Physics Sensei questions & answers
Why Aren’t Rereading Notes and Rewatching Lectures Working for Me?
You reread your notes twice. You rewatched the lecture at 1.5x speed. By the end, everything looked familiar. You felt ready.
Then the quiz asked you to solve a problem, and it was like you’d never seen the topic.
Rereading notes and rewatching lectures feel like studying. They’re not useless. But on their own, they train the wrong thing, and they hide that from you while they do it.
What’s really going on
Think about cooking shows. You can watch a chef make the same dish ten times and follow every step. That doesn’t mean you can make it yourself. The first time you try, you find out what you didn’t notice.
Rewatching a lecture is watching someone else cook. Rereading notes is reading the recipe again. Both are useful once. But the quiz asks you to cook.
Why more rereading makes it worse
The first time you read your notes, it’s slow and a little confusing. The second time is faster. The third time feels smooth.
That smoothness feels like learning. But it mostly means the words are familiar. You haven’t gotten better at solving anything. You’ve gotten better at reading the same page.
Why it’s hard to change
Rereading is comfortable. You never get stuck, and you always finish. Trying to solve or explain without looking is uncomfortable, and you might find gaps.
But finding gaps at your desk is the whole point. Better there than on the quiz.
The fix: make your notes and videos ask you questions
Keep your notes and videos. Just stop letting them do all the work.
Try this next time you review: close and explain, pause and predict
- For notes: read one section, then close your notes.
- Explain that section out loud in about one minute, as if to a friend who missed class. Include one example.
- Open your notes and check. Whatever you left out or got wrong is what to study.
- For videos: pause right before each new step in a worked example. Predict the next step and write it down. Ask: What do I know? What’s the big idea?
- Press play and check your prediction. Every miss shows you a step to practice.
Same notes. Same videos. But now they’re testing you, not just showing you.
What changes
Your review will be slower, and you’ll get things wrong. That’s what learning feels like from the inside.
After a week or two, you’ll notice you can explain more without looking. And quiz problems will start to feel like something you’ve cooked before, not just watched.
Don’t just watch the chef. Cook.
Practice problems built for this
On Physics Sensei, every problem is solved step by step, and each one asks you to try it first before you see any steps. That makes every problem a pause-and-predict moment. Then it gives you one more like it, with new numbers. You find out right away exactly where you slipped.
Your next step: next time you review, use close and explain on one section of your notes. Then try one problem on Physics Sensei before you open the steps.
More questions about studying and grades? See them all here.
Raul, Physics Sensei
