Study skills
Active Recall: What It Is, Why It Works and 7 Ways to Use It This Week
Rereading feels like studying because the material looks familiar. Active recall makes you produce the answer from memory, and that's what shows up on exam day. Here's the evidence and seven ways to start.
By the Lykke teamUpdated 10 min read
Key takeaways
- Active recall means producing an answer from memory before you look: closed notes, blank page, practice problems, flashcards.
- In a classic experiment, rereading won on a test five minutes later; testing won two days and a week later.
- If it feels easy, it probably isn't recall. Close the book first, then check.
- For math, recall means solving fresh problems without the worked example open, not rereading solutions.
- Active recall is what you do in a session; spaced repetition is when you do it. Use both.
In this guide
- Active recall explained: why familiar isn't the same as learned
- Does active recall work? What the research shows
- 7 ways to use active recall
- How to use active recall with your notes
- How to use active recall in math
- Active recall by subject: what to retrieve
- A week of active recall before an exam
- Active recall vs spaced repetition
- Common active recall mistakes
- FAQ
- Sources
Active recall is any way of studying that makes you pull information out of your memory instead of looking at it again. You close the book and write what you remember, answer a question before you check, or solve a problem without the worked example open. Researchers call it retrieval practice or practice testing, and a major 2013 review of ten study techniques gave practice testing its top rating, together with spreading study sessions out (Dunlosky et al.).
The catch is that it feels worse than rereading while you're doing it. Rereading is smooth because everything looks familiar; recall is slow because you keep finding gaps. Those gaps are the point. This guide explains what the research shows, gives seven ways to practice active recall, and shows how to use it for math and for your own lecture notes.
Active recall explained: why familiar isn't the same as learned
When you reread a page, your brain recognizes it, and recognition feels like knowing. An exam asks for something harder: producing the idea with nothing on the page to prompt you. Active recall trains that harder skill directly.
There's a second effect. Retrieving something doesn't only measure what you know. As Roediger and Karpicke put it in their 2006 paper, taking a memory test also improves how well you remember the material later. The free AP Psychology sections on encoding memories and retrieving memories cover the psychology behind both effects, and the free Learning and Memory section of the Psychology as Science course goes a step further.
Does active recall work? What the research shows
The short answer is yes, and the evidence includes real classrooms, not just lab word lists.
| Study | What happened |
|---|---|
| Roediger and Karpicke, 2006 | Students read short prose passages, then either reread them or took recall tests with no feedback. Rereading did better on a test 5 minutes later. Testing produced substantially better retention 2 days and 1 week later, even though rereading left students more confident (PubMed) |
| Karpicke and Blunt, 2011 | Retrieval practice produced more learning from science texts than building concept maps, including on questions that required inferences, and even when the final test asked students to draw a concept map (PubMed) |
| Rummer, Schweppe and Schwede, 2019 | In two first-semester cognitive psychology seminars, students answered 2 or 3 short questions at the end of seven lessons, either from memory or with their notes and course materials open. On the nine final-exam questions about those topics, the closed-book group averaged 61% and the open-book group 48%; on the exam's other 21 questions the groups didn't differ significantly (PMC) |
| Moreira and colleagues, 2019 | A review of 23 classroom studies, from elementary school to medical school, found results favor retrieval practice whether or not students got feedback. Most of those studies compared it with rereading or with doing nothing (Frontiers in Education) |
| Dunlosky and colleagues, 2013 | Of 10 common study techniques, practice testing and distributed practice were rated high utility; rereading and highlighting were rated low (PubMed) |
Two honest caveats. The classroom field experiment was small (51 students took the exam), and its authors say closed-book practice may also have pushed students to study more at home. And the classroom review found the evidence less conclusive when retrieval was compared with other active methods, concept mapping included, than when it was compared with rereading. Karpicke and Blunt's concept-mapping result came from a controlled study, not a regular class.
There is also a reason students rarely use it. When Karpicke, Butler and Roediger surveyed 177 college students, most said they repeatedly reread their notes or textbook, and relatively few tested themselves (PubMed). The authors blame illusions of competence: rereading feels like learning. Dunlosky, the review's lead author, made the practical point in the Association for Psychological Science's release: swap rereading for delayed retrieval practice. Rereading wins on how studying feels in the moment, recall wins on what you remember next week, and the exam is next week.
7 ways to use active recall
Pick the one that fits the material. Each works the same muscle.
- The blank page (blurting). Close everything. Write every point you can remember about a topic for 10 minutes, then open your notes and mark what you missed in a different color. The colored parts are your study list.
- Questions from headings. Turn each heading in your notes or textbook into a question ("What causes a shift in aggregate demand?") and answer it out loud before reading the section.
- Flashcards, answered honestly. Say or write the answer before flipping. If you flip first and think "yeah, I knew that," it doesn't count.
- Practice problems with the example closed. Do end-of-chapter or old exam problems without the worked solution visible.
- Teach it. Explain a concept to a friend, a study group or an empty room, as if they'd missed the lecture. Where you hesitate is where to go back.
- Draw it from memory. For processes and systems (a pathway like cellular respiration, a circuit, a supply-and-demand shift), sketch the diagram without looking, then compare.
- Practice tests. Take a full practice exam under time pressure, closed-book. The free AP Biology practice set with model answers is one example of exam-style questions you can check yourself against.
Check every attempt against the source. Recall helps even without feedback, but checking is what catches mistakes: in one experiment, feedback after a multiple-choice practice test raised later scores and cut the wrong answers students had picked up from the test's distractors (Butler and Roediger, 2008).
How to use active recall with your notes
Your lecture notes are the best raw material, because they match what your professor emphasized.
- Leave a question column. In the Cornell format, the narrow left column holds questions or cue words; cover the right side and answer from the cues. The guide on how to take notes in college shows the layout.
- Write questions within a day. After each lecture, turn the main points into five to ten questions. Writing the question is light work; answering it later is the recall.
- Annotate as you read. For readings, write a one-line question in the margin for each section. The free active reading and dialectic note-taking demo shows a two-column method that sets this up.
- Use AI as the quizmaster. Paste your notes and ask an AI to ask you questions one at a time, without showing answers until you've tried. The guide on how to use AI to study has the prompts.
How to use active recall in math
In math and other problem-solving courses, recall means producing the method, not the definition. Rereading a worked solution is the math version of rereading a chapter.
- Cover the solution. Read the problem, cover the worked example, and attempt it fully.
- Say the first step out loud. Before writing anything, name the method ("this is a related-rates problem, so I need a relationship between the quantities first"). Choosing the method is often what exams test.
- Mix problem types. A set of ten problems from the same section tells you which method to use. A mixed set from several sections makes you recall that choice, as an exam does. Dunlosky's review rated this kind of mixing, interleaved practice, moderate utility: promising, with less evidence behind it than practice testing.
- Redo missed problems a day later. Not the next minute, when the solution is still fresh.
The free AP Calculus AB practice section is set up for this: try the problems cold, then check.
Active recall by subject: what to retrieve
What you pull from memory should match what the exam asks for. A biology exam and a history exam need different kinds of recall.
Biology, anatomy and other science courses
Recall processes in order, not just terms. Draw a pathway or cycle from memory, label each step, and say what goes in and comes out. Then ask "what happens if this step is blocked?" because application questions are where memorized lists break down.
History, government and other reading-heavy courses
Recall causes, consequences and evidence. For each event or case, write from memory: what happened, why it mattered, and one specific piece of evidence you could cite in an essay. Practice outlining an answer to a likely essay prompt in ten minutes without notes.
Languages
Recall in the direction the exam tests. If you'll have to write in the language, practice from your first language into the target language, not only the other way round. If the exam has a speaking part, say your answers aloud: recognizing a word on a card is a different task from producing it.
Programming and computer science
Write code from a blank file. Rebuild a function you wrote last week without looking at it, or trace by hand what a short program prints before running it. Reading working code is the programming version of rereading.
Economics, statistics and other quantitative social sciences
Recall the model and the interpretation together. Sketch the graph or write the formula from memory, then explain in a sentence what a change in one variable means. Exams in these courses often ask for the interpretation, not the computation.
A week of active recall before an exam
| Day | Session | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 7 days out | Blank-page recall on every exam topic; mark gaps | 45 minutes |
| 6 days out | Questions from headings on the two weakest topics | 30 minutes |
| 4 days out | Practice problems or practice questions, closed-book, mixed topics | 45 minutes |
| 2 days out | Full practice test under time pressure; review only misses | 60 minutes |
| 1 day out | Short mixed flashcard or question round, then rest | 20 minutes |
Active recall vs spaced repetition
They're two different decisions. Active recall is how you study in a session: by retrieving. Spaced repetition is when you study: in sessions spread across days, each one landing as you start to forget. The Dunlosky review gave its top rating to both, practice testing and distributed practice, and they work best together. The spaced repetition guide covers how far apart to space sessions for your exam date, and how to set up flashcards so the spacing runs itself.
A simple way to combine them for a test a week away: one recall session on each topic now, a second in three days on what you missed, and a short mixed one the day before. The midterm study guide lays out a fuller plan.
Common active recall mistakes
- Peeking. Glancing at the answer "just to get started" turns recall back into recognition.
- Only drilling what you already know. It feels good and teaches little. Spend your time on the cards and topics you miss.
- Skipping the check. Always compare with the source, or you may rehearse a mistake.
- Recall without understanding. Memorizing a definition word for word won't help if the exam asks you to apply it. Mix in "why" and "what if" questions.
- Questions that are too big. "Explain all of Chapter 4" is hard to check. Break it into questions with one clear answer each, plus a few that ask you to connect ideas across them.
- Stopping because it's hard. Struggling to recall something is a sign the practice is working, not that it isn't.
Frequently asked questions
Is active recall effective?
Yes. Experiments find that testing yourself beats rereading on tests given days later, and a 2013 review of ten study techniques gave practice testing its highest rating. A university field experiment also found closed-book practice beat open-book practice on related exam questions, though the authors note motivation may have played a part.
What is an example of active recall?
Closing your notes and writing down everything you remember about a lecture topic, then checking what you missed. Other examples: answering a flashcard out loud before flipping it, solving a practice problem without the worked example, or explaining a concept to a friend without notes.
What is the difference between active recall and passive review?
Passive review means looking at material again: rereading, highlighting, watching a lecture recording. Active recall means producing the information from memory before you look. Passive review feels easier and more productive in the moment, but active recall leads to better memory days later, when exams actually happen.
What is blurting in studying?
Blurting is a form of active recall where you write down everything you can remember about a topic on a blank page, without notes, for a set time. Then you check your notes and mark what you left out or got wrong. Those gaps become what you study next.
Is the Feynman technique active recall?
It is when you do it from memory. The method usually described under that name is to explain an idea in plain words as if teaching someone new to it, notice where you get stuck, go back to the source, and try again. Explaining with your notes open is closer to summarizing, which the 2013 Dunlosky review rated low utility.
How long should an active recall session be?
No study sets an ideal length. A practical target is 20 to 45 minutes on one topic, including time to check your answers. Several short sessions spread over a week beat one long one the night before: spreading study out shares the top rating with practice testing in the Dunlosky review.
Sources
- Test-enhanced learning: taking memory tests improves long-term retention (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006) — Psychological Science, via PubMed
- Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping (Karpicke & Blunt, 2011) — Science, via PubMed
- Metacognitive strategies in student learning: do students practise retrieval when they study on their own? (Karpicke, Butler & Roediger, 2009) — Memory, via PubMed
- Open-Book Versus Closed-Book Tests in University Classes: A Field Experiment — Frontiers in Psychology, via PubMed Central
- Retrieval Practice in Classroom Settings: A Review of Applied Research — Frontiers in Education
- Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques (Dunlosky et al., 2013) — Psychological Science in the Public Interest, via PubMed
- Which Study Strategies Make the Grade? — Association for Psychological Science
- Feedback enhances the positive effects and reduces the negative effects of multiple-choice testing (Butler & Roediger, 2008) — Memory & Cognition, via PubMed
This guide was researched from the sources above, drafted with AI assistance and checked against those sources before it was published. Dates, deadlines and offers change: check the official page before you act. Found something wrong or out of date? Email support@getlykke.com.