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Advanced Book Summaries

a summary you can test yourself on

A summary feels finished the moment it's written, and that's the trouble: you can't tell from looking at it whether any of it stayed. So turn it into questions, put it away, and answer them a week later and a month later. What you can't answer shows you exactly which line to go back to.

  • Challenging to start
  • Life-Changing impact
  • Learn it in 30 days
  • Five questions, two recalls
one page, five questions, two returns
A one-page summary of Make It Stick turned into five questions, answered from memory at one week and at one month The summary card says: Pulling an idea out of memory fixes it better than rereading. Space the pulls out, so some forgetting happens first. Mix problem types, so you practise choosing the method. Struggle helps when it's the kind you can get past. Below it, five questions written from it, with marks for each recall. At one week, 3 answered, 1 partly and 1 missed. The missed question, When is a difficulty a useful one?, was repaired by rereading and rewriting its line, and was answered at one month. At one month, 4 answered and 1 partly: How would I space reviews for Spanish? needs a worked example. The marks are made up to show the method. Day 0 · the summary Make It Stick · on one page Pulling an idea out of memory fixes it better than rereading. Space the pulls out, so some forgetting happens first. Mix problem types, so you practise choosing the method. Struggle helps when it's the kind you can get past. turned into questions, then put away Week Month Questions, answered from memory 1 Why does a test beat a reread? 2 How would I space reviews for Spanish? partly at a month: add a worked example 3 Blocked or mixed practice: what differs? 4 When is a difficulty a useful one? missed at a week: reread, line rewritten 5 Why does rereading feel like learning? answered · partly · missed 3 · 1 · 1 4 · 1 · 0 answered partly missed marks made up to show the method 1 2 3 4 5

The miss at a week is the useful mark. It points at one line of the summary that was vague, and after a reread and a rewrite it held at a month.

The system

Try it now.

  1. Write the one-page summary

    One line per chapter, the way the five rules make it. Each line has to say something the book claims, not what the chapter is "about".

  2. Turn it into five questions

    Why, how, what's the difference, when would I use it. No yes-or-no questions. Each answer has to be on your page.

    Write the answer next to each question while the book is still fresh. That's the key you'll check against.

  3. Answer them at a week, from memory

    Page closed, book closed. Say or write each answer, then check it and mark it answered, partly or missed.

  4. Repair only what failed

    Reread the passage behind each miss and rewrite that line of the summary. If the question was vague, rewrite it too.

  5. Answer again at a month

    A question that still fails after a repair either doesn't matter to you (cut it) or needs an example you've used yourself.

When to break the rule: most books don't need this. A novel, a book you read for one fact, or one you didn't rate: a plain summary or none is fine. Save the questions for the few books you mean to use, and a week of answers will tell you if you've picked right.

Your question deck

Write the questions now, and answer them later.

Paste your summary, then write up to eight questions with the answer from your page beside each. The page warns you about yes-or-no questions and answers that aren't in your summary. Copy the deck out with its dates. When the date comes round, paste it back, or use the recall check here to answer each question before you see the key.

Question starters Pick one to start the question you're on.

    The deck

    Untitled book

    • Written
    • First recall
    • Second recall

      Try it once now to see how it works. The real check is on the dates above, with the summary out of sight.

      Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere. Copy the deck into your notes or calendar before you leave the page.

      The study behind the questions

      Writing a summary did best straight after the lecture. A week later, students who had written and answered their own questions were a little ahead.

      Alison King trained 56 college students who were in a programme for underprepared students, assigned at random to three groups. All of them watched a lecture and took notes. One group then wrote and answered their own questions about it, one wrote a summary of it in their own words, and one reviewed their notes.

      Tested straight away, the summarisers recalled the most, then the questioners, then the note reviewers. Tested a week later, the order changed at the top: the questioners did somewhat better than the summarisers, and clearly better than the note reviewers. Both trained groups' notes also held more of the lecture's ideas than the reviewers' notes did.

      That's the reason this page keeps both. The summary is the better first step, and the questions are what you return to.

      The honest limits: it's one study of lectures, not books, with about nineteen students in each group, and the gap between questioners and summarisers at a week was small. The reliable result is that both beat simply rereading your notes. The chart draws the order the study reports, not its scores.

      Order of recall in King (1992). Straight after the lecture: summarising first, self-questioning second, note review third. One week later: self-questioning first, summarising second, note review third. On the day A week later Summarising Self-questioning Note review Self-questioning Summarising Note review 1st2nd3rd a small lead clearly behind both
      King (1992), American Educational Research Journal 29(2), 303–323. 56 students, 19 questioning, 19 summarising and 18 reviewing notes. The study reports the order and which gaps were significant; the chart shows the order only.

      The idea

      Why it works.

      Writing a summary makes you decide what matters, which is why it helps on the day. But a summary you never look at again is just a better copy. A question asks for the idea back, and having to pull it out of memory is what makes it stay.

      The two dates do the rest. At a week you've forgotten enough that answering takes effort, and the misses show you which lines didn't stick. At a month you find out whether the repair worked, and which ideas you're actually going to use.

      When it goes wrong

      Habits that help.

      • Ask about the claim, not the name. "What is interleaving?" checks a word. "Why does mixing problem types help on a test?" checks the idea.
      • Mark partly honestly. If you got the idea but not why it's true, that's partly. The partlys are what turn into misses at a month.
      • Put the dates in your calendar. The recall only works if it happens. Paste the deck into the event so the questions are there when the day comes.
      • Retire what holds. A question answered at a week and a month can go. Keep the deck small enough to answer in ten minutes.

      Go deeper

      Keep going.

      Practise this in HourLife.

      In Media: Takeaways. Keep one queue of films, series, podcasts, albums, audiobooks, and books, track what you're partway through, and rate what you finish.

      Download on the App Store Download on the Mac App Store How Media works in HourLife