My Coach Learning Executive function and academic coaching, elementary through college

Taking notes you can actually use · step 4 of 7

Turn your notes into questions

You will fill in the left-hand strip and make the page testable.

This is the step almost everybody skips, and it is the one that makes the difference. After class — the same day, while it is still fresh — go down your notes and write a question in the left strip for each chunk.

QuestionsNotesSummaryWhat is psyn?What goes in?What comes ou…Photosynthesisplants make food from lightin: CO₂ + water + lightout: glucose + O₂happens in chloroplastsPlants turn light, water and CO₂ into food and oxygen.

The same notes, with questions added afterwards.

A good question is one you cannot answer by looking at the shape of the page. "What goes in?" makes you produce three things from memory. "Photosynthesis" makes you produce nothing — it is a label, not a question.

Now the page is a quiz. Fold it, or lay a sheet of paper over the right-hand side, and answer your own questions out loud. That is revision — reading the page over and over is not.

Which of these is a good question for the left-hand strip?

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