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Put retrieval, spacing, interleaving and predict-then-check on one calendar, from the first lecture of a course to its exam.
Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.
You will build a review plan for a whole course: a first retrieval after each lecture, mixed and predicted weekend sets, and a last week built from the misses.
Sixteen lessons have each taught one move. This one is about putting them together for a real course — the kind with a lecture every week, a textbook, and an exam on a date that does not move. You will need four of the moves at once: retrieval (lessons 1 and 2), spacing (lessons 3 and 4), interleaving (lesson 5), and predicting then checking (lessons 12 and 13). Everything else slots into the sessions they create.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Review plan | Every study session for a course, from the first lecture to the exam, written on a calendar before the first one happens. |
| First retrieval | The day-after session for new material: its question list answered with the notes shut, then checked. |
| Mixed set | A weekend session drawing questions from every chapter so far, with a predicted score written first. |
| Practice test | A full mixed set under test conditions, about five days before the exam, whose misses build the last week. |
| Short check | The last session before the exam: the practice test's misses and the newest material, answered quickly, not a cram. |
A plan that holds up for a whole course is simpler than it sounds. It has a weekly rhythm and a last week.
The weekly rhythm. The day after each lecture, write a short question list from your notes and answer it with the notes shut — the first retrieval. At the weekend, do a mixed set: questions from every chapter so far, with a predicted score written at the top before you start. Mark it, write the gap, and put the misses at the top of next week's first session. Each chapter now comes back again and again, at growing gaps, without you scheduling it chapter by chapter.
The last week. About five days before the exam, take a full practice test, mixed, predicted and checked. Spend the next sessions on its misses. The day before, a short check: the misses and the newest chapter, then rest.
Write it on the calendar at the start of the course, with the rule for a missed session from lesson 4: move it to the next free day, never drop it.
Another way: picture
Think of a snowball rolled across a yard: each weekend it picks up the newest chapter and rolls over all the old ones again. By the exam, everything has been rolled over several times.
Another way: steps
Dunlosky and colleagues (2013) rated practice testing and distributed practice as the two high-utility techniques, and interleaving as moderate. The IES practice guide (Pashler and colleagues, 2007) recommends spacing learning over time, quizzing to promote learning, interleaving, and helping students judge what they know. The plan here is one way to get all four into an ordinary week. The weekly mixed set does three jobs at once: it is retrieval, it spaces every old chapter, and it mixes them.
The evidence is about groups of students and ways of spending time. A plan built from it is a good bet, not a promise about a grade.
Two sessions a week — perhaps 25 minutes on a weekday and 45 on the weekend — is enough to start. That is less time than many students spend rereading, moved to where it does more. If a week is impossible, keep the weekend mixed set and drop the weekday session; the mixed set still retrieves and spaces everything.
Use what the course gives you. End-of-chapter questions, old quizzes and problem sets can fill the mixed sets. Questions from your own notes (lesson 2) fill the rest. For a method-heavy course, a mixed set is problems with the solutions covered; for vocabulary, it is cards shuffled across units.
The predictions are what make the plan adjust itself. When a weekend's gap is large, next week's first session opens with those misses. When one chapter keeps producing misses, lesson 14's diagnosis tells you which strategy it needs — a picture with words, worked pairs, asking why. When predictions and scores come close together, you can trust your judgment about what to skip in the last week.
In autumn 2026, a fictional community-college student, Luis, has Introduction to Psychology on Mondays: chapter 1 (research methods) on September 28, chapter 2 (the brain) on October 5, chapter 3 (learning) on October 12 and chapter 4 (memory) on October 19. The midterm is on Thursday, October 22.
On September 28 he writes the plan. Tuesdays: first retrieval of Monday's chapter, 25 minutes. Saturdays: mixed sets with a predicted score — October 3 (chapter 1 alone, its first spaced review), October 10 (chapters 1 and 2), and on October 17 a full practice test on chapters 1 to 3, predicted and checked. Tuesday, October 20: first retrieval of chapter 4. Wednesday, October 21: a short check of Saturday's misses and chapter 4. On October 10 he predicted 16 of 20 and scored 11; on October 17 he predicted 15 and scored 14. His judgment had come close enough to trust when he chose what the last two sessions were for.
"I'll start reviewing a week before the exam." Then there is no room for gaps, and every chapter is massed into one week.
"Each weekend should cover this week's chapter." Covering only the newest chapter is blocked practice; the mixed set has to reach back to every chapter so far.
"A plan has to be long to work." Two sessions a week, kept, beat a four-session plan abandoned in week two.
"Once it is written, the plan is fixed." The predictions and misses are there to change it, every week.
Mark the fixed dates on a calendar.
Lectures: Mon Sep 28, Oct 5, Oct 12, Oct 19. Midterm: Thu Oct 22.
The fixed dates anchor every session, as in lesson 4.
Put a first retrieval the day after each lecture.
Tue Sep 29, Oct 6, Oct 13, Oct 20: that week's question list, notes shut
The day after is soon enough to recover most of a lecture, and it writes the questions the weekends will reuse.
Put a mixed set on each weekend.
Sat Oct 3: ch 1. Sat Oct 10: ch 1 and 2. Sat Oct 17: ch 1 to 3.
Each Saturday reaches back to every chapter so far, which spaces and mixes them at once.
Add a prediction line to every Saturday.
Top of each set: predicted ___ of 20; scored ___; gap ___
The record is what lets the plan steer itself.
Take a full practice test five days out.
Sat Oct 17: 20 mixed questions, predicted 15, scored 14
Five days leaves room to act on what it shows.
Sort the misses by chapter and kind.
Misses: 2 from ch 2 (couldn't produce), 1 from ch 3 (wrong method), 3 more from ch 1
Lesson 14's diagnosis turns the misses into a strategy.
Give the remaining sessions to the misses.
Tue Oct 20: ch 4 first retrieval + ch 1 misses. Wed Oct 21: all misses again + ch 4.
The last sessions go to what the evidence says is weakest.
Keep the day before short.
Wed Oct 21: 30 minutes, then stop
A short check, not a cram, and sleep before the exam.
Mark the fixed dates.
Your lectures or units, and the exam date, on one calendar page
Everything else is placed around these.
Place the weekly rhythm.
A first retrieval the day after each lecture; a mixed set each weekend with a predicted score
Two sessions a week that retrieve, space, mix and predict.
Place the last week.
A fictional student has a biology course with a lecture every Monday and an exam in five weeks. Which plan uses everything this course has taught?
A fictional student has 4 weeks until an exam. Each week holds one weekday retrieval session of 24 minutes and one Saturday mixed set of 44 minutes; the day before the exam adds one short check of 18 minutes. Complete the worked count.
Count the weekly sessions.
4 weeks × two = a sessions
Two sessions a week is small enough to keep, and it puts each chapter on the calendar more than once.
Find the minutes in the weeks.
4 × (24 + 44) = b minutes
Knowing the total in advance shows the plan fits a real week.
Add the short check.
b + 18 = c minutes in all
The last session is a short check of the misses, not a cram.
Five features of a fictional student's review plan. For each, choose the strategy it serves.
| Strategy it serves | |
|---|---|
| Question list answered notes-shut the next day | |
| Each chapter back after 4 days, then a week | |
| Saturday sets from every chapter so far | |
| Score written first on each Saturday set | |
| Rereading each chapter on Sunday night |
A fictional student's history lectures fall on October 5, 12 and 19, one chapter each. She answers each chapter's question list the day after its lecture, and reviews it 4 days after that. Fill in the October dates.
| First retrieval (October) | Review (October) | |
|---|---|---|
| Chapter 1 | ||
| Chapter 2 | ||
| Chapter 3 |
A fictional student predicts her score before each Saturday practice set of 20 questions. On the first Saturday she predicted 18 and scored 13. On the last Saturday before the exam she predicted 17 and scored 15. What was the gap each time?
First Saturday's gap: a
Last Saturday's gap: b
A fictional hotel worker is taking a three-week Spanish course for work, with a new unit of vocabulary each Monday. Fill in the kind of session for each line of her plan.
| Kind of session | |
|---|---|
| Tuesday, week 1: unit 1 | |
| Friday, week 1: unit 1 | |
| Tuesday, week 2: unit 2 | |
| Saturday, week 2: units 1 and 2 | |
| Thursday, week 3: Saturday's misses |
Lesson test: one question per skill, one attempt each, no hints. Your answers are checked when you submit.
A fictional student's introductory psychology course has a lecture each Monday — chapter 1 on September 28, chapter 2 on October 5, chapter 3 on October 12, chapter 4 on October 19 — and a midterm on Thursday, October 22. Build her plan: for each date, choose the material and the kind of session.
| Material | Kind of session | |
|---|---|---|
| Saturday, October 3 | ||
| Tuesday, October 6 | ||
| Saturday, October 10 | ||
| Saturday, October 17 | ||
| Tuesday, October 20 | ||
| Wednesday, October 21 |
You can build a review plan for a real course. Take a course you are in now, mark its lectures and exam, and write the first two weeks of the plan today. That is the end of this course. You can stop in the middle of any of this. Closing the page is the whole of stopping — your place and anything you had typed are already saved, and the lesson opens again where you left it.
12. Your turn: a plan for your own course, step 3
Practice test about five days out; misses only after it; a short check the day before
The final sessions are built from evidence, not from a feeling.