QQuizMedicine

Quick Facts methodology

Why Quiz Medicine works with your memory, not against it

Medical knowledge fades fast when you only reread it. Quiz Medicine uses two of the best-supported learning techniques — retrieval practice and spaced repetition — to bring facts back right before they slip away. Your brain has enough going on; the schedule can help.

The problem: the forgetting curve

Over a century ago, Hermann Ebbinghaus showed that newly learned information decays rapidly — we lose much of it within days unless we revisit it.[1] Re-reading and cramming fight a losing battle against this curve. But each well-timed review resets it. The decay gets slower every time, so the material has a better shot at staying put through exams, rotations, and whatever else the week throws at you.

100%0%Memory retentionTime →without reviewreviewreviewreviewwith spaced review

Each review lifts retention back up — and flattens the curve that follows.

What the research says

Two findings from cognitive psychology do the heavy lifting — and both are among the highest-rated techniques in a landmark review of what actually improves student learning.[5]

1. The spacing effect

Studying spread out over time produces far better long-term retention than the same amount of study crammed together. A meta-analysis of 254 studies found distributed practice reliably and substantially beats massed practice — and the ideal gap grows as the time you need to remember something grows.[2]

2. Retrieval practice (the testing effect)

The act of recalling an answer — not just re-reading it — strengthens memory. Students who self-tested retained dramatically more on delayed exams than those who restudied the same material.[3]Repeated retrieval is, in the words of the researchers, “the key to long-term retention.”[4]

A flashcard combines both: you actively retrieve the answer (testing effect), and the algorithm spaces each card's reappearance over time (spacing effect).

How our algorithm schedules each card

After you reveal a card's answer, you rate how well you recalled it. That confidence rating drives the SuperMemo-2 (SM-2) algorithm,[6] which sets the next interval for that specific card:

Card shownrate your recallDon't Know→ next review: same sessionOK→ next review: a few daysNailed It→ next review: weeks out
  • Don't Know resets the card and brings it back within the same session, so you relearn it before moving on.
  • OK and Nailed It push the card progressively further into the future — a card you keep nailing might not return for weeks.
  • Each day you set two limits — new cards (default 25) and reviews (default 100) — so the workload stays steady instead of snowballing.

A note on the algorithm

We use the well-established SM-2 algorithm — the same family that popularized modern spaced repetition. Newer schedulers such as FSRS[7] model memory even more precisely, and we may adopt one as our data grows. The underlying principles on this page — spacing and retrieval — are what matter most, and they hold regardless of the exact scheduler.

Make the forgetting curve work for you

Pick a topic, answer what you can, and let Quiz Medicine decide what deserves another pass.

Study flashcards

References

  1. [1] Ebbinghaus, H. (1885/1913). Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology(H. A. Ruger & C. E. Bussenius, Trans.). Teachers College, Columbia University.
  2. [2] Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354
  3. [3] Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x
  4. [4] Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(5865), 966–968. doi.org/10.1126/science.1152408
  5. [5] Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266
  6. [6] Woźniak, P. A. (1990). Optimization of repetition spacing in the practice of learning — the SM-2 algorithm. super-memory.com/english/ol/sm2.htm
  7. [7] Open Spaced Repetition. FSRS: Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler. github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs-rs

Educational use only. Not medical advice and not affiliated with or endorsed by the NBME or USMLE.

FeedbackRequest feature