Please Note: We now have a new, improved studying tool within GoodNotes 5 - Study Sets! This feature offers everything Flashcards offers, as well as a number of fantastic improvements. To get started with Study Sets, see our help article: Getting Started with Study Sets and Smart Learn.
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If you're utilising GoodNotes 5 to enhance your studies, then the Flashcards feature is a great tool to revise with. Use content from your PDFs or write out your own questions and answers to help you retain knowledge and further your studying while using GoodNotes 5 and the study mode we employ with the Flashcards, known as Spaced Repetition. Put simply, by employing the technique to space out your learning, you can retain more information with less time. And to that end, all you need to do is do a bit of setup and let GoodNotes handle the rest.
Flashcard Quick Start
- Create a new notebook that uses one of the built-in Flashcard templates, which isn't yet available for all paper sizes. You'll need to choose GoodNotes Standard or A7 (iPhone) from the first dropdown list (Paper Size), choose Portrait from the second dropdown list (Orientation) and scroll the Essentials category all the way to the right to see the Flashcard template (the very last one in this category).
- On a new page, write the question in the top half of the page, and the answer in the bottom half. These halves respectively correspond to the Front & Back sides of a physical flashcard.
- Repeat the previous step for any other question-answer pair to form a flashcard deck.
- Open the More menu (...) in the top-right corner > Study Flashcards.
- For each flashcard, you will see the question (Front side) first. Tap the screen to show the corresponding answer (Back side).
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Once the answer is shown, indicate the difficulty of the question based on how easily you were able to recall the answer:
- Again: I did not remember the answer. I need to try again soon.
- Hard: I remembered the answer, but only with great difficulty. Note: the app will only show the option “Hard” for the second time you study the card. The idea of the spaced repetition method is that you repeat (“Again”) a card often enough until it eventually becomes “Good”.
- Good: I remembered the answer, but had to think a little.
- Easy: I remembered the answer easily.
The next time you activate Flashcard mode, GoodNotes will determine the best order in which each card is shown again in order to aid your recall. Continue to indicate the difficulties of the questions as in step 6 to help GoodNotes perfect the review order for you.
Reset learning progress
From the Flashcards screen, tap the icon in the top-right corner > Reset learning progress, and confirm.
Notes
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Flashcards mode only works when there is at least one flashcard (that is, a page in a Flashcard template) in the current notebook.
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Pages that aren't flashcards aren't shown during Flashcards mode.
Enable Flashcards functionality for any paper template
You can enable flashcards functionality for any paper in GoodNotes in these steps:
1. Go to Documents view.
2. Tap GoodNotes Menus button.
3. Tap "Notebook Templates".
4. Tap "Edit" at the paper you would like to enable flashcards functionality and tap "..." button.
5. Enable "Flashcard Template" option.
The half upper of the page is reserved for "Question" section and the half lower of the page is for "Answer".
The half upper of the page is reserved for "Question" section and the half lower of the page is for "Answer".