Flashcards from handwritten notes

1. Write the question and answer one below the other. For example: q: How many bones does an adult have? and on the line right below: a: 206. The answer has to sit directly under its question.
2. Jot down vocabulary, terms and formulas as usual. On study pages you don't need markers: house – Haus, mitosis = division of the nucleus or a² + b² = c² (Pythagoras) are recognised as study material.
3. Photograph the page. Take a photo with the Axsuro app for iPhone or Android, or upload it in the browser. Several pages work one after another.
4. Switch study mode on once. Study mode (flashcards) stays off until you want it. When Axsuro finds two or more cards on a page, it asks once whether to switch it on and make flashcards from them. Say yes, and new questions with an answer join by themselves from then on. You can also switch it on or off in Settings → Markers.
5. Learn. Under Flashcards, tap Learn on your notebook's deck. Think, flip the card, then choose Didn't know, Almost or Knew it.

A flashcard is a question with its answer right below it. The question becomes the front, the answer the back.

• Question: q:, question:, ask: or a ? at the start of the line. The German frage: and f: work too.
• Answer: a: or answer:, in German antwort:. a: only counts as a marker directly below a question.

A page from an anatomy lecture might look like this:

• q: How many bones does an adult have?
• a: 206
• ? Largest organ of the body
• answer: the skin

That is two cards. A question without an answer stays an open question under Thoughts → Questions until you answer it. Answers work on every plan, and the question then counts as answered. All markers are explained on How markers work.

Nobody puts a marker in front of every line of a vocabulary list or a lecture. You don't have to. On a study page Axsuro finds the material by itself:

• Vocabulary: house – Haus, tree – Baum become two vocabulary cards.
• Terms with a definition: mitosis = division of the nucleus
• Formulas: a² + b² = c² (Pythagoras)
• Dates: 1789 – start of the French Revolution

The first time, Axsuro shows how many cards it found on the page and asks whether to make flashcards from them. Pages you photographed earlier offer "Make flashcards". If a card was read wrongly, change it under "Show cards".

Every notebook has its own deck. One notebook per subject gives you a deck for anatomy, one for French and one for statistics without any sorting. A #project in the line lets you filter inside a deck, for example by chapter.

The decks with the most cards due come first. "Show cards" lists every card with its box, where you can edit or delete it. "+ Card" adds one by hand, and "To the page" takes you from a card back to the page it came from.

Cards and progress are yours alone, also in a notebook someone shares with you.

Axsuro follows the idea of the Leitner system: what you know comes back at growing intervals, what you don't know comes back straight away. The method is also called spaced repetition.

1. You see the question and think.
2. You flip the card (click or Space).
3. You say honestly how it went: Didn't know, Almost or Knew it (keys 1, 2 and 3 on a computer).

Knew it moves the card up one box. The five boxes come back after 1, 3, 7, 16 and 35 days. A card you didn't know comes back in ten minutes and once more in the same round. Learn goes through the cards that are due; when none are, "Go through all" runs the whole deck.

Before an exam, flipping cards is often not enough. Study mode has three tools for each deck:

• Quiz me: 3 to 15 questions on your own cards and pages, as multiple choice, fill in the blank or "Explain it back". The questions come only from your notes, and every answer shows the page it comes from. When you explain, Axsuro kindly says what worked and which points from your notes are missing. A quiz is practice; it doesn't move cards between boxes.
• Exam plan: set the day of your exam. Axsuro plans the reviews backwards so every card of the deck comes again by the day before, and tells you about how many cards are due each day. With the Axsuro app, the morning notification "Your day" counts the cards for your exam too.
• Export: a deck goes out as a text file for Anki (in Anki: File → Import, with deck, front, back and #project tags) or as a CSV for spreadsheets. Exporting your own cards works on every plan.

You learn in the browser, on a laptop, tablet or phone at app.axsuro.com. You photograph pages with the Axsuro app for iPhone and Android. The phone app doesn't have its own flashcards screen yet.

Also not possible yet: pictures on cards, importing decks (for example from Anki) and a history of your quizzes. The Anki export is a text file, not an .apkg file.

What you do get: Ask answers questions from your own notes only, with a link to the page. "What does mitosis do?" takes you straight to your lecture notes. More on how students use Axsuro is on study notes with Axsuro.

Study mode (flashcards, quizzes, exam plan) comes with Plus and up. Students and pupils get 30 % off Plus and Pro. Every new account starts with 14 days of Pro without a card, study mode included. After that the account goes back to Free, and nothing you wrote is deleted. All plans are on the pricing page.

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