For adolescent balance drills, spreading sessions was not clearly better than packing them
Twenty-five teenage athletes improved stance and reach after equal-volume balance training; massed and distributed schedules looked similar on most tests.
Blog
Articles and notes on learning, programming, and HiddenLogic materials.
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Near-peer anatomy teachers mixed retrieval practice with psychological safety
A qualitative study of 82 reflective essays from graduate-entry medical near-peer teachers found a cognitive toolkit plus a humanistic classroom frame.
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Self-regulated learning: the complete guide to running your study system
Use self-regulated learning as the operating system behind planning, monitoring, strategy choice, motivation, environment design, retrieval, spacing, and AI.
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Teacher-made Anki decks tracked with better bioscience exams — among students who used them
In 799 first-year nursing students across 19 Norwegian campuses, flashcard users scored higher; assigning the deck to a campus was not enough by itself.
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Anki and flashcards: the complete evidence-based guide
What Anki is, how spaced retrieval works in decks, DEAME card design, FSRS vs SM-2, first-50 workflow, burnout, medical-school evidence, and when not to use Anki.
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How to read AI summaries without losing the evidence layers
AI digests flatten claims, evidence, and interpretation — here is a short method to recover what the summary quietly dropped.
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Correlation is not causation: reading links in news and study headlines
When two things move together, the story may still be reverse cause, a third factor, or chance — a short method for careful readers.
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A compact fallacies reference for careful readers
Recognise common reasoning shortcuts in news and social posts — without turning every disagreement into a Latin-name contest.
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How to read books: a complete guide to the questions everyone asks
Why read in the age of AI, speed vs depth, habit and forgetting, print and audio, notes and summaries — thorough answers to common questions about reading books.
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Intuition, learning, and emotion: how study reshapes gut feel and self-regulation
How practice builds expert intuition, why study feelings mislead, and how knowledge indirectly changes emotions and your ability to work with them.
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How to learn when AI gives instant answers
When AI gives instant explanations and drafts, durable learning shifts toward goals, transfer speed, fundamentals, and habits that keep you thinking — not just consuming.
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The Scout Mindset: a digest of truth-seeking habits
Julia Galef on soldier vs scout thinking, motivated reasoning, identity, and habits that make updating less painful — for study, work, and media.
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Best books on learning science and critical thinking
Twelve books for learners and educators—six on how learning works, six on clearer judgment—plus a forthcoming digest series on HiddenLogic.
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Make It Stick: a deep digest of learning science
An expanded digest of Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel on retrieval, spacing, interleaving, desirable difficulties, and illusions of mastery — for study and teaching.
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The blank-page method: rebuild knowledge without looking
Close the source, rebuild the structure on a blank page, then check gaps. A practical active-recall workflow for chapters, lectures, and meetings.
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Low-stakes retrieval for teachers: short checks that build memory
Use brief classroom quizzes, exit tickets, and feedback loops without turning every check into a grade. Practical retrieval design for real lessons.
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What shapes learning ability and the will to learn: genes, environment, motivation, and practice
A complete guide to what actually drives how well and how willingly we learn — heritability, gene–environment interplay, cognition, motivation, sleep, instruction, and practice — without destiny myths.
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Your first 50 Anki cards: a sustainable start without burnout
Build a small, useful Anki habit with clean cards, daily limits, spaced retrieval, and a simple plan for your first 50 notes.
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Cognitive load theory: the complete guide to learning without overload
Use cognitive load theory to design study: separate intrinsic, extraneous, and germane load; learn from worked examples; reduce split attention; and build practice that fits working memory.
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Desirable difficulties: the complete guide to hard learning that works
Bjork’s desirable difficulties explained: spacing, retrieval, interleaving, generation, and variation—how to make study usefully hard without turning it into overload.
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Focus while studying: the complete guide to attention that actually sticks
Protect deep study from phones, multitasking, and fake productivity — attention cycles, environment design, retrieval under focus, and sustainable routines.
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Interleaving helped children and adults learn look-alike categories
In two experiments, mixing rock categories improved classification accuracy, but its effects on confidence differed between children and young adults.
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Choose mixing or blocking based on how you need to learn
Experiments found that interleaving supported similarity-based learning, while blocking supported rule finding—and the pattern remained about 48 hours later.
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Metacognition for learning: the complete guide to knowing what you know
Monitor and regulate study with JOLs, calibration, planning, and strategy choice — so fluency, AI explanations, and liking a method stop fooling you.
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Self-testing helped learners apply grammar in a new situation
In an artificial-language study, retrieval practice improved later memory and far transfer after one week, consistent with learning underlying rules.
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Sleep and learning: the complete guide to memory consolidation for students and adults
How sleep supports memory consolidation, what happens after late-night studying, and a realistic sleep-and-study system for exams, skills, shift work, and adult learning.
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Why highlighting and rereading fail: the fluency illusion
Highlighted pages can feel learned while leaving you unable to recall or use them. Learn how fluency misleads and what to do with notes instead.
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Active recall: the complete guide to learning by retrieving, not rereading
What active recall is, why it beats highlighting, blank-page and flashcard methods, pretesting, overt vs covert recall, and a daily retrieval habit.
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How to improve memory as an adult: what actually works after 30, 40, and 50
Adult memory is trainable: aging myths vs lifestyle, retrieval and spacing, and a realistic weekly system for work and life — without miracle apps.
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Mixed spelling drills beat blocked practice for German third graders
A classroom experiment (N=147) found fewer spelling errors after interleaved practice than blocked drills — gains held at an 8-week follow-up.
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Interleaving: the complete guide to mixed practice that improves transfer
What interleaved practice is, why blocked drills feel better but transfer worse, how to mix problem types, languages, and clinical cases without chaos.
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Grade 7 students liked spacing more than they trusted it — and disliked interleaving
Two surveys (N=174 and N=233) show many seventh-graders underrate spaced and interleaved math practice even when research supports both.
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Instructor spaced flashcards did not lift microbiology exam scores — but confidence rose
In an intro microbiology course, spaced-repetition flashcards left exam means unchanged (p=0.27) while self-concept and “thinking like a microbiologist” improved.
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Retrieval practice helped fifth-graders with history texts — stretching the gap alone did not
In real primary classrooms, testing with feedback to 100% mastery beat rereading; lengthening the spacing interval between sessions showed no clear gain.
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Retrieval practice during shared book reading helped children learn new words
Children with DLD and typical language (n≈27) recalled novel words better with spaced retrieval than restudy when practice was built into picture-book reading.
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Spaced repetition: the complete guide to remembering more with less cramming
What spaced repetition is, why it beats cramming, how to set intervals, Anki vs calendars, FSRS basics, and when spacing fails — evidence without hype.
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How to study with AI: the complete guide to learning that sticks
Use ChatGPT and other AI tools without killing retention — retrieval-first workflows, verification habits, flashcards, exams, and when to close the chat.
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Very short answers were harder than MCQs — but neither practice format won for retention
In a within-subjects study (n=45), VSAQ practice had more errors than MCQs, yet practice format did not change final retention when no feedback was given.
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More matured Anki cards tracked with higher preclinical CBSE scores in a small UNLV cohort
Among 36 students, mature cards (>21-day interval), study hours, and unsuspended cards all correlated with Comprehensive Basic Science Subject Exam scores.
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Grading “days practiced” beat grading “questions answered” for spacing — especially for lower-GPA students
Two RCTs of a Counting Days incentive: within one course, spaced practice days rose and exam scores improved; lower prior GPA mattered less.
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Writing answers beat silent recall for 8th-grade science — mental retrieval looked like restudy
In middle-school classrooms, overt retrieval over five sessions outperformed covert mental recall and restudy on tests two days later.
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Classroom distributed practice beats massing — a meta-analysis finds a moderate edge
Across 31 classroom effect sizes (N > 3000), spacing study over time outperformed massed practice (d = 0.54), with hints of larger gains at longer delays.
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Medical students already use LLMs — and want formal training, not silence
A survey of 103 students at two US medical schools links heavier LLM use to more knowledge and confidence — and finds flashcards among the least helpful uses.
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A pathology residency curriculum built around retrieval practice held up at five years
Five years of spaced testing in a two-year pathology core curriculum tracked rising practice scores and faster in-service gains for UK residents.
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A serious game matched a mannequin for basic cardiac ultrasound practice — neither boosted scores after the workshop
In a Vienna RCT of 97 students, the Underwater game was non-inferior to simulator drills for cardiac POCUS, but both groups slightly declined after the initial workshop.
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Spaced repetition nearly doubled the odds of passing a French medical entrance exam
Among 523 Rouen candidates, spaced repetition remained an independent success predictor (aOR 2.09) alongside grades, sleep, sport, and prep courses.
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Spacing plus variation improved generalization — in neural nets and in fruit flies
Bio-inspired spaced training with controlled variation boosted ANN benchmarks; Drosophila experiments backed the same spacing-plus-variation principle.
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AI vs Human Intelligence: Anatomy, Limits, and Shared Responsibility
A pillar longread on AI and human intelligence: definitions, architecture, learning, memory, error patterns, creativity, accountability, and practical collaboration.
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How to take notes properly: a complete guide to understanding and remembering
Why most notes fail, Cornell and mind maps, lectures and books, paper vs digital, and how to turn notes into a learning system with active recall and spacing.
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How to prepare for exams without forgetting: a complete guide
A science-based approach to exam prep: active recall, spaced repetition, a 30-day plan, and what to do on exam day — without cramming and the illusion of knowing.
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Critical thinking for readers: a complete guide to claims, rhetoric, and fair critique
One structured guide to critical reading in the age of feeds and AI summaries — layers of evidence, rhetoric, daily habits, steelman, and tools that support reflection without cynicism.
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Steelman and hidden assumptions: two advanced moves for fair critical reading
Before you push back on an article, try the strongest version of its argument — then list what it takes for granted.
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Five daily habits for more careful reading (without reading everything twice)
Small routines — pause, label, question, compare — that build critical reading without turning every scroll into homework.
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How to remember anything: a complete guide to memory, learning, and long-term retention
From memory mechanisms and the forgetting curve to active recall, spacing, mnemonics, Anki, and your own learning system — an evidence-based guide without myths.
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Convincing is not the same as correct: rhetoric and critical reading
Clear prose, vivid stories, and confident tone can persuade without proving. Here is how to notice rhetorical craft without becoming cynical.
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Anki and medical exam scores: what a systematic review actually shows
Eleven studies suggest Anki often links to better USMLE Step 1 scores when use is frequent — but course exam results are more mixed.
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Claims, evidence, and interpretation: three layers in every article
Learn to separate what a text asserts, what it supports, and what it merely implies — the core move of critical reading.
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How the brain works during learning: memory, attention, spacing, and what actually sticks
A practical guide to what happens in your brain when you study — encoding, consolidation, retrieval, cognitive load, sleep, and why spacing beats cramming.
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Student-made medical flashcards go beyond rote facts — but often lack clinical depth
A qualitative review of 1,179 cards from popular med-student decks found varied question types — yet limited clinical complexity overall.
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A medical terminology game beat lectures alone on immediate post-tests — in one RCT
Sixty health students using the MedQuiz serious game plus lectures scored higher right after training than lecture-only peers; long-term retention was not measured.
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Three ways students use a mobile quiz app — and only one profile tracks with better grades
Learning analytics on a retrieval-practice app found active, disengaged, and utilitarian user profiles; active use and time management linked to higher exam scores.
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Why spacing may need a ~24-hour window: synapse timing in multiday learning
In sea-slug neurons, a second training block worked best about one day after the first — not sooner or much later — hinting at a biological timer for spaced practice.
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Low-stakes quizzes after dental lectures boosted final exam scores on tested topics
In one endodontics course, students scored higher on material quizzed after each lecture than on material they only heard once — with a large effect size.
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Why critical thinking still matters in a world of feeds and AI summaries
Speed reading is not the same as understanding. Here is why structured thinking about texts remains a learnable skill — not cynicism.
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Short movement breaks in class linked to better focus — and social studies gains
Turkish fourth graders who used Brain Breaks activity videos for four weeks showed stronger attentional control and higher social studies quiz scores than classmates without the breaks.
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Music lessons in preschool may sharpen executive skills — if training lasts long enough
A 2024 meta-analysis of children aged 3–6 links structured music training to better inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, with dose hints for parents and teachers.
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Does music make children smarter overall? A large meta-analysis says probably not
After accounting for study quality, a 2020 review of nearly 7,000 children finds no reliable boost to general cognition or grades from music programs — a caution for “brain training” claims.
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ThinkLens: an AI tool for critical reading, not verdicts
HiddenLogic introduces ThinkLens — a Telegram bot that breaks down claims, evidence, and rhetoric without labeling texts true or false.
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Exercise trials in young people often report better attention — review of nine RCTs
A 2026 systematic review of randomized exercise studies in 8–17-year-olds finds consistent attention gains, underscoring why PE and movement belong in learning-science conversations.
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In one autism case study, paper flashcards led to faster mastery than tablet slides
A single-case alternating-treatments study compared receptive labeling with flashcards versus tablet slides for a six-year-old child with ASD.
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A small MOOC pilot raised test scores for medical trainees learning osteoporosis
Postgraduate trainees in a PLOS ONE pilot used flashcards and micro-lectures in an online course; mean scores rose from about 44% to 96%.
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Plastic surgery educators propose spaced repetition decks for trainee exam prep
A conceptual review argues that flashcard-based spaced repetition could help plastic surgery residents retain broad surgical knowledge.
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Anki helps medical students most when they use it consistently
A study of graduate-entry medical students found no overall exam advantage for casual Anki users — but students who used it consistently and extensively performed significantly better.
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Peer-led workshops pushed medical students toward active recall and Anki
A German “Study Smart” program found that students who attended peer-led workshops were more likely to adopt active recall and shared Anki decks.
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Anki use linked to higher scores on medical school exams
A cohort study found that medical students who used Anki scored higher on exams on average, even after accounting for prior test performance.
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The Breakfast Club: one hour of active retrieval improved resident learning scores
A small emergency medicine residency study suggests that even a single structured session using retrieval practice and explanatory questioning may improve both short- and longer-term test performance.
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A board-game flashcard session nudged musculoskeletal scores in medical students
RheumQuest paired competitive gameplay with clinical Q&A cards; knowledge scores rose modestly and confidence improved in a one-hour clerkship session.
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Only one in four Jordanian medical students use Anki — but fans swear by it
A survey of 318 students found Anki users report better retention for pharmacology and pathology, though grades did not differ significantly.
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A reinforcement-learning knowledge tracer beat standard baselines on ASSISTments
A 2026 Sensors paper reports that DRAKT, which combines reinforcement learning with a forgetting curve, predicted student performance better than common baselines.
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Judgments about your own learning help memory most when studying is passive
Three experiments suggest that predicting how well you will remember something can improve memory — but the benefit shrinks when learners already use effortful strategies like spaced repetition or reading aloud.
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Spaced reviews at 24 hours, 7 days, and 30 days kept nurse skills sharp
A small RCT in knee-surgery instrument nurses found forgetting-curve scheduling beat conventional review — with gains still visible one month later.
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Testing-effect research is growing — but not for every learner
A review of nearly 24,000 scientific papers suggests retrieval-practice research still pays limited attention to neurodivergent learners and learning disabilities.
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An internship curriculum built around retrieval practice and spaced repetition reported better engagement
Saudi medical interns took modules on brain-friendly study habits; surveys showed higher engagement, lower reported stress, and improved workplace assessments.
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ChatGPT under teacher supervision helped medical students learn better
Students in an Indian medical college improved their exam performance after combining retrieval practice with supervised ChatGPT use.
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UK final-year students spend 80% of licensing exam prep on third-party tools — including Anki
A survey of 31 UK medical students found PassMedicine, Anki, and other external resources dominated AKT prep, with ChatGPT emerging as a study aid.
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VR nephrology emergency training doubled knowledge scores for 408 medical students
A mandatory VR module on rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis raised pre-post test scores with high acceptance; tutor-guided sessions beat self-paced ones by 5.5 points.
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The testing effect disappeared in two carefully controlled online experiments
Two Prolific-based studies found no clear advantage for retrieval practice over restudying, despite delayed tests, feedback, and attention checks — raising questions about online learning research conditions.
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Students often know effective study methods — but still avoid using them
A large survey suggests many students already know about retrieval practice and spaced learning, yet avoid them because they feel difficult, stressful, or time-consuming.
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Researchers catalogued 48 ways medical Anki cards differ — and why that matters
The DEAME framework gives educators and students a shared vocabulary for electronic flashcard design after analyzing 1,300 cards from popular medical Anki decks.
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More flashcard rounds make retrieval practice outperform rereading even more
A vocabulary-learning study suggests the advantage of active recall over passive rereading becomes stronger as learners complete more rounds of retrieval practice.
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Guessing before you study still helped — and worked for older adults too
Three experiments found pretests, post-tests, and copy-test-copy all beat passive copying — yet learners underestimated how much testing helps.
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Most first-year medical students use Anki daily — often while eating or exercising
A survey of 74% of one U.S. medical class found heavy reliance on pre-made decks, fill-in-the-blank cards, and multitasking during Anki sessions.
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Daily text-message quizzes did not improve residents’ exam scores in a large U.S. study
Nearly 300 pediatric residents received one practice question per day for a year — but most barely engaged, and exam scores did not meaningfully change.
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Retrieval practice works even in preschool — if children experience enough success first
Experiments with five- and six-year-olds suggest young children benefit from retrieval practice when learning is structured around frequent early success.
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GPT-4 beat ChatGPT-3.5 on emergency medicine board questions, but Anki tuning did not add much
A 2025 JMIR AI study found GPT-4 far outperformed ChatGPT-3.5 on 598 emergency medicine board questions, while custom Anki tuning showed no clear accuracy gain.
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Flashcards and short videos both helped nursing students learn laparoscopic tools — video scored higher
A two-group study of 52 operating-room nursing students found both 13-card flashcard sets and a 6-minute video improved test scores; the video group led on the post-test.
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One day or one week between practice sessions? A simulator study found little difference
Medical students training on a laparoscopy simulator reached proficiency in similar time whether sessions were spaced by 1–2 days or nearly a week.
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A diabetes board game slightly raised scores and confidence in medical students
In a MedEdPORTAL report, 102 medical students used the Candy Gland diabetes board game and showed modest knowledge gains plus higher confidence.