The Stack.
The Stack is a study system. Not a single trick — a combo move made up of four techniques that work together. Like in a video game, the moves on their own are okay. Put them together in the right order and you get something powerful.
The four parts
- Test first — take a quiz before you've studied
- Test yourself — close the book and try to remember
- Space it out — review again and again, at the right times
- Use Anki — a free app that does the timing for you
You don't do these one at a time. You do them together, in a loop, every time you sit down to study.
Your brain only remembers stuff that it pulls out of memory. Not stuff that it sees go in. Pulling something out is called retrieval. It's like reaching for a toy on a high shelf — the more times you reach for it, the easier it gets.
Most studying is the opposite. You read the page. The words go in. But you never reach for them. Your brain treats them like background noise.
The Stack is built around reaching. Every step makes you reach into your memory. That's what makes it stick.
The school textbook hack
Before we look at the four parts, here's a trick that will save you hours.
Most school topics have a quiz at the end. End of the chapter. End of the worksheet. End of the BBC Bitesize page. End of the YouTube video.
Normal kids read all the content first. Then they take the quiz.
Smart kids skip straight to the quiz. They take it cold. They get half wrong.
Then they go back and study only the bits they got wrong.
Why? Because the quiz tells you exactly what matters. Why study stuff you already know? The quiz shows you the gaps.
Meet Maya
Maya is in Year 7. She's got a science test on the water cycle next Friday. Old Maya would have read the textbook chapter on Sunday night, panicked, and crammed.
New Maya uses The Stack.
| Day | What Maya does |
|---|---|
| Monday | Test First. Finds 5 questions on the water cycle. Scores 2/5. |
| Tuesday | Study the gaps. Watches a 6-minute video on the 3 things she got wrong. Makes 5 Anki cards. |
| Wednesday | Test yourself. Anki cards. 3 right, 2 wrong. |
| Thursday | Space it out. Anki shows her the same cards plus the new ones. 5 minutes. |
| Friday | One more round. Quick Anki review before school. |
Friday's test: 9 out of 10. Total study time across the week: about 40 minutes. Old Maya would have spent 2 hours cramming on Sunday night and probably scored 6.
- Find a school topic you have coming up
- Ask a grown-up to write 5 questions about it
- Take the test cold. Score it together.
- Study only the topics you got wrong (10 minutes)
- Take the same test again — watch the score jump
Your brain forgets 70% of what you learn within 24 hours if you don't review it. That's not a bug — every human brain works that way. The Stack works because it makes you review at the right times. Anki does this automatically.
The five rules you don't break
- Always test first. Even if you score zero. Especially then.
- Never re-read notes as revision. Turn them into flashcards instead.
- Do Anki every day. Five minutes is fine. Just don't skip.
- If a card keeps failing, ask a grown-up to explain. Then build a better card.
- Track your scores. Watching them go up is the best motivation there is.
Pretest. Study. Flashcard. Review. Repeat. Run the loop every session. That's the whole system.