Surprisingly, most students don’t know that active recall is the most effective studying strategies. About 75% of science students believed that going over and over the material is more effective than active recall, even though the opposite is true. In fact, one study found that students who were repeatedly quizzed while learning new vocabulary remembered about 80% of the words one week later. On the other hand, students who kept rereading notes remembered just 1% of the words after the same period of time. Research shows that your time would be much better spent trying to recall what you have learned without looking at your notes or textbook. 

Here is how you can use active recall while studying:

Make active recall the focus of your study routine. Instead of rereading your notes or textbook, quiz yourself often on what you’ve learned. You could use your Cornell Notes, make flashcards, create your own questions, or find some tests online. When quizzing yourself, try not to get discouraged if you make a mistake. Research shows that students who made mistakes while quizzing themselves and then corrected them did better on a final test than students who just rehearsed the correct answers.

Say it aloud. When trying to recall what you learned, say your answers out loud. According to one study, participants who studied words by saying them aloud remembered more words than those who read them silently.

Double-check your answers. Try to recall material or answer questions without looking at the textbook, your notes, or the back of your flashcards. However, after recalling a fact or definition, check your answers carefully by comparing them to the material you’re studying. Research found that fewer than half of students checked their answers by flipping the flashcard over or looking at their notes because they believed their answers were correct. Even when students said they checked an answer, they were often so confident that they didn’t notice it was incomplete or wrong.