How to use Active Recall to Study Less for your GSCEs
The Fundamental Concept for Effective Studying
Active Recall
If you’ve been around any Study-Try Hards you’ve likely heard the term ‘Active Recall’
To Put it Simply:
Active Recall is the Process of ‘actively’ remembering learned Information.
To Make it Even Simpler; This is what Passive Recall Looks Like:
Rereading Notes
Rereading your Textbook
Highlighting Facts
Whereas Active Recall:
Testing yourself
Answering Practice Questions
Using Flashcards
So evidently Active Recall is all about Actively Retrieving Information from your Memory, making that memory stronger and more available in the Long Term.
How Do We Know that it works?
One of the studies most often cited supporting the effectiveness of active recall is “The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning”, conducted by Jeffrey D. Karpicke (Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University) and Henry L. Roediger, III (Department of Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis). The results were published in Science Magazine, 15 February 2008.
Briefly, a group of college students were each given the same 40 foreign language vocabulary word pairs to learn and then were tested on all of them. Students then returned one week later for a repeat follow-up test. The results of the study showed the following results:
Students who used active recall could remember about 80% of the new terms compared to 34% for the control group who passively went back through a series of cards until they learned everything again.
This same research group did another study to compare active recall with both passive (i.e. reading) methods and elaborative (creating concept maps). The active recall group’s success rate again outshone the others by a margin greater than 50%.
The researchers were able to conclude that the process of repeated testing (active recall) rather than repeated studying (passive methods) was the decisive factor in promoting correct recall from a student’s long-term memory.
The Researchers concluded that the process of testing (active recall) rather than repeated studying (passive studying) was the key factor in promoting correct recall from a student’s long-term memory, Leading to their Overall Better Performance in subsequent assessments.
By continuing to implement Active Recall in your studying you will ultimately be able to effectively recall this information when you need it most.
This leads to less time spent trying to force info into your memory and instead more effective studying, resulting in better grades and more free time.
How Do We Implement Active Recall into our Studying?
Flashcards
Flashcards are the absolute King of Active Recall
It’s Simple:
Just Write a Question based on some information that you need for your upcoming test, and write the answer on the back of it.
Now simply review your flashcards and practice saying the answer in your head or writing it down (thereby practising active recall), flip the card over and check if you got it right.
Some Good Flashcard software includes Quizlet and Anki, However, Anki tends to be Very Confusing for New Users so keep an eye out for an Article on how to Optimize Anki for GSCEs in the Near Future.
Past Papers and Exam Style Questions
For any Topic Test, Mock Exam and the GSCEs Themselves (however this pretty much applies to whatever exams you’re sitting):
You Can’t Expect to do very well without Practicing Some Exam Style Questions or Past Papers.
Not only are they an excellent source of Active Recall as you’re retrieving Info from your Brain in an Exam Setting, But they also simulate an Exam Environment and help you with timing, writing out answers, understanding the style of questions etc.
Past Papers and Exam Questions are Life savers, So trust me. Do them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve encountered Questions on Tests that I Wouldnt have been able to answer without doing some Past Papers.
Blurting
A Bit of a lesser-known method but highly effective nonetheless
It’s Simple:
Take a piece of paper and write down absolutely everything you know about a topic or chapter or whatever; This Can be in the form of simply listing things down, making mind maps, making diagrams of some sort: Or whatever helps you visualize the content best.
After you’re done ‘actively retrieving’ your information, refer back to your Textbook or Source of Info and Identify gaps in your knowledge.
Then do it Again.
Over time not only will you be practising active recall and reaping its benefits, but also strengthening your general understanding of a topic and recognising a bigger picture, which can be the difference between a Grade 8 and a Grade 9.
However, a Key Concept to Understand about Active Recall is that you can’t rock up the night before an exam and tell yourself ‘yep I’m gonna use some flashcards because Ahmed told me active recall makes you remember everything’.
Please don't.
The True Benefits of Active Recall only arise through Long Term Testing not Short Term Cramming, In Short; Revise earlier but do less, it’s better than revising later and doing more.
The Old Adage; 5 Hours Before an Exam is less effective than 1 Hour every day 5 Days before the Exam.
Do the Second one and you’re setting yourself up for success
Why do you think you never see the top students cramming?
Active Recall may seem like a daunting change to your traditional studying method (if you’ve even got one lol), But in the Long Term not only will you find yourself achieving Higher grades, but you’ll also notice a significant decrease in your time spent studying, and overall slingshot you into further Sucess.
A Bit of a Short Article this week…Until Next Time.