would be wrong.

There is one thing better than that. And that is the bragging rights that you could read something once and remember it all (which wasn’t a lie in my books, since I read the material, tested myself, and then checked my answers, which doesn’t count as reading😃).

Some other (and smart) people may tell you that active recall is a useful method that can get you better grades and help you study. But in my opinion (which is always right) there is nothing wrong with trying to show off (just don’t do it too much and get punched in the face, that is not what we are aiming for here).

Now that I have given you another reason (and a good one at that) to learn active recall, let’s see how this method works.

The science behind active recall

The way most people try to study is by reading the material. And after they are done they would re-read the material. This creates a problem.

What problem could simple reading and re-reading create?

It gives you a false sense of accomplishment. There is nothing wrong with reading the material (how else are you going to study, duh??). The problem is in the re-reading of the material. Since you already read the material, the next time you read it, it will be easier and faster to read (if you don’t believe me, time it).

Your brain is already familiar with the material and can even sometimes predict what you are going to read next. That gives people a feeling of accomplishment. But, pause there for one second and think about what you have just done.

Did you learn the things you read, or did you simply learn to read the material you are supposed to study?

The more you re-read the material the more fluent and faster you will become, tricking your brain into thinking that you have learned what you have read. While you do learn some things, it would take a long time (more like looooong time) to learn everything you need to. And especially so, if you are going to a prestigious college, or are aiming for high grades (or to be a straight A student).

How does active recall work and can it help me?

Instead of re-reading the material every time, you should read a paragraph (it doesn’t have to be a paragraph it could be 2 paragraphs, 10 paragraphs or a whole page) and try to recall what you read.

Instead of passively re-reading the material try to actively recall (oh, so that is why it’s called active recall) what you read. 

In this way, you force your brain to take out the information it stored while reading the material.

This is the key to how active recall works. Getting information into your brain and taking it out of there are two different things. If you want to do well on a test, you have to take information out of your brain, so doesn’t it make more sense to practice that?

How to maximize active recall?

The easiest and laziest thing to do is recall what you read. But there are other ways to get more out of active recall. 

One way is to ask questions like these:

• What have I read? 
• Can I explain it to a five-year-old? 
• What are the key concepts? 
• How would I say it in my own words?

This forces you to think harder about what you read. This is generally how you get the most out of active recall.

The harder you work to retrieve the information from your brain, the easier it will be for you the next time you do it.

So, rather than trying hard when you are on a test, make sure to try hard before the test. After you go through one lecture make a list of questions and start answering them.

If you really want to maximize active recall, write questions instead of notes. This has 2 benefits:

1. You won’t have to make questions later (let’s be honest you were too lazy to do that in the first place, right?)
2. If your notes are just questions, you will have to go and open your book to see where you made a mistake. Remember the harder it is, the better.

Now, let me be honest. I tried doing this myself and it works really well. But I still can’t resist the urge to write something that I know I will have to look up later. At this point, I know that won’t be possible for me.

If you want to use this note-taking method, make sure it doesn’t kill your will to study (100 other things already do that, why would you need to add another one?).

One big mistake that can ruin your active recall

If you are going to use (or at least try to) active recall promise me one thing. That you won’t try to cheat and look at your notes when you recall what you studied. The whole point of active recall is to try as hard as you can to recall what you study.

Looking “just one time” is the same as re-reading the material, which is not what we are aiming for. Don’t fall into this trap, and try to recall what you study. I promise you, your effort won’t betray you.

Besides this trap (doesn’t matter what you think, it is a trap) there are a few more:

• That part is easy so I can skip that
• I already know the answer to this, so I don’t need to bother with it
• I missed this one small part, but I will remember it next time, so I answered this question right

The one thing all of these have in common is that they allow you to cheat, and make you think you did a successful recall. I cannot stress this enough:

The harder you work to retrieve the information from your brain, the easier it will be for you the next time you do it.

Spaced Repetition

My story with spaced repetition

Unlike with active recall, I don’t have any good story to tell for spaced repetition (I know it’s a shame, please don’t cry). I discovered active recall a few years after spaced repetition. Before that, I would study one week before the test, and then do active recall until I was satisfied with the results.

Spaced repetition allowed me to better space out the time I revise, which comes in handy when you have more than 20 tests in one week (maybe I exaggerated a little, but you get the point). If you have problems with scheduling, spaced repetition will be perfect for you.

The science behind spaced repetition

The method of spaced repetition was first conceived of in the 1880s by German scientist Hermann Ebbinghaus. Okay, I admit that I stole this sentence from Wikipedia, do you think I know how to properly use the word “conceived”?

Anyway, Hermann Ebbinghaus created the ‘forgetting curve’, which basically tells you when you have to revise. Here is the link to the Wikipedia page if you are interested in learning more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition

How I use spaced repetition

Every version of spaced repetition is a bit different. The core of the technique is still the same, but people change things to suit their needs.

First, I will show you how I studied before I learned about spaced repetition.

1. After reading the material, make questions that could be on a test
2. Use active recall and try to recall as much as possible
3. See how I did and where I made mistakes
4. Put a ✅ next to questions I got right, and a ❌ next to questions I got wrong
5. Take a 15-minute break
6. After that, use active recall again while paying special attention to the questions I got wrong
7. Use active recall whenever I could, with no idea when is the ideal time to do it

Do you see where the problem is?

If you guessed the 7th step, congratulations you are right (I mean, you get nothing, but here is a pat on the back so you don’t feel too sad). I didn’t know when to repeat this process. I just did it at random, and what happens, happens (what a great strategy, good job old me).

Spaced repetition schedule

After I learned about spaced repetition, here is how I used it:

1. The first two times are still the same, after I read the material for the first time and then after a 15-minute break.
2. The second time is the day after the first recall.
3. The third time is 2 days after the first recall.
4. The next time is 3 days after the first recall.
5. The next time is 5 days after the first recall.
6. The next time is a week after the first recall.
7. Then 2 weeks
8. And finally a month

You would be right to think there are too many of these. The first time I used spaced repetition, I was too scared to not forget everything I learned. So, my genius self thought it would be best to recall what I studied as often as possible (which defeats the whole purpose of spaced repetition, but, oh well).

How to maximize spaced repetition?

Although I did say that I used spaced repetition more than I should have, I only removed 2 repetitions.

The first one where I used active recall right after I read the material. If you are learning something for the long term it doesn’t make much sense to use active recall right after you read the material. So now the first time I revise is 15 minutes after the first time I read the material.

The other change is that the fourth revision is now at 4 days and the one after 5 days is removed making the schedule look like this:

1. The first time is after a 15-minute break.
2. The second time is the day after the first recall.
3. The third time is 2 days after the first recall.
4. The next time is 4 days after the first recall.
5. The next time is a week after the first recall.
6. Then 2 weeks
7. And finally a month

You can play around with these numbers to see what works best for you.

How do I revise if I have to learn something and always remember it?

Again, it depends. I recommend revising every 1 to 2 months. You can try with month and a half first and see how it feels. If it is too easy extend the time for the next revision. Similarly, if it is too hard shorten the time.

An important tip: If there is less than a week before your test or exam, you can ignore spaced repetition if you want. If you are not sure you will do well, you can test yourself until you are satisfied with the results (just don’t do it too much okay? Resting is also important!)

How to maximize active recall and spaced repetition

If you put it all together, it should look something like this:

1. While reading the material, stop every time you finish a paragraph and recall what you read. Do that until you finish one lecture.
2. Make a list of questions that could be on your test/exam.
3. Take a 15-minute break. After that, try answering the questions and take note of where you did well and where you made mistakes.
4. The next day, start with answering the questions first. After that see how you did. Make sure to pay special attention to the questions you got wrong.
5. Make a schedule for when you are going to revise, using spaced repetition.
6. Follow the schedule you made (don’t skip because you think you know the material well enough, if you don’t it will cost you).

Try to understand what you are studying

While active recall and spaced repetition are great methods to help you with studying, there is one thing that beats them both, and that is to:

Understand what you are studying.

You can try to force yourself to learn things word by word, without understanding the whole picture. But it would be much easier to understand what you are studying. So, if you are planning to use active recall and spaced repetition to their maximum, your priority should be to understand the material you are studying.

The most famous tool (as far as I know) for spaced repetition is Anki. If you are going to use Anki, use it for questions that have short (ideally one-word) answers.

How to organize questions

Let’s take geography for example. In your Anki app, you would put things like names of countries or names of important cities. But, if you are asked to describe the culture of a country, you can’t do it in just one word (you could always try, I guess).

Instead, for questions like these, I recommend that you write the question somewhere (either on paper or somewhere digital, like Notion, or even something as simple as notepad on your PC, or notes on your phone) and next to it number 1. When you are using active recall and answering questions, if you answer a question correctly, add +1 to the number next to it (so 1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 3 and so on).

If your answer is not correct, change the number back to 1 (it doesn’t matter if the number was 2 or 5, you always go back to 1). This way, when you see a question with a low number next to it, you know that you got that question wrong and that you should pay more attention to it.

* * * * *

With this, you should be ready to use active recall and spaced repetition. As always, the most important thing is to experiment and see what works best for you.

If you want to learn more about active recall and spaced repetition and spaced repetition, try reading Make It Stick by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel.

Good luck with your studies.