Revising the night before exams: spaced repetition

Studying only to forget everything a few weeks later.

That was the story of my life in first year.

I could study a course inside out and think I knew it by heart, then come back a month later, nothing left.

And I was seriously gutted because I genuinely felt like I was studying for nothing every time.

If I study just to forget, what's the point of studying?

There had to be some magic secret to retaining the information you study.

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Spaced repetition

Around the same time I discovered videos about active study methods, I came across a video about "spaced repetition".

The idea was simple:

So instead of revising my physics course 3 times in one day, I should have worked on it 3 times over several weeks.

Spaced repetition, as the name suggests, is simply… spacing out the repetitions.

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Why it works

Your brain isn't a USB stick.

You can't just "copy-paste" a course into it at the last minute.

It works through recall, through connections. And it needs time to consolidate what you want to remember.

In fact, it's not the repetition that makes you memorise.

It's the interval between the repetitions.

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How you can use it simply

No need for a complicated tool. Just do this:

1. The day you learn something → that's your Day 0
2. Then schedule 3 reviews: Day 1 – Day 3 – Day 7

At each review, don't just re-read.

Test yourself. Ask yourself questions (you ~~can~~ must combine this with active recall).

Want to go further? Use "question–answer" flashcards, or an app like Anki.

But even without tools, if you start thinking in terms of rhythm, you're already on the right track.

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See you next week 👋

You now know about active recall and spaced repetition.

We're continuing the series 🧩

— Huy-Minh