Step 1: Get the whole lecture into one place
A deck can only cover what your notes cover. If the lecture lives in three places, your typed notes, the slides and a recording, the gaps between them are where the exam questions hide.
By hand, that means copying the slide content into your notes and filling in what you missed from the recording. In Nibit, you can record the lecture and watch notes arrive on the page every five minutes, import the slides or the PDF into the same notebook, and generate one set of notes from all of them, with numbered references to each source.
Step 2: Tidy the notes the same day
Notes written during a lecture are full of half sentences and arrows that only make sense for a day or two. Fixing them while you still remember what you meant is much faster than reconstructing it a week later.
Go through and finish each thought, fix anything you got wrong, and put related points together. In Nibit, Polish does a first pass for you: it organises, summarises or fills out the notes, and every change comes back as a diff you accept or skip, so the page stays yours.
Step 3: Write cards that ask one thing
The most common mistake is a card that asks for a paragraph. If the back of a card has three facts on it, you'll remember one, mark yourself right, and never learn the other two.
- One question, one answer. "What does RuBisCO do in the Calvin cycle?" is a card. "Explain the Calvin cycle" is an essay.
- Ask in your own words. Copying a sentence from the slides and blanking a word out tests whether you recognise the sentence, not whether you understand it.
- Split lists. A list of five things is five cards, or one card that asks for the count and a second that asks for the items.
- Keep what you'd be asked. Definitions, mechanisms, causes and differences make good cards. Page numbers and the lecturer's anecdotes usually don't.
In Nibit, you pick the notebooks, chapters, pages or files to cover and it writes the deck as a draft. Read through it before saving: delete what you already know, and fix any card that asks two things at once.
Step 4: Answer before you flip
Rereading a card's answer feels like studying, but it mostly tells you that the answer looks familiar. Saying or writing the answer first, then checking, is what actually tests your memory.
Turn the card over only after you've answered, then mark yourself honestly. Keep the cards you miss for another round, whether that's at the end of the session or the next day. In Nibit, the summary lists the cards you missed, and the next session starts with the cards you've missed most.
Step 5: Test yourself the way the exam will
Flashcards are good at single facts and weak at connecting them. Once a deck feels easy, sit a quiz over the same material, with written answers as well as multiple choice.
A quiz in Nibit marks objective questions instantly and can grade written answers with AI. At the end it names the topics you did worst on and shows the source of every question. Those weak topics are the pages to reread, and the cards to make next.
Quick version
- Put the lecture, slides and recording into one set of notes.
- Tidy the notes the same day.
- Make one card per question, in your own words.
- Answer out loud or on paper before you flip.
- Sit a quiz on the same notes once the deck feels easy, and go back to your weakest topics.