Study method

How to make flashcards from a textbook

The failure mode is well known: you spend the evening making 180 beautiful cards for chapter one and never make another. The fix is to card less, card the right things, and stop typing.

What deserves a card

• Definitions you will be asked to produce, not every bolded term.
• Relationships and causes. “Why does X increase when Y falls?” is a better card than “What is X?”.
• Lists with a fixed number of items, as one card per list, not one per item.
• Figures you must recognize: a diagram, a graph shape, a labelled structure.
• Worked-example patterns, phrased as “what is the first step when…”.

What to skip

Narrative, history, and anything you understood on the first read and will not be tested on. A good chapter deck is 25 to 60 cards. If you are over 100, you are transcribing, not learning.

Stop typing

If your textbook is a PDF (most are, through the publisher’s site or your library), upload the chapter to Quizcard and click Make flashcards. It picks out the definitions, relationships, and figures described above, writes them as question-and-answer cards grouped by section, and keeps the diagrams. Then spend your time where it matters: deleting the cards you don’t need and fixing the ones you would phrase differently.

For a physical book, type or dictate a page of notes into a Word document and upload that instead.

Study rhythm

1. Make the chapter deck the same day you read the chapter, while the structure is fresh.
2. Study the deck once that evening and once two days later.
3. Before the exam, study the whole folder rather than individual decks, so topics mix.

Questions

Keep reading

• Turn your notes, a PDF or any subject into a practice quizPaste notes, upload a PDF or name a subject and get a multiple-choice practice quiz with an explanation for every answer. Score yourself, redo it with reshuffled questions, share it with your class. Free to start.
• Turn a unit, your notes or a PDF into a one-page study guideName a unit, paste your notes or upload a PDF and get the whole unit on one page: a mindmap, the ideas in order, a worked exam-style question and the mistake students make most. Print it or turn it into flashcards and a quiz.
• How to turn a PDF into a practice quizUpload a PDF, Word document or slides and get a multiple-choice practice quiz written from that material, with a score at the end and an explanation for every answer. Redo it reshuffled, share it with your class. Free to start.