Leitner system

Question-and-answer flashcards sorted into boxes Write a question on the front and the answer on the back, then test yourself and move each card. Cards you get right advance to a box you check less often; cards you get wrong go back to the first box, which you check every day. The science journalist Sebastian Leitner proposed this box system in 1972. In the final weeks it stops you wasting time on cards you already know, so the hard ones get most of your attention without any planning. Keep answers short enough to check in a second, and say or write the answer before you turn the card. Flipping it after a vague feeling of knowing is rereading in disguise.