How to remember the Life in the UK handbook: what memory research says

Most people prepare for the Life in the UK Test by reading the handbook again and again. It feels like it works, because each reading is smoother than the last. Memory research has a less comfortable answer: that smoothness is a poor sign of what you will remember in a week.

The experiment

In 2006 the psychologists Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke gave students short texts to learn. Some read them repeatedly. Others read once and then repeatedly wrote down what they could remember.

Five minutes later the readers were ahead, and they felt more confident too. A week later the order had reversed. So the method that feels better on the day can be the worse one a week later.

Two methods with the strongest evidence

In 2013 John Dunlosky and colleagues reviewed ten popular study techniques. Only two received their highest rating:

• Practice testing: answering from memory, with questions or flashcards, rather than looking at the answer first.
• Distributed practice: spreading revision over days, rather than cramming it into one sitting.

Rereading, highlighting and writing summaries, which are probably the most common habits, were rated low. They are not useless, and you need one reading to understand the material. They just do little on their own.

One honest limit: these studies were mostly done with students and school or university material, not with this exam. They tell you which way to lean. They do not promise a score.

A plan for the handbook

The book has five chapters and our app divides it into 33 sections. A simple plan looks like this:

1. One section at a time. Read it once, carefully. Look up what you do not understand.
2. Close the book and answer. Try questions on that section before you look anything up. Getting some wrong at this stage is useful: being corrected right after a wrong answer is part of how this works.
3. Come back after a break. Return to the section a few days later without reading it first, and then again after a longer gap. If you remember it easily, make the next gap longer. If you do not, shorten it.
4. Mix things up near the end. Dates, people and places blur together. Mixed tests show you what you can really separate.
5. Sit full mock tests. 24 questions in 45 minutes, without help, in English. You need 18 correct to pass.

Book your test with this in mind. It costs £50 for each attempt, and about one sitting in four fails.

How our app uses this

The Life in the UK app is built around these two ideas. In a session you answer before you see the explanation, and what you have studied comes back days later as a new question without hints. The gaps are worked out from your own answers by FSRS, an open-source spaced repetition algorithm. Premium opens all of this without a daily limit, including mock tests and flashcards. The free version gives one session or a 10-question test a day. It is an independent app, not a Home Office product.

Sources

• Roediger, H. L., and Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255. Summary from Washington University.
• Dunlosky, J., and others (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1). Summary from the Association for Psychological Science.
• FSRS: the open-source algorithm and its documentation.
• GOV.UK — What happens at the test and the booking page: format, pass mark and fee.