Active recall: the study method that beats rereading

What active recall is

Active recall means producing an answer from memory, without looking, before checking it. Flashcards, practice questions, explaining a topic to a friend, and writing everything you know on a blank page are all active recall. Rereading, highlighting and watching a lecture again are not: the information is in front of you, so your memory never has to do the work.

Why it works

Each time you retrieve something, the memory gets stronger and easier to find next time. Psychologists call this the testing effect. In a well-known 2006 study, Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke had students either reread a passage or practise recalling it. A week later, the students who had practised recalling remembered much more, even though they'd spent less time with the text and felt less confident about it.

A large review of study techniques led by John Dunlosky in 2013 rated practice testing and spreading study out over time as the two most useful methods, and rereading, highlighting and summarising among the least. See the study techniques, ranked.

Why it feels worse than it is

Recall is effortful, and you'll get things wrong. That struggle is the point: Robert Bjork calls it a desirable difficulty. Rereading feels smooth because the material is familiar, but familiar isn't the same as remembered. If studying feels easy, you're probably not learning much.

It's also why so few students use it. In a 2009 survey of 177 college students by Karpicke, Andrew Butler and Roediger, 84% said they reread their notes or textbook, and 55% named rereading as their main strategy. Only 11% said they practised recalling information while studying.

Five ways to use active recall

1. Flashcards, reviewed with spaced repetition, for the facts you must know cold.
2. Past exam questions, answered closed-book before you look at the solution.
3. The blank page: after a lecture, write everything you remember, then check the slides for what you missed.
4. Teach it: explain a topic out loud as if to a classmate, without notes.
5. Turn headings into questions: “Causes of acute kidney injury” becomes “What are the causes of acute kidney injury?”

Making it a habit

Do a little every day instead of a lot before the exam. Test yourself on old material, not just this week's. Check your answers against the source, so you don't practise a mistake. And don't skip the cards you got wrong: they're the ones doing you the most good.

FlashCardz is built on these ideas: every card is a recall question from your own material, the answer links to the page it came from, and the cards you miss come back from a new angle the next night. See how it works.