Active Recall: What It Is, How to Do It, and a 7-Day Study Plan for Students

What active recall means, in simple words

There are two ways to go over something you studied. In the first way, you look at it again: you reread the chapter, look at your highlights, or watch the lecture again. In the second way, you hide the material and pull it out of your head: you answer a question, write what you remember, or explain the idea aloud. The second way is active recall. Researchers often call it retrieval practice, because you are retrieving, or fetching, the memory.

The key point is the order. You try first, then you check. If you look at the answer first and then nod along, that is still rereading, even if it is in a question-and-answer format.

Active recall is not only for exams. A learner saying new English words without looking, or a coder writing a function without copying, is using it too.

What research says about active recall

Here are the main findings from the studies we read for this guide.

Testing beats restudying after a few days

In a 2006 study by Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke, students read short prose passages. Some then took free-recall tests, where they wrote down what they remembered, with no feedback. Others read the passages again for the same number of times. On a final test after 5 minutes, the students who reread did better. But on the tests after 2 days and after 1 week, the students who had tested themselves remembered much more. The rereading students also felt more confident, even though they remembered less later.

Rereading feels good because the page looks familiar. Familiar is not the same as remembered.

Studying again after you know it adds little; testing again adds a lot

In a 2008 study in the journal Science, Karpicke and Roediger had students learn foreign-language vocabulary. Once a student got a word right, some kept studying it and some kept being tested on it. Extra studying had no effect on later recall. Extra testing had a large positive effect. The students' own guesses about how well they would do did not match how they actually did.

It helps understanding, not only memorising

A common worry is that self-testing only helps with facts. In a 2011 study, also in Science, Karpicke and Janell Blunt compared retrieval practice with making concept maps. Retrieval practice led to more learning, including on questions that tested understanding and inference, and even when the final test asked students to draw a concept map.

A 2018 review by Steven Pan and Timothy Rickard pulled together 192 effect sizes from 122 experiments, with 10,382 people in total. It found that learning from testing can carry over to new questions. The carry-over was strongest to application and inference questions and across different test formats. It was weakest for material that was not tested, and for problems learned through worked examples.

It works in real classrooms too

A 2021 review by Chunliang Yang and colleagues combined 222 classroom studies with data from 48,478 students. Quizzing raised achievement by a medium amount. The size of the benefit depended on things such as whether students got corrective feedback, how many times they were tested, and whether the quiz matched the final test.

How it compares with other study methods

A large 2013 review by John Dunlosky and four other researchers rated ten common study techniques. Only two got a high utility rating, and active recall was one of them.

Why active recall works, and why it feels hard

Each time you pull a memory out, you make the path to it stronger. A review by Roediger and Andrew Butler in 2011 says retrieval practice often gives large gains in long-term memory compared with studying again. It also says retrieval works even without feedback, but feedback makes it work better.

Recall also shows you the truth. With the book closed, you find the gaps at once, and you know exactly what to fix.

Even a wrong try helps. In a set of 5 experiments published in 2009, Lindsey Richland, Nate Kornell and Liche Kao asked people questions about an essay before they read it. Later, these people did better than people who simply had more time to read, even on the questions they had got wrong at first. Trying to answer seems to prepare the mind to take in the right answer.

The downside is that active recall feels slow and uncomfortable. You will get things wrong. Your page will look messy. This feeling is normal and is part of why it works. A 2008 study by Kornell and Robert Bjork found that people rated the less useful study order as more effective, even after their own test results showed the opposite. So do not judge a study method by how smooth it feels.

Not every kind of quiz is equal. A 2014 review by Christopher Rowland found that recall tests, where you produce the answer yourself, gave bigger benefits than recognition tests, where you pick from options. Multiple-choice practice still helps, but writing or saying the answer from scratch helps more.

How to do active recall: the five steps

Use these five steps for any chapter, lecture or video.

1. Learn it once, properly. Read the chapter or attend the class with full attention. Active recall needs something to recall. Do not start testing on a page you have never understood. Decide: is this a new topic (learn first) or an old one (go straight to recall)?
2. Turn the material into questions. As you finish each part, write 3 to 6 questions on the left side of your notebook, with page numbers instead of answers. Decide: short fact questions, or why and how questions? You need both. A good mix is about half each.
3. Close everything and answer. Book shut, phone away. Write or say your answers. Give each question a real try before you give up. Decide: write or speak? Writing is better for subjects where you must write in the exam. Speaking is faster for definitions and vocabulary.
4. Check and correct at once. Open the book. Mark each answer: right, partly right, or wrong. Write the correct answer in a different colour pen next to your attempt. This is your feedback, and it is the step most students skip.
5. Schedule the next try. Questions you got wrong come back tomorrow. Questions you got right come back after a few days, then after a week or more. Decide: how far away is your exam? The section on spacing below shows how to set the gaps.

The first round on a chapter is the slowest, because every question is new. Later rounds are faster, because you only spend time on the questions you still miss.

Active recall methods, and which to use for which subject

Active recall is one idea with many forms. Pick the form that matches what your exam will ask you to do. The 2021 classroom review found bigger gains when practice matched the final test, so match your recall to your exam.

• Question list (Cornell style). Questions on the left, notes on the right. Cover the right side and answer the left. Good for almost every theory subject.
• Blurting, or the blank page method. Close the book and write everything you remember about a topic on a blank page, as fast as you can. Then compare with the book and fill gaps in a different colour. Good for history or biology. You can also draw diagrams and maps from memory this way.
• Flashcards. Question on one side, answer on the other. Say the answer before you flip. Good for definitions, formulas, dates, vocabulary and diagrams with labels.
• Teach it. Explain the topic aloud to a friend, a sibling, or an empty chair, without notes. Where you stop or say "basically", there is a gap. This is often called the Feynman technique.
• Practice questions and past papers. Solve them with the book closed and a timer on. Good for maths, physics, accounts and any subject with numericals.
• Pretest. Before a new chapter, try the end-of-chapter questions first. You will get many wrong. That is fine; the 2009 pretesting study suggests it helps you learn the chapter better.

How to write good recall questions

The quality of your questions decides the quality of your recall. A weak question tests one word. A strong question makes you rebuild an idea.

Write one idea per question. Start many questions with why, how or compare. Put the page number, not the answer, next to each question. And keep a few questions in your exam's own format, such as a 3-mark or 5-mark answer.

Space your recall: how often to come back

Active recall works best when you spread it out. This is called spacing, or spaced repetition. You test yourself, wait, and test again just as the memory is starting to fade.

A 2006 review by Nicholas Cepeda and colleagues looked at 839 tests of spacing in 317 experiments. It found that the best gap between study sessions depends on how long you need to remember. The longer you need to remember something, the bigger the best gap.

A 2008 study by the same team taught facts to more than 1,350 people, gave them a review after a gap of up to 3.5 months, and tested them up to 1 year later. When the final test was 1 week away, the best gap was about 20 to 40% of that week. When the test was 1 year away, the best gap was about 5 to 10% of the year.

In days: for a test in 7 days, 20 to 40% is roughly 1.5 to 3 days. For a test in 365 days, 5 to 10% is roughly 18 to 36 days. These are rough guides from one study of facts, not exact rules. The pattern is what matters: short gaps for near exams, longer gaps for far ones.

You do not need to track this by hand if you use a flashcard app. The official Anki manual says the app shows you a card when you are about to forget it, and that easier cards get longer gaps. The Anki website says the computer version is free, and that AnkiDroid for Android is free. For notebook users, the recall log template below does the same job on paper. To fit these sessions into your week, see the guide on how to make a study timetable.

Worked example: one chapter, seven days

Here is how a Class 10 student, let us call her Meera, uses active recall for one science chapter with a unit test in 8 days. She has school and tuition, so she has about 45 minutes a day for this chapter. The plan is an example built for this guide, not a real person's results.

Notice three things. First, every session starts with recall, not reading. Second, there is a rest day, which is a spacing gap. Third, wrong answers keep coming back until they are right. After the test, Meera does not throw the questions away. She puts the chapter on her long-term schedule, with the next recall in about 3 weeks.

Once she has a few chapters done, Meera adds one timed mixed test each week, with questions from all of them. Mixing makes her choose the right method herself, which is what the exam will ask.

Templates: a recall question page and a recall log

Copy these into your notebook.

Recall question page (one per chapter)

• Top line: Subject, chapter name, date you first studied it, date of the test.
• Left column (one third of the page): your questions, numbered, with the page number in brackets.
• Right column: leave blank. You answer on a separate sheet, so this page can be used again and again.
• Bottom box: the three questions you find hardest. These go into every recall session until they feel easy.
• Question mix for each chapter: about 5 short fact questions, 5 why or how questions, 2 diagram or problem questions, and 2 questions in your exam's long-answer format.

Recall log (one page for all subjects)

The log shows your scores going up, which keeps you going. It also shows which chapters you have not recalled for a long time.

Using active recall with flashcards, apps and quizzes

Tools can save time, but the rule is the same: answer first, then check. A 2024 systematic review by Jasmine Xu and colleagues looked at flashcards, practice testing and concept mapping in higher education. It found flashcards were popular and linked with higher grades and test scores, and that self-testing and retrieval practice worked but were used less than they could be.

• Paper flashcards. Cheap and easy. Keep three piles: wrong, unsure, right. The wrong pile comes back tomorrow; the right pile after a week.
• Flashcard apps such as Anki. They handle the spacing for you. Make your own cards from your own questions, one idea per card. Ready-made decks made by others are often too big and do not match your syllabus.
• Multiple-choice quizzes. Fast and fun, and good for checking many topics quickly. But they test recognition. A 2008 study by Butler and Roediger found that feedback after a multiple-choice test raised later correct answers and cut down on wrong answers picked from the options. So always look at the right answer for every question you missed. And keep some practice where you write the full answer yourself.

Common active recall mistakes, and how to fix them

When active recall is not for you, or not yet

Active recall is powerful, but it is not the right tool for every moment. Be honest with yourself about these cases.

• On day one of a brand-new, hard topic. If you do not understand the idea at all, testing yourself only shows you a blank. First learn it: read, watch, ask a teacher, work through solved examples.
• For skills you learn by doing. Playing an instrument or speaking fluently need practice of the skill itself. Recall helps only with the knowledge parts.
• When the question bank is the only thing you study. Recalling only from someone else's question list means you learn their questions, not the chapter. The 2018 transfer review found little carry-over to material that was not tested. Make sure your questions cover the whole chapter.
• When tests make you very anxious. Recall sessions are private and low-stakes, which many students find easier than real tests. Start with short sessions and easy questions. If worry about exams is affecting your sleep or health, talk to a parent, teacher or school counsellor.
• When you have only one night left. Recall still beats rereading the night before, but spacing needs days. Next time, start earlier.

Practise active recall together on Sikhami

Sikhami is a social network for people in India who are learning, for every kind of learning. Some of its tools fit well with active recall.

• Play quiz battles for quick timed practice in maths, GK, English and reasoning. They are multiple-choice, so use them for speed and checking, and look at the answer to every question you miss.
• Join a live study room and take turns asking each other questions with books closed.
• Read free study notes shared by teachers and other learners, then turn them into your own recall questions.
• Find people learning the same subject in clubs, and set up a weekly quiz together.

You can read more on the page for learners. If you are a teacher who wants to build quizzes into your lessons, the guide to formative assessment explains how short, regular checks help students learn.