How do you study effectively for exams?
The core study method (active recall, spaced repetition, interleaving) against passive methods.
Axis: test yourself and space it out … reread, highlight and summarise
Concept: active recall
Answers by date: 26 records in 14 sources, newest first; the answers above are the current ones. The advice was refined (2018), never reversed, in these records.
| date | who | answer | source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-06-12 | Ali | Ali constantly asks himself which topic he would be least happy to see come up in the next day's exam, and asks it more and more often as the exam approaches. | Study with me + The Magic of Categorisation - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #38 00:01:42 |
| 2018-06-12 | Ali | Ali calls categorisation a magical technique and, after spaced repetition and active recall, probably the third most important exam technique: categorise anything you can, whenever you can. | Study with me + The Magic of Categorisation - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #38 00:01:13 |
| 2018-05-29 | Ali | The night before an exam Ali mostly relaxes; closer to an exam he asks which topic he would be least happy to see come up, and revises that the night before if there is one. | Live Stream - Hangout 00:10:00 |
| 2018-05-29 | Ali | The key to a good GCSE or A-level grade, Ali says, is understanding the material well enough to explain it to a five-year-old: whoever can explain the whole biology syllabus that way gets an A*. | Live Stream - Hangout 00:04:10 |
| 2018-05-28 | Ali | When explaining something to someone else, Ali says it is better to get them to generate the answers themselves where they can, prodding them along rather than spoon-feeding them. | Study with Me + How I take notes - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #36 00:03:33 |
| 2018-05-28 | Ali | Ali says the story method works for many things where you have to learn a long list, not only for a topic such as the activities of daily living that lends itself well to a story. | Study with Me + How I take notes - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #36 00:02:08 |
| 2018-05-21 | a guest | The second speaker says marks come from memorising the mark schemes: do many practice papers first, then study the mark schemes for buzzwords such as "enzyme substrate complex". | Study with me + More revision tips - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #34 00:10:39 |
| 2018-05-21 | Ali | Ali prioritises breadth over depth: medicine has so much to learn that you must decide what detail not to care about, and in any subject you should get the big picture before the details. | Study with me + More revision tips - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #34 00:06:09 |
More answers (18)
| date | who | answer | source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-05-21 | Ali | Ali advises tailoring revision techniques to the subject being revised, with no need to shoehorn it into a technique someone else uses; for visual dermatology he did an online quiz instead of going over notes. | Study with me + More revision tips - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #34 00:03:24 |
| 2018-05-07 | Ali | For maths and statistics Ali advises past papers: Anki and his spreadsheet method are hard to apply there, but active recall is a way of life and past papers are a form of it. | Live Q&A + Hangout - Bank Holiday vibes - Ali Abdaal, Cambridge medical student 00:38:46 |
| 2018-05-07 | Ali | With material seen for the first time, Ali says the aim is to understand it; once you have, write questions for yourself that test your understanding. | Live Q&A + Hangout - Bank Holiday vibes - Ali Abdaal, Cambridge medical student 00:32:09 |
| 2018-05-02 | Ali | With 70 lectures and little time, Ali suggests five minutes per lecture to skim it and jot down its topics and subheadings: 350 minutes, done in a single day. | Exam Study Tips for University & A-Level students - Revision Q&A with Cambridge students 00:03:44 |
| 2018-05-02 | Ali | Ali says active recall and spaced repetition are by far the biggest things you can do to make revision more efficient, so viewers should learn them before any other tip. | Exam Study Tips for University & A-Level students - Revision Q&A with Cambridge students 00:00:29 |
| 2018-05-01 | Ali | To understand hard topics, Ali advises trying to explain them to a friend. | First Live Hangout + Rapid-fire Q&A 00:38:51 |
| 2018-05-01 | Ali | For anatomy Ali advises Anki and Instant Anatomy, a website by the Cambridge anatomist Bob Whittaker, and learning the rules that cover a lot of ground, such as which nerve supplies a muscle group. | First Live Hangout + Rapid-fire Q&A 00:06:22 |
| 2018-04-24 | Ali | Revising with Charlotte, Ali draws the acromegaly and Cushing's examination diagrams from memory and fills the gaps from a master diagram, then she draws them and he fills her gaps: teaching her is active recall for him, so it helps both. | Study with Me + Revision tips from friends - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #32 00:03:29 |
| 2018-04-18 | Ali | Ali's sixth tip, active recall as a way of life: in a group session, instead of being spoon-fed an examination, one person talks the others through it and they fill in the gaps. | Study With Me + 10 Productivity / Revision Tips - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #31 00:03:58 |
| 2018-04-18 | Ali | Ali's fourth tip is active recall in action: after reading over something, such as Beck's suicide scale, he writes down from memory exactly what he learned. | Study With Me + 10 Productivity / Revision Tips - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #31 00:01:27 |
| 2018-04-14 | Paul | Paul says active recall needs neither Anki nor Google Sheets: it is a way of life, trying to think about things every time before you look up the answer. | Last Minute Study Tips, Flashcards, Essays & Maths - Exam Revision Q&A with Cambridge students 00:17:02 |
| 2018-04-14 | Ali | Ali says past papers count as active recall, but attempt each question before looking at the mark scheme: reading the mark scheme and thinking you would have known it is a myth. | Last Minute Study Tips, Flashcards, Essays & Maths - Exam Revision Q&A with Cambridge students 00:14:07 |
| 2018-04-14 | Ali | Ali says understanding a topic comes first, and its litmus test is whether you could explain it to a friend or a five-year-old; trying to explain it is already active recall. | Last Minute Study Tips, Flashcards, Essays & Maths - Exam Revision Q&A with Cambridge students 00:02:12 |
| 2018-04-10 | Ali | Ali says writing questions for yourself instead of notes works because active recall is by far the most efficient study technique, while simply rereading notes is a total waste of time. | Study with me + My revision method - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #30 00:03:24 |
| 2018-04-09 | Ali | Ali's buzzword for revision is "quantity rather than quality": getting through many topics matters more than covering a few in detail, because the active recall builds the connections in the brain. | How to Study for Exams - Spaced Repetition · Evidence-based revision tips 00:20:14 |
| 2018-04-09 | Ali | Ali calls active recall by far the most important way to make studying more efficient, and spaced repetition probably the second most important. | How to Study for Exams - Spaced Repetition · Evidence-based revision tips 00:00:00 |
| 2018-04-04 | Ali | Ali calls active recall (active retrieval, practice testing) by far the most important study technique: retrieving facts from the brain strengthens the connections. | How to study for exams - Evidence-based revision tips 00:07:13 |
| 2018-03-24 | Ali | Ali calls active recall the second key study technique after spaced repetition: testing yourself in a low-stakes way, outside the exam, by consistently asking yourself questions. | Exam Revision Tips with Ibz Mo 00:12:01 |