Is your revision active or passive?

Eight quick questions about how you actually revise. You'll see how much of it is active (recall, spacing, explaining) and how much is passive (rereading, highlighting, copying), get the one or two swaps that would change the most, and a result card you can save and share. Each question links to the research behind it.

Free, no account. Your answers stay in your browser; the card is drawn on your device. Made by the Ask Poppy team. This is a self-check, not a validated test, and it doesn't use "learning styles".

1. You sit down to revise a topic. What do you usually do first? Re-read my notes or the textbook chapter Make my notes neater or rewrite them Read my notes, then cover them and test myself at the end Write or say what I remember before looking at anything

2. How much of your revision time is reading and highlighting? Most of it About half A little: I mostly use questions and recall

3. When you use flashcards or questions, what happens before you see the answer? I don't use them I look at the answer fairly quickly I think of an answer in my head, then check I say or write a full answer, then check, and keep the ones I got wrong

4. When do you come back to a topic you've already revised? Mostly the night before the test A few times, but close together Spread out: a few days later, then a week or more later

5. How do you use past papers or practice questions? I rarely do them before the exam I read through worked solutions I try them with my notes open I try them without notes, then mark against the mark scheme

6. When you get something wrong, what do you do? Move on Read the right answer Note it and test myself on it again on another day

7. When you read a worked example or a solved problem, what do you do? Read it through Copy it into my notes Ask myself why each step works, and answer out loud or on paper

8. How do you decide that you "know" a topic? It looks familiar when I read it I recognise the right answer when I see it I can explain it out loud or write it down without notes

What counts as active revision?

Retrieval: getting it out of your head before you look: blurting, flashcards, practice questions without notes.
Spacing: coming back after days, not minutes. The exam countdown builds a spaced plan.
Explaining: saying why, out loud or on paper. Try explain it back or speaking practice.

Passive methods aren't worthless: reading is how the material gets in the first time. The problem is stopping there, because rereading feels like learning. In the classic testing-effect study, rereading made students more confident and helped on a test five minutes later, but recalling from memory won after two days and a week.

Want to be quizzed out loud instead of rereading? Ask Poppy is an AI tutor you talk or type to. It asks you questions on what you're revising, gives one hint at a time rather than the answer, and remembers where you left off so you can come back another day. Free, 30 messages a day on iPhone, iPad and Mac; unlimited is optional at $3.99 a week or $9.99 a month (US). Like any AI it can make mistakes. (Disclosure: this site is made by the Ask Poppy team.)

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Questions

What is active revision?

Revision where you produce the answer from memory before you look: blurting, self-testing with flashcards or questions, practice papers without notes, and explaining out loud. Passive revision is reading, rereading, highlighting and copying, where the page does the remembering.

Is re-reading notes a bad way to revise?

It isn't useless, and it helps on a test straight afterwards. But in the classic Roediger and Karpicke study, recalling a text from memory beat rereading it two days and a week later, even though rereading made students feel more confident.

What about learning styles (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic)?

This quiz doesn't use learning styles. Reviews of the research have not found good evidence that matching teaching to a preferred "style" improves learning. The methods here (retrieval, spacing and self-explanation) are ones with strong evidence for most learners.

Is my result saved anywhere?

No. The quiz runs in your browser. Your answers aren't sent or stored, and the result card is drawn on your device. If you download the card, it saves only to your device.

How accurate is this quiz?

It's a quick self-check, not a validated test. It counts how much of your revision is retrieval, spacing and explaining, based on eight habits. Use it to pick one habit to change this week.

By Simon Dreyer, founder of Ask Poppy · Last updated 21 October 2026 · How we write these pages