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Quiz yourself on lecture notes

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How to turn each week of lecture notes into quick self-tests, when to quiz yourself, and how to use the results to plan your revision.

Lecture notes pile up quickly. By the middle of term, most students have dozens of pages they intend to review "later". Turning each lecture into a short quiz is a practical way to keep on top of them, because it turns revision into a five-minute task instead of an afternoon of re-reading.

Get your notes into PDF form

If you type your notes in Word, Google Docs, Notion or OneNote, export them as a PDF. Lecturers' slides and handouts are often already PDFs. Handwritten notes and photographed pages will not work yet, because they contain no selectable text. If you have a mix, the typed parts are the ones to quiz yourself on.

Keep one lecture or one topic per PDF where you can. Focused files make focused questions, and they stay well inside the 20-page limit.

When to quiz yourself

  • Within a day of the lecture: a five-question quiz checks what actually stuck.
  • At the end of each week: a ten-question quiz per lecture keeps the week fresh.
  • Before the exam: twenty-question quizzes on each topic show you where to spend your remaining revision time.

Turn results into a revision plan

After each quiz, the review screen lists every question with the right answer and a one-line explanation. Write down the topics behind the questions you missed. Those topics become your revision list. When you re-test in a few days, you should see your score climb; if it does not, that is a sign to go back to the source material or ask your lecturer.

Study with friends

Every quiz has a share link, so one person can make a quiz from the week's notes and send it to the group chat. Everyone takes the same questions, compares scores and discusses the ones that caught people out. Explaining an answer to someone else is one of the best ways to learn it yourself.

A word on accuracy

Questions are generated from the text of your notes, so they are only as accurate as the notes themselves. If you missed something in the lecture or copied a slide incorrectly, the quiz will reflect that. Treat any question that surprises you as a prompt to double-check your source, whether that is the textbook, the slides or your lecturer.

Ready to try it? Head to the quiz generator and drop in this week's notes.

Try it with your own PDF. Free, no sign-up, and your file never leaves your device.

Make a quiz

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