Active recall means retrieving information from memory rather than simply rereading it, and research on learning consistently shows it produces stronger, longer-lasting retention than passive review, which matters enormously for a content-heavy exam like the PTCE.
Why Rereading Feels Productive but Is Not
Rereading notes or a textbook chapter creates a feeling of familiarity that can be mistaken for actual mastery. When you later try to recall the same information without the text in front of you, gaps often appear that rereading alone never revealed, sometimes not until the moment you sit down for the actual exam.
Putting Active Recall into Practice
Flashcards are a natural active recall tool, as are practice questions and the simple habit of closing your notes and writing down everything you remember about a topic before checking for accuracy. The struggle to recall is exactly what strengthens memory, even when it feels harder in the moment than simply rereading.
Making Active Recall a Daily Habit
Rather than saving active recall for occasional review sessions, weaving it into every study session, even brand new material, builds the habit early. Try summarizing a section from memory immediately after reading it once, before moving on to the next topic.
Putting This Into Practice
Like most effective study techniques, this approach works best when applied consistently over several weeks rather than attempted once and abandoned. Building it into your regular study routine, even in a small way, tends to produce noticeably better results than an occasional, half-hearted attempt.
A Final Thought
It also helps to periodically evaluate whether a technique like this is actually improving your practice exam scores, rather than assuming it is working simply because it feels productive in the moment. Objective feedback from practice testing is the most reliable way to know for certain. Try applying this strategy to just one content domain first before rolling it out across your entire study plan, which makes it easier to judge whether it is actually working before committing significant additional time to it.
CPHTprep's flashcards are built around this active recall principle, prompting a question before revealing the answer so your brain does the retrieval work.