EA FlashCards: Should I Use Them?

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A common question I field from students preparing for the Executive Assessment (EA) is whether flashcard use is effective for EA prep. My answer to this question has never wavered. Flashcards are an excellent tool for your EA prep.

In this article, we’ll examine the top 6 reasons why I advise all of my EA students to make and frequently use flashcards. I’ll also provide some flashcard examples, so you can see how to create and use flashcards effectively.

Flashcards are an excellent tool for your EA prep.

Here are the topics we’ll cover:

• Reason #1: Flashcards Are Helpful for Not Only for Quant But Also for Verbal
  • Don’t Forget About Verbal Flashcards
• Reason #2: Flashcards Add Flexibility to Your Routine
• Reason #3: Flashcards Can Be Used on the Go
• Reason #4: Flashcards Help Organize Your Prep
• Reason #5: You Can Adapt Your Flashcards to Your Needs
• Reason #6: Flashcards Keep You Engaged in What You’re Learning
• Key Takeaways
• What’s Next?

Reason #1: Flashcards Are Helpful for Not Only for Quant But Also for Verbal

If you’ve ever spoken with an EA student about learning EA quant, then I’m sure you’ve heard about how effective flashcards can be. After all, you must memorize many formulas and concepts to succeed on the EA. Having those formulas and concepts on flashcards allows you to study them pretty much anytime and efficiently commit them to memory.

For example, for quadratic equations, you’ll need to memorize formulas such as:

• x^2 – y^2 = (x + y)(x – y)
• (x + y)^2 = x^2 + y^2 + 2xy

For exponents, you’ll need to memorize formulas such as:

• Negative exponent rule: (x^-1) = 1/x
• The power to a power rule: (x^a)^b = x^(ab)

These are just a few examples; there are many more formulas that need memorizing. So, we can easily understand how flashcards would greatly help to memorize such formulas. However, many EA students are surprised to learn that flashcards are also very helpful for studying EA verbal.

Don’t Forget About Verbal Flashcards

Flashcards are a wonderful tool for developing quantitative skills. However, they can also be incredibly effective for verbal prep, especially for Sentence Correction questions. For example, there are countless usage rules and idioms that you must learn for the EA. Having them memorized will help with timing and accuracy come test day. Below are just a few of them:

• Between vs. among: “between” is for 2 items; “among” is for 3 or more.
• “Neither” is always singular.
• Farther vs. further: “farther” is for distance; “further” is for degree.

These are just a few examples. So, as we can see, flashcards can be just as useful for verbal study as for quant study.

Reason #2: Flashcards Add Flexibility to Your Routine

Since flashcards are customizable to each student’s unique learning demands, flashcards are a flexible study resource for EA students. For instance, some students prefer to utilize handwritten notecards, while others prefer creating and managing their flashcards with a flashcard app on their phones. Whichever route you take, ensure that your flashcards are personal to you, so you can easily use them to stay on top of your EA quant and verbal studies.

Another great aspect of using EA flashcards is that they provide a different way to study. Certainly, you’ll primarily study at your desk or kitchen table. However, as we have said many times, a great way to stay motivated when studying for the Executive Assessment is to not isolate yourself while on your EA journey.

For example, I review my flashcards with friends, family, or significant other whenever I study for standardized exams. When I studied for the GMAT, I had them quiz me on grammar rules and math formulas. It may not seem like much, but getting your friends and family involved in your prep can be pretty rewarding and help keep you on track to your EA target.

Next, let’s discuss how flashcards can be used on the go.

Reason #3: Flashcards Can Be Used on the Go

Using flashcards, you can study on the go. In other words, you can learn EA quant and verbal even when you’re not sitting at your desk! Of course, I realize that more intense studying will happen when you are on your computer using your self-study course. However, being able to fit in an extra 5 or 10 minutes of flashcard review at various points during the day will be a game-changer for you.

You can study your flashcards while waiting in line at the grocery store, during your lunch break, or even while commuting (assuming you are not driving). Put it this way: if your flashcard review allows you to study an extra 20 minutes each day, you will be able to put in an additional 20 x 7 = 140 minutes each week, which equates to about 16 hours a month!

Reason #4: Flashcards Help Organize Your Prep

As we have already discussed, using flashcards helps you learn concepts more quickly. But they also help you keep track of the topics you have and have not fully mastered.

Thus, a great way to organize your flashcards is to separate your cards into piles marked “mastered” and “not mastered.” Then you can keep tabs on your weak areas, so nothing gets lost in the shuffle.

When using flashcards, you can occasionally review the mastered pile while focusing most of your review on the not-mastered pile. In addition, if you discover that you have forgotten a particular topic, it is simple to return cards to the not-mastered pile.

Reason #5: You Can Adapt Your Flashcards to Your Needs

When you begin your EA studying, I’m sure you will have some pretty “standard” flashcards to help you with initial concepts. For example, for quant, you may have a flashcard on the pattern of units digits of numbers with a units digit of 7 that are raised to consecutive exponents, as follows:

Example Quant Flashcard:

Front of Card:

Back of Card:

The flashcard above provides the pattern of units digits when a base of 7 is raised to consecutive exponents. However, let’s say that while doing a problem set, you could not see that 7^40x produced a units digit of 1, even though you did not know the value of x. In case you are wondering, the units digit is 1 because 7 raised to a multiple of 4 exponent will always produce a units digit of 1.

Since you incorrectly answered the question for a specific reason, add the problem you missed to the original flashcard, which will now contain even more detail. The updated flashcard will now read:

Front of Card:

New Back of Card:

You now have a super-effective flashcard because it addresses both the general pattern of units digit with a base of 7 and also a specific and tricky scenario that very well could show up on your EA exam. 

Example Verbal Flashcard:

This same idea can be applied to verbal. For example, let’s say you have a flashcard on the quantity words “number” and “amount.”

Front of Card:

Back of Card:

Let’s say in the course of your studying, you incorrectly answer a question involving these quantity words because you fall for a trap that uses “amount of people” rather than “number of people.”

In such a case, you can add some detail to your flashcard to ensure you do not repeat this mistake. For instance, you can create original sentences with the correct and incorrect usages of the quantity words. You would adjust the back of your flashcard as follows:

New Back of Card:

By creating sentences using your own words, you are more likely to remember how to use those quantity words and to be aware of your previous mistake.

Reason #6: Flashcards Keep You Engaged in What You’re Learning

Passive learning will be a death blow to your EA prep. It takes time to learn all you need for the EA, and there is a lot to learn. So, you must make every minute of studying count. Flashcards can help you stay engaged and actively participate in your learning.

For example, shuffling your flashcards can add a daily or weekly challenge to your flashcard review. You can also see how many flashcards you can correctly recall before you get one wrong. In other words, flashcards allow you to gamify your learning. Doing so helps you stay engaged and even have a little fun while studying.

At the end of the day, you must do all you can to make your EA prep as enjoyable and effective as possible. Using flashcards is one way to accomplish that task.

Key Takeaways

In this blog, we have learned how flashcards can enhance preparation for the Executive Assessment. Creating flashcards is incredibly easy, and you can pinpoint facts, formulas, and concepts on your flashcards for quick study, memorization, and recall. Flashcards can be studied anytime, anywhere, making them an extremely convenient part of your test prep. And, more than any other study tool, you can personalize flashcards to meet your unique needs. They are an essential part of any good EA study plan.

What’s Next?

Check out this comprehensive article about the Executive Assessment to gain more insight into successful preparation for this challenging exam.