College · College Success

Notes that quiz you
back.

Notes you only reread fade fast. Take them in three parts: the notes during class, questions in the margin after, and a three-sentence summary at the bottom. Then cover the notes and answer the questions out loud, a day later and a week later. The organizer tracks which answers you could not give and what to bring to office hours.

Start a lectureWhat you get
$5one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $5

Included with the Caveat Academy pass and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the College application season kit, $29 for 16 items.

Your lectures

The worked example is made up: two introductory biology lectures, one with a cue question the student could not answer and a review still to do. Notes save on this device only.

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What you get

College · College Success$5

What you finish with
A page per lecture with course, date and topic; your notes; cue questions marked got it, partly or could not; a three-sentence summary; confidence from 1 to 5; a four-step review routine; questions for office hours. Flags cues you could not answer and low confidence; counts lectures and week-later reviews per course.
Who it is for
College students in lecture courses, and high school students in AP, IB or dual enrollment classes.
Format
Browser notebook with a saved page per lecture. Prints one lecture, a table of every lecture or a blank Cornell page; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv); exports and imports a file.
Access
$5 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with the Caveat Academy pass and Whole-school licenses. Also in the College application season kit ($29) and the Caveat Suite pass ($299). Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The College Success space in Caveat College.
Support
Questions about access, an order or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. During class, take notes in short phrases and mark where you got lost.
  2. The same day, fill the gaps and write two to five cue questions.
  3. Write the three-sentence summary without looking.
  4. A week later, cover the notes and answer each cue out loud. Mark how it went.
  5. Take every “could not” to office hours or your study group.

Start a lecture

Why cue questions

Review on a schedule, from memoryLectureDay 1Week 1Examwhat you can recallEach time you answer the cues from memory, what you recall drops more slowlyafterward. Rereading feels productive; answering questions works better.Review on a schedule, from memoryClassDay 1Week 1Examwhat you can recallEach time you answer the cues frommemory, what you recall drops moreslowly afterward. Rereading feelsproductive; answering questions worksbetter.
A sketch of a well-studied pattern, not real data. Reviews spaced out over days, done by recalling rather than rereading, hold up best.

The Cornell layout

Walter Pauk’s Cornell system splits the page into a wide notes column, a narrow cue column and a summary strip at the bottom. Here the three parts are three sections of each lecture page, and the cue column becomes a list of questions you mark each time you practice.

What the research says

Two of the best-supported study habits are practice testing, which means recalling answers rather than rereading, and spacing reviews out over days instead of cramming. A large review of study techniques rated both highly; highlighting and rereading rated low.

Sources

  1. Pauk, W., and Owens, R. J. Q. How to Study in College. Cengage (the Cornell note-taking system).
  2. Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., and Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1).
  3. Roediger, H. L., and Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning. Psychological Science, 17(3).
  4. Cornell University Learning Strategies Center. The Cornell Note Taking System (lsc.cornell.edu).

The worked example is made up; check the biology against your own course. Nothing you type is sent to Caveat. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.