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How to Study for Exams with Google Sheets

2019-01-31 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 13:01 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Learning and studying · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Sponsor segment present, Evidence-based framing, Aimed at students, His medical past

Junior doctor Ali shows the Google Sheets spreadsheet he used for his final-year Cambridge medical exams, with questions in one column and white-font answers in the next, colour-coded by how well he recalled them, and explains why he prefers it to flashcards for some material: systematic topic-by-topic review, gaps visible at a glance, easy group study and low commitment.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Sponsor line for Squarespace

00:00:08 — Active recall and three drawbacks of flashcards

  • ★★ Even with apps such as Anki and Quizlet, Ali sees drawbacks in flashcards: they take ages to make, you end up with decks of hundreds or thousands of cards, and getting through them becomes a real chore. — 00:00:29 · Anki, Quizlet
  • ★★ Without the discipline to sit down every day and get through 300 flashcards, Ali finds flashcards become more of an annoyance than a help. — 00:00:58

00:01:27 — The Google sheet from his final-year exams: questions, white-font answers, colour codes, hidden columns

  • ★★ Ali shows the Google sheet he used a few months earlier to revise for his final-year medical school exams at Cambridge, with one sheet per subject. — 00:01:27 · Google Sheets, Cambridge
  • ★★★ In Ali's Google Sheets method questions go in column A and answers in column B; once written, the answers are turned white, so looking through the sheet he cannot see them and each question makes him actively recall the answer. — 00:01:57 · Google Sheets, active recall
  • ★★ Ali colour-codes the questions in his Google sheet by how well he knew the answer: green when he is pretty sure he knows it, yellow when he only half knew it. — 00:03:05 · Google Sheets
  • ★★ Towards his exams Ali hid the spreadsheet columns he no longer needed to go through, such as those full of green questions. — 00:03:35 · Google Sheets

00:04:13 — Why Google Sheets instead of flashcards: systematic structure, holes in knowledge, friends, low commitment

  • ★★★ Ali's first reason for using Google Sheets instead of flashcards: a spreadsheet gives a systematic structure for reviewing your material. — 00:04:13 · Google Sheets
  • ★★ Ali grants that flashcards' random order fits interleaved practice, recalling across categories, but is not a massive fan of it for medicine and similar subjects, where the recall asked of you is systematic. — 00:04:13 · interleaving
  • ★★★ Ali's second reason: his Google sheet shows at a glance where the holes in his knowledge are, while with Anki or Quizlet he must trust the spaced repetition algorithm and often goes through 100 cards to find the 20 he struggles with. — 00:05:12 · Google Sheets, Anki, Quizlet, spaced repetition
  • ★★ Ali starts with the questions he marked red in his Google sheet, those he could not answer the last time he tested himself. — 00:05:12 · Google Sheets
  • ★★ Ali is not a fan of reviewing notes, which is passive, just reading information, and not efficient; he is a big fan of active recall. — 00:05:58 · active recall
  • ★★ Ali's third reason: Google Sheets make it slightly easier to study with friends; preparing for medical school exams, they put his sheet on his big monitor and worked through the questions one at a time. — 00:06:27 · Google Sheets
  • ★★★ Ali's final reason for preferring Google Sheets: flashcards become an absolute burden, and seeing 150 flashcards due in a day sucks the enjoyment out of learning. — 00:06:56
  • ★★★ Google Sheets make studying low-commitment for Ali: even with five or ten minutes he opens the sheet, finds the red questions, tries to recall them and looks up what he does not remember on Google, Wikipedia or in a textbook. — 00:07:22 · Google Sheets, Wikipedia
  • ★★ Using flashcards intensively in his first and second years, Ali treated a session as such a big deal, needing an hour or two, that he ended up not reviewing them very often. — 00:07:22
  • ★ Marking a well-recalled question yellow or green gives Ali a small gamified burst of good feeling about studying. — 00:07:52 · Google Sheets
  • ★ With spare time before exams, Ali opens his Google sheet on his iPhone, iPad, laptop or any browser. — 00:07:52 · Google Sheets, iPhone, iPad

00:08:22 — What goes on a flashcard and what in the sheet; whether to write answers in full

  • ★★ Ali calls "what's the deal with polymyalgia rheumatica?" a bad flashcard question, since flashcards work best with a distinct fact; such broad, open-ended questions go in his Google sheet. — 00:08:52 · Google Sheets
  • ★★ Ali thinks much time is wasted making flashcards: in medicine especially, where everything is a Google away, there is almost no point duplicating information in your own notes when you can Google what you do not know. — 00:10:13

00:10:34 — A personal preference; the only gospel truth is active recall and spaced repetition

  • ★★★ Ali has no strict line between flashcards and Google Sheets, but prefers flashcards for distinct, isolated facts, such as a drug dose, and Google Sheets for more general concepts, with a lot of overlap. — 00:10:34 · Google Sheets
  • ★★ Ali calls preferring Google Sheets to flashcards a personal preference, and made this video because many people asked about it. — 00:11:04 · Google Sheets

  • ★★★ The only gospel truth in study tips, Ali says, is active recall and spaced repetition, which are better than gospel truth because a mountain of evidence supports them. — 00:11:04 · active recall, spaced repetition

    “The only gospel truth in this whole study tips stuff is active recall and spaced repetition.”

  • ★★ Ali recommends the book Make It Stick to learn more about active recall, spaced repetition, elaborative encoding and interleaved practice. — 00:11:04 · Make It Stick, active recall, spaced repetition, interleaving

  • ★★ Ali says he will work on videos over time on the study techniques he lists, such as elaborative encoding and interleaved practice. — 00:11:04 · interleaving

00:11:41 — Squarespace sponsor read and sign-off

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Ali Abdaal (channel): Asked whether he has changed his mind about flashcards, the channel replies that Anki, like anything else, is a tool with pros and cons. — creator comment · Anki
  • ★★ Ali Abdaal (channel): Asked whether he thinks, says or writes down the answer when doing active recall, the channel replies that he mostly thinks it through. — creator comment · active recall

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: active recall · Google Sheets

Also: Works: Make It Stick

Organizations: Wikipedia

Concepts: "what's the deal with…" question · interleaving · Polymyalgia rheumatica · spaced repetition

Places: Cambridge

Products: Anki · iPad · iPhone · Quizlet

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