When you aren't actively studying your subjects in the Brainscape web and mobile flashcard app, our suite of general knowledge and exam prep podcasts is the perfect way to continue your learning journey, albeit more passively.

Knowledge Rehab: general knowledge podcast

From humankind’s greatest artists, authors, and architectural wonders to Earth’s monumental landmarks, capital cities, and spectra of science topics, Brainscape's Knowledge Rehab podcast will help you impress your date, win that pub quiz, and satisfy your insatiable thirst for knowledge. These questions are a complement to our more comprehensive 'Get Smarter' flashcard collection.

Find on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, and YouTube. (Or your favorite podcast player just search for it!)

Brainscape's Bar Exam Prep Podcast

Brainscape’s MBE Prep Podcast is the perfect way to study “passively”. Each episode consists of 10 questions covering core topics likely to appear on the Multistate Bar Exam or any of the U.S. state-specific exams. These questions are a complement to the more comprehensive adaptive flashcards curriculum found in Brainscape's web and mobile app.

Find on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, and YouTube. (Or your favorite podcast player just search for it!)

Wine 101 with Brainscape

Gird your loins for an epic learning journey that travels the length and breadth of the wine alphabet, from Amarone to Zinfandel, soil to the cellar, and grape to the grocery store! Your hosts are Master of Wine candidate Sarah Looper and wine writer Thea Beckman, with guests who are as nerdy about wine as we are! (Find our certified wine appreciation flashcards here.)

Find on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, and YouTube. (Or your favorite podcast player just search for it!)

Brainscape Appearances on Other Podcasts

Andrew Cohen, Brainscape's founder and CEO, is constantly appearing on other podcasts to sell the Kool-Aid on the cognitive science that can make learning so efficient (and Brainscape such a successful learning tool). Here is a selection of our favorites...

EdTech Insiders

Learning Made Efficient: The Brainscape Approach with Andrew Cohen

WYTLABS

Decoding Brainscape's Marketing Mastery: Strategies for Educational Markets

Temy, Bright Founders Talk podcast

An Experiment in E-learning

Teacher's Talk Radio

Supporting Students with Revision: The Late Show with Tom Hopkins Burke

Enrollify Podcast

Episode 212: Andrew Cohen On Successful Studying Through Spaced Repetition

Growing lean

Exploring EdTech and Cognitive Science with Andrew Cohen, CEO of Brainscape

Jason Patel's Legendary Leader

Interview with Brainscape Founder and CEO, Andrew Cohen

Language Alter Ego Podcast with Amolingua

Episode 1 in conversation with Andrew Cohen

Round two… FIGHT!

Having survived (and hopefully crushed) the WSET Diploma’s first exam on Wine Production, you’re rallying to take on its second module. This WSET D2 Business of Wine study guide will give you a suite of succulent, insider tips to be as efficient in your prep as possible and minimize the chance of nasty surprises on exam day!

At this point, odds are you have already taken the WSET D1 Wine Production exam (or will be taking it shortly). If not, here are two excellent resources that’ll bring you up to speed:

• Free WSET Diploma D1 study guide
• Brainscape’s certified WSET Diploma D1 flashcards (Made and vetted by Brainscape’s panel of wine experts and based on the official WSET Diploma D1 textbook and supplemental reading materials. Don’t forget to get our WSET D2 flashcards, too!)

This is the perfect segue into my first tip for crushing the WSET Level 4 D2 exam on the Business of Wine…

Tip # 1 - Freshen up your WSET Level 4 D1 knowledge 

The slightly complicated thing about the WSET Diploma’s D2 exam is that it requires you to have a detailed working knowledge of all the content covered in the first module (D1) and definitely in WSET Level 3 (not D3). WSET D1 on Wine Production really provides an essential foundation for what you learn in D2 and, therefore, shows up in many ways in the D2 exam, particularly as substantiation for the answers you provide.

Therefore, it’s really essential that you keep your WSET D1 knowledge up-to-date. 

The fastest and easiest way to accomplish that is to whip through these already-made WSET D1 flashcards. Brainscape’s study algorithm is designed to repeat the concepts that you struggle with—or have forgotten in the time since you originally took the exam—more often. This will help you quickly and efficiently bring your knowledge up to par while you also prepare for the WSET Level 4 D2 exam.

(The same applies to all of the WSET Diploma’s other modules, so you may as well put in the work now to permanently ingrain WSET D1 in your memory.)

Here’s an example: you may be asked to list off and explain the various costs that go into making a high-end wine.

The WSET Diploma D2 textbook does explain how winemaking choices impact the price of the final product so, yes, you could tackle and pass this question based purely on the WSET D2 textbook. BUT, if you wanted to pass the exam with merit or distinction, you’d need to exhibit a much more intricate understanding of winemaking, which is exactly what WSET Diploma D1 covers.

So, do it. Go into WSET D2 (Business) with WSET D1 (Wine Production) fresh and front-of-mind.

Here’s a free study guide for that exam, in case you’re yet to take it. And even if you have, I’d really recommend you breeze through it because it contains a ton of useful exam tips that will help you conquer D2, such as:

• Creating a detailed study schedule, as well as the free exam countdown / study planner template sheets to do that.
• Teaching what you learn. It’s called the Feynman technique and it was hands-down my favorite way to study before I discovered flashcards.
• Nailing your essay-writing skills. Like WSET D1, D2 is long answer/essay-only, which means there is nothing else to fall back on if you think you suck at writing.

So, yeah, go ahead and check out that study guide.

Tip # 2 - Don’t waste a second of your time. Study smart

Isn’t it stupid and annoying that you were never taught how to study in school? At some point, we were all just expected to know how to do it. And so what did we do? We read and re-read the textbook, made notes, colored those notes in, and then read our notes. And through all of that, we kinda just hoped that the knowledge would stick.

These exercises are the way most students study for tests and exams and yet they are incredibly inefficient. You’ve got a mountain of super granular information to remember. So you cannot afford to do what you’ve always done. It is imperative that you study smart. 

The fastest way to learn, understand, and memorize A LOT of information in a short amount of time is spaced repetition.

This is a proven cognitive science tactic that basically involves repeating concepts at the perfect time interval so that you’re reminded of them juuust as you were beginning to forget them. 

The best study tool for spaced repetition? FLASHCARDS. Particularly digital flashcards, whose delivery is controlled by a spaced repetition algorithm that’s personalized to your unique pace of learning.

If you’re a nerdy glutton for science, you can read about the science of spaced repetition here. But if you’re short on time, you can skip straight to “the good stuff” with these already-made, expert-vetted flashcards for the WSET Diploma’s complete suite of exams, including WSET D2 Business of Wine, which is what you’re here for:

• WSET D1 Flashcards: Wine Production
• WSET D2 Flashcards: Business of Wine
• WSET D3 Flashcards: Wines of the World
• WSET D4 Flashcards: Sparkling Wine
• WSET D5 Flashcards: Fortified Wine

These flashcards cover all the highest-yield concepts in the official WSET Diploma textbooks and recommended reading. Powered by spaced repetition and a blend of other cognitive science tactics, like active recall and metacognition, they are the fastest, most efficient way to remember the facts you need to know to crush the WSET Diploma exams.

Tip # 3 - Mark allocation = time allocation per question

Essay questions posed by the WSET Diploma exams can vary wildly in mark allocation, from a 5% nibble of the exam’s total score (“define a term in a sentence or two”) to a staggering 50% (“provide a thorough discourse on this topic, explaining x, y, and z”).

The guidance here is simple…

You do not have time to waste. Every minute of the exam should be allocated accordingly. To figure out how, simply use the mark allocation per question to inform how much time you spend per question. Given that you have 60 minutes to finish the WSET D2 exam:

• If a question is worth 5%, you have 3 minutes to provide 2-3 sentences’ worth of an answer;
• If a question is worth 20%, you have 12 minutes; and
• If a question is worth 50%, you have 30 minutes to provide a very detailed and robustly substantiated answer.

Mark allocation per question = time allocation = detail and thoroughness!

Pro Tip: Do not walk into any WSET Diploma exam expecting any one particular mark distribution. Just because, historically, the WSET Level 4 D2 exam has posed 4-5 questions with larger, more equally-weighted score allocations of between 20 and 50% does not mean your exam will look anything like that. It may… but there is zero guarantee.

The only thing you can and should bank on is expecting to get exam questions that require you to provide a robust and thorough analysis of the content. You’re playing in the big leagues, after all!

Tip # 4 - Pay special attention to the “command” words

Yes, m’am!

Whenever you read a WSET Diploma exam question, underline the verbs or command words, like “define”, “describe”, “explain”, or “compare”. Then, do as they tell you to do!

The command words tell you what the WSET Diploma D2 examiner is asking you to do and, therefore:

1. Exactly how you should answer the question, and
2. The level of detail you should provide.

If the question says “describe”, it’s obviously expecting you to explain a single concept in as much detail as possible. But if the question asks you to “compare”, then you’ll have to define TWO different or similar things and relate them to each other in as much detail as you can.

The take-home message here is to make sure you understand exactly what the examiners are asking you to do by explicitly identifying the command words, and then delivering on that using your extensive knowledge base.

(As I pointed out in the previous tip, also pay attention to the mark allocation because that’ll instruct you on how detailed your response should be.)

Tip # 5 - Practice your logic and reasoning skills in preparation for the WSET D2 exam

At the WSET Diploma level, you’re required to flex your logic and reasoning skills far more than in any other WSET exam to this point (level 1, 2, or 3). The extensive curriculum covered provides the essential knowledge you need: the bricks. But each question you’ll be asked in the exam will require you to “build a house” and it’ll be up to you to figure out how to arrange those bricks, using the mortar of logic and reason to achieve a completed, substantiated answer.

This is how the WSET Diploma D2 exam works: “Evaluate this scenario related to the business of wine and use reason and logic to justify your analysis.”

In other words, don’t expect to just be able to dump everything you know about a topic on the page and move on. A lot of the questions posed are open-ended, entirely subject to interpretation, and ambiguous so you’ll actively have to engage logic and reason; to infer, make leaps, and draw conclusions based on scenarios or case studies you’ve probably never encountered before.

And the key to getting good at this is by taking WSET D2 practice questions…

Tip # 6 - Practice as many WSET D2 practice questions as you can get your hands on

One of the tricky things about the WSET D2 module is that most of the course focuses on the more factual, discrete concepts relating to the business of wine. It’s only towards the end of the textbook that you begin to encounter how you should actually put these concepts into practice.

This can lull students into a false sense of confidence. You can memorize all of the key terms and definitions laid out in the WSET D2 textbook but be completely bowled over by the evaluation-style scenarios posed by the exam.

It’s not only what you know. It’s how you apply that knowledge to answering the more complex, ambiguous questions posed by the exam! And this is where practice becomes so important.

Where can you find WSET D2 practice questions? 

The Wine & Spirits Education Trust (WSET) itself! The WSET offers previous exam questions for you to practice, as well as feedback as to what makes a good, distinction-worthy essay. To access these resources:

• Log into WSET Global > 
• Diploma Student Resources Area 2024/25 > 
• Modules > 
• Scroll to Exam Guidance > 
• Select any Examiners' Report > 
• Scroll down within the report to ‘Theory Paper’.  

This is a start but since every student will be making use of these same WSET D2 practice questions, you might even consider them the bare minimum of practice. At this level, it is up to you, dear reader, to be resourceful. Google is your friend.

Speaking of which, a simple search coughs up all kinds of resources, like:

• This PDF of WSET Diploma practice questions by Kelly Liang of ‘A Thousand Glasses’.
• ‘WSET Diploma D2 Review – The Business of Wine’ by ‘The Grape Pursuit’
• ‘WSET Diploma Part 2: D2 The Business Of Wine’ by ‘Cape of Good Wine’

My advice is to cherry-pick a few and read them in your free time. In other words, do not consider them a part of your prep, or else you might sink too much time into reading blog after blog after blog.

Also, remember to treat these resources as subjective! These are posts written by other WSET Diploma candidates from the perspective of their own personal experience. What they have to say is incredibly insightful, but what works for them may not work for you.

Tip # 7 - Use the “Five P’s” to construct your answers (where relevant)

We’re now going to transition a little from study and exam technique to the frameworks you’ll be applying to all the analyses you will be doing. The first framework is encapsulated by the “Five P’s”:

1. Product
2. Price
3. People
4. Place
5. Promotion

In other words, whenever asked a question, try to construct your answer based on the “Five P’s.” Some questions you could ask yourself as you go about doing this are (borrowed from ‘The Grape Pursuit’ in ‘WSET Diploma D2 Review – The Business of Wine’):

• What are the characteristics of the product that will appeal to the target customer (people)?
•  What presentation (product) will attract the target customer?
• How does a certain factor affect the price of the wine?
• What are the people components (think: staff, customers, etc.)? 
• What are the place components (think: vineyard, cellar, store location, point of sale, etc.)?
• Where is the product placed (where does our target customer shop)? 
• What is the best way of promoting the product (how do we show its benefits)?  

Using these questions as a scaffold upon which to build your answers will prevent you from leaving any points on the table. Of course, your ability to include all “Five P’s” in your answer MUST depend on the nature of the question. In other words: keep your answers strictly relevant to the question being asked by the examiners.

Tip # 8 - Layer in SWOT analyses and PESTEL…

Two other major frameworks you’ll be expected to skillfully work with (and that come up towards the end of the WSET D2 textbook) are:

1. SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. In English: how a company can evaluate internal and external threats to their goals.
2. PESTEL: Political, Economic, Sociological, Technical, Environmental, and Legal considerations.

Both acronyms are intended to provide you with a framework upon which to perform your analyses and construct your answers. Know them. And get comfortable working with them. Just remember that you can apply these frameworks through the lens of both business AND winemaking / production (if possible and relevant). WSET D2 is the “Business of Wine” after all!

And just when you thought that 15 key terms were enough to work with, consider that you can apply a SWOT analysis to any of the Five P’s!

Consider Product X: what are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to that product? How do the PESTEL (political, economic, sociological, technical, environmental, and legal) components affect that product? What about its price? Or its place, which could be both its provenance (vineyard / cellar / producer) AND point of sale (wine merchant)?

These three frameworks (Five P’s, SWOT, and PESTEL) will give you over 100 unique scenarios you can use as inspiration to totally crush any question the WSET Diploma D2 exam throws at you.

Important: Not every combination of these frameworks will work for every single question. In fact, the vast majority won’t, which is good. It simplifies things. You’ll just need to become good at reading the question, understanding what it wants from you, quickly sorting through those combinations, and efficiently discard those that are irrelevant and out of scope.

Stay relevant, answering the specific question, and stay on target, delivering enough information to satisfy the mark allocation.

Tip # 9 - Layer in your knowledge of winemaking and production

Finally—and this adds yet another layer of complexity to the WSET Level 4 D2 exam—you’ll want to keep in mind everything you learned in WSET D1 Wine Production and definitely WSET Level 3.

This could mean evaluating:

• Products or prices in the context of viticulture (how grapes are grown) or winemaking (how wine is made). 
• How the grape growing region of a wine influences business decisions you might make to sell and promote that wine.
• The issue(s) involved in marketing still or sparkling wines through the lenses of a surplus vintage, market trends/fads, style (e.g. non-dosé sparkling wines, rosés, orange wines), or a product's scarcity (whether due to production size, a poor vintage, or reputation of a winery).
• Top markets by value and top markets by volume
• The winemaking differences between a top-quality wine compared with one that is made inexpensively for immediate consumption
• Potential problems and their potential solutions or improvements. (Potential problems could be anything from agricultural issues, changes in regulations, low consumer knowledge, or if a market is sensitive to alcohol due to religion, and finally if there are legal restrictions to the marketing of alcohol.)

Hopefully, you can now see how these more discrete, straightforward topics learned in previous modules or courses can be woven into your analyses.

A final note on studying for the WSET Diploma Business of Wine

So, there are 9 excellent tips to apply as you dive into studying and practicing for the WSET Diploma Business of Wine exam:

1. Freshen up your WSET D1 Wine Production knowledge
2. Study smart and efficiently using Brainscape’s suite of WSET Diploma flashcards:
   1. WSET D1 Flashcards: Wine Production
   2. WSET D2 Flashcards: Business of Wine
   3. WSET D3 Flashcards: Wines of the World
   4. WSET D4 Flashcards: Sparkling Wine
   5. WSET D5 Flashcards: Fortified Wine
3. Use the mark allocation to guide your time investment (and detail) per question
4. Pay close attention to the “command words” and answer the damn question
5. Hone those critical thinking and reasoning skills in preparation for the exam
6. Practice as many WSET Diploma practice questions as you can find
7. Use the “Five P’s” as a framework to construct your exam answers
8. Layer in SWOT analysis and PESTEL
9. And layer in your knowledge of wine production and viticulture!

Yes, that’s a lot. The WSET Diploma D2 is a beast of an exam that really tests your ability to juggle—and logically arrange—a great suite of frameworks and concepts.

But if you know what you’re getting into and what the examiners expect of you, you’ll have won half the battle. The rest will come down to learning the content, which you can do hyper-efficiently with Brainscape’s WSET Diploma D2 flashcards—and practice, practice, practice!

I hope this guidance helps you rise to your challenge!

Our other WSET Diploma study guides:

• How to pass the WSET 4 D1 exam on Wine Production
• How to pass the WSET Diploma D3 exam on the Wines of the World
• How to ace the WSET Diploma D4 exam on Sparkling Wines
• How to pass the WSET Diploma D5 exam on Fortified Wines

*Disclaimer: Brainscape has worked with top wine experts to supplement the official publications and preparation offered by WSET.

Gird your loins, wine lovers, because we have some basement-quivering news for you! Brainscape has published flashcards for the WSET Diploma D2 exam (Business of Wine), officially completing our collection of flashcards for the WSET Diploma’s truly enormous scope of content!

This is a huge deal and we couldn't be more excited to share the news with our audience of wine students who have been using Brainscape for years to study for wine certifications like the WSET Level 1 to 3, Court of Master Sommeliers, and more.

[Check out our free wine study guides here and YouTube interviews with top sommeliers here.]

The most comprehensive WSET® Diploma exam prep flashcards

Together with our panel of wine experts, led by the indomitable Sarah Looper, our resident wine educator and Master of Wine candidate, we’ve created the ultimate study tool—nay, weapon!—that’ll help you efficiently learn, understand, and remember the staggering amount of information tested by ALL FIVE of the WSET Diploma’s wine modules and exams:

• WSET Diploma Exam Prep D1: Wine Production
• WSET Diploma Exam Prep D2: Business of Wine
• WSET Diploma Exam Prep D3: Wines of the World
• WSET Diploma Exam Prep D4: Sparkling Wine
• WSET Diploma Exam Prep D5: Fortified Wine

With Brainscape Pro, you can get full access to all of these classes! If you don’t have Brainscape Pro, you can still add these collections to your dashboard and study some of the flashcards but you’ll want to upgrade to access “the full monty”.

WSET® Diploma exam prep that covers everything you need to know and nothing you don't

The WSET Level 4 certification is a monumental undertaking by people who love wine so much, they’re willing to dedicate years of their life to studying for the industry’s highest qualifications. (That’s you!)

With so much at stake and so much information to learn, it’s crucial to have a hyper-efficient system in place to help you retain that knowledge, and that's what Brainscape’s WSET Diploma flashcards promise:

• Thousands of flashcards with in-depth coverage of the most crucial information you need to know to take each exam with confidence.
• Fleshed-out details and explanations so that you deeply understand the information and how each fact relates to the greater tapestry of winemaking, production, and business, etc.
• Peace of mind, as we cover everything you need to know in the official WSET ® Diploma textbooks and required reading.
• A spaced repetition study algorithm that dramatically cuts your memorization time in half.
• Ongoing feedback, statistics, and visualization tools to help you track your progress.
• In-sync studying across Brainscape’s website and all your iOS and Android devices.
• Additional [FREE study guides for your WSET Diploma wine studies](https://www.brainscape.com/academy/wine/ "Wine Study Resources").

Now, with flashcard collections covering the content taught by all five WSET Diploma modules live, we can proudly say that Brainscape is the very smartest way to rise to the challenge of the WSET Diploma exams!

*Disclaimer: Brainscape has worked with top wine experts to supplement the official publications and preparation offered by WSET.

As someone who’s studying for the most intense, demanding, and butt-kicking exam of their life, nothing less than the absolute BEST study tools and bar prep resources will do. 

That’s why you’re reading this. Because you’ve asked yourself: “What’s up with Brainscape’s certified MBE flashcards? How were they made? Are they legit? Do they cover the content taught by the bar prep course I’m taking? Will they help me pass the bar exam?”

Your questions are what inspired us to write this article. It’s taken years of hard work and the ongoing input of literally hundreds of top legal educators, law grads, and bar prep tutors to create these flashcards. And we want to be transparent in our processes—from conception, creation, and vetting to ongoing, crowdsourced optimization—so that you can see for yourself that they really are the best supplementary study tool for your bar prep.

Let’s begin.

How Brainscape’s MBE flashcards are made

It all began with a team of bar exam instructors, who created a collection of flashcards based on their expertise and understanding of the high-yield concepts students need to know in order to answer the more complex questions posed by the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE).

These instructors then scoured textbooks, past exams, and materials by top bar prep courses like BarBri, Themis, Critical Pass, BarMax, Kaplan to ensure that our MBE flashcards weren't missing any of the important concepts that others were covering.

All of this was accomplished with the goal of giving law students a way to systematically learn and permanently ingrain the crushing volume of law content they need to pass the bar exam and embark upon their careers in law.

[To learn about how Brainscape streamlines and optimizes your study experience, check out 'How to study in law school using Brainscape' or watch this video...]

Release to thousands of law students for testing and feedback

We then released our initial collection of MBE flashcards to thousands of law students (our enthusiastic “guinea pigs”), who used them for their own studies, providing invaluable feedback in the process.

In addition to basic corrections (like spelling) and improving clarification, these students brought to our attention any additional high-yield concepts that consistently appeared throughout their own prep materials, but were not covered in the core Brainscape flashcards.

These crowdsourced edit suggestions were—and still are—reviewed by our content advisory team composed of educators and top students from Dartmouth, UCLA, Boston College, Columbia, SmartBar, and other leading institutions. Should a suggestion meet the approval of multiple advisors, the flashcard in question is corrected or made from scratch to cover that new concept. 

In doing so, Brainscape’s certified MBE flashcards are constantly undergoing micro-improvements to make them as relevant, efficient, and accurate as possible.

(We also continue to collect thorough ongoing feedback from our users, and you can provide yours too in our feedback survey.)

Covering the highest-yield concepts in BarBri, Themis, Kaplan, Adaptibar, BarMax, Critical Pass, & others

At first, we relentlessly collected, considered, and implemented edit suggestions and new content. Eventually, however, these suggestions slowed to a crawl, at which point we realized that our MBE flashcards must finally be hitting all of the highest-yield content taught by top bar prep courses like BarBri, Themis, Kaplan, Adaptibar, BarMax, Critical Pass, Quimbee, and others.

This became and remains a key benefit of Brainscape’s MBE flashcards: that they are an effective supplementary study tool to a wide range of popular bar prep courses. So no matter which provider you’re using—Kaplan bar prep, Critical Pass flashcards, BarMax, and many others—these bar exam flashcards will support your learning.

Today, Brainscape’s bar prep flashcards receive very few new edit suggestions and even fewer that meet the rigorous standards we have set for our existing collection. (In fact, most are now deemed invalid.) Even so, we continue to analyze every edit suggestion that comes in to ensure that these flashcards reflect the most up-to-date content taught in the top bar prep resources and materials.

Optimized for fast, efficient learning

So far, we’ve focused on how we created and vetted the content in Brainscape’s certified MBE flashcards, giving you an overview of the expertise that was involved and the community of high-level learners that helped to get—and keep—this content up-to-date.

But equally important is how we optimized this content for learning, which we did in two ways:

• Content format: We boiled down books of information into neatly organized question-and-answer pairs. We then wrote these in a way that is as easy to digest as possible, using bolded and/or italicized text, bullet points, short answers, and footnotes to ensure that you’re learning everything you need to, without any unnecessary detail.
• Content delivery: These flashcards are then delivered via a continuously fine-tuned spaced repetition algorithm that blends several cognitive learning tactics to help you ingrain and retain the information as efficiently as humanly possible. 

Essentially, we shaved every second we could off of the cognitive load for each flashcard, using all of these tactics to ensure the most immediate visual and conceptual salience possible!

[For more excellent advice on learning as fast and painlessly as possible—without burning out—read our free bar exam study guide: ‘How to study for the Bar Exam more efficiently’.]

Are Brainscape’s MBE flashcards proven to improve bar exam scores?

Look, we could try to cherry-pick data and woo you with marketing rhetoric like many of the other bar prep courses do. (“Brainscape’s certified MBE flashcards will improve your bar exam score by 37 points!”)  But that's BS. No publisher or course provider could know that stat perfectly.

We won't blow smoke up your behind just to get your money. And, realistically, we’re not gonna do a perfect double-blind longitudinal study with a control group of students who don’t use Brainscape but study for the exact same number of hours with other tools, and then invade their privacy by asking for bar exam scores later.

Instead, we’re going to refer you to what our users universally say. Check out reviews, do a little sleuthing on Reddit, or ask your classmates (many of whom will be using Brainscape). Brainscape will dramatically improve your study efficiency and your preparedness for the bar exam.

You’ll know this when you start using our MBE flashcards. And it’ll become increasingly apparent the more that you use them. And if you’re still a little skeptical, read about the decades of cognitive science research that proves all aspects of the Brainscape method.

So, are Brainscape’s MBE flashcards legit?

YES. And here’s a reminder of what you get:

• 2,620+ Flashcards that cover the highest-yield law concepts in every MBE subject, with all the fluff left out.
• Peace of mind as we’ve covered the most important concepts taught by the top bar exam courses, such as BarBri, Themis, Kaplan, Adaptibar, BarMax, and Critical Pass.
• A hyper-efficient system for learning and remembering all of the major subject areas on the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE): Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, and Torts.
• A Rapid Fire Deck to quickly test you on the fundamentals of the black letter law for each subject. 
• Over 400 flashcards enabled with online resources for deep-dive learning.
• Ongoing feedback, statistics, and visualization tools to help you track your progress.
• A carefully tailored curriculum that builds on previous concepts and guides you from definition to legal analysis.
• In-sync studying across Brainscape’s website and all your iOS and Android devices.

We hope you’re thoroughly convinced that Brainscape’s MBE flashcards are the best supplementary study tool to help you rise to the challenge of the bar exam!

Additional (free) resources for law grads studying for the bar exam

Brainscape’s “Hands-free” bar prep podcast: You can listen to this valuable series of bar prep episodes on Spotify or Apple Podcasts (wherever you listen to podcasts), or listen/watch as a series of videos on our Law YouTube Channel.

Brainscape’s Law YouTube channel: A library of video content and interviews with bar prep and legal experts on how to excel in law school, at the bar exam, and in your law career.

Brainscape’s Law Academy: A library of written law school and bar prep study guides that’ll equip you with the tools, advice, and study hacks you need to learn as efficiently as humanly possible, without burning out.

Welcome to the fastest way to learn a language 💪. Check out our resources below to help point you in the right direction – depending on your learning goals for yourself, your school, or your organization.

A Free Brainscape Mobile "Student" Account

To see what it's like as a typical student user, just download our mobile app, find a language you're interested in, and start studying using our efficient spaced repetition system.

You'll be able to find several "Brainscape-certified" foreign language packages, as well as thousands of specialized foreign language curricula created by other users and educators around the world.

A Free Brainscape "Educator" Account

(desktop recommended)

To get the most representative experience of Brainscape as an educator, we recommend creating an account on our desktop website, and choosing to "Make Flashcards". (Feel free to email yourself that URL as a reminder if you're on a mobile device right now!)

Once you're logged in, just name your class and start creating a few flashcards. You'll see how easy it is to make flashcards for any subject, share with your students, and track their study progress over time.

Brainscape for Schools

Want to give all your students the most efficient study tool on the planet, and help them build their confidence? Click here for more info about class, school, and university licenses, and to request a conversation.

Brainscape for Tutors & Resellers

Got an education business of your own? Click here to learn how Brainscape can help you (i) reach more customers, (ii) boost your students' learning, and (iii) earn more $ from your content.

Brainscape for Employee Trainers

Does your company have a lot of knowledge-intensive training content? Click here to learn about how Brainscape's adaptive flashcards can increase your eLearning ROI by improving retention and serving as an ongoing mobile reference tool.

Brainscape for Publishers & Content Partners

Do you have an established brand or reputation for expertise in a particular subject? (Particularly an exam or certification?) Click here to inquire about becoming a "certified author" and offering your content to Brainscape's audience of over 10 million registered users.

Just Contact Us!

If the above info & contact forms don't address what you're looking for, just feel free to drop us a line in our main contact form, and we'll get you connected to the right person 👊

For many moons, Brainscape learners have howled for dark mode. Now, it’s finally here on the study screen in the mobile app!

Okay, okay so dark mode has been a LONG time coming… but we’ve just been so focused on optimizing Brainscape’s study efficiency that we kinda forgot just how many of you would choose to live in a bat cave if you weren’t so afraid of catching a zootropic virus. 

We should know. We are those people!

How to Activate Dark Mode on the Study Screen:

1. Update your Brainscape app to the latest version.
2. Navigate to your Device’s Settings (not in the Brainscape app).
3. Toggle the Dark Mode switch to ON.

That's it! You're now ready to elevate your study experience to a whole new level. We can't wait for you to try it out, and let us know what you think in the Brainscape Community. (Like if you really NEED dark mode on other screens in the app or you just want to share with our team how much you appreciate this update 🥰) 

Don't fail another New Year's resolution... these flashcards will keep you on track

Great news for those of you with New Year’s resolutions…

We’ve distilled the life-changing power of a sweaty Tony Robbins hug into a collection of Personal Development flashcards, which will gently push you to improve your habits, mindset, and emotional intelligence consistently. 

Using our Smart Study feature, you can sprinkle these flashcards into your existing studies so that they pop up every now and then with a random reminder to make a micro-change or perform a micro-action that’ll benefit your personal, professional, and financial life.

New year, new you, right?

HECK YEAH!

Here’s a guaranteed chuckle…

Our gift to you: free (beautiful) daily planners…

In the spirit of the new year, we’ve put together these beautiful, totally free, and customizable class schedules, exam countdown sheets, and study planner templates. Follow the instructions in the link to make your own customizable copy and have all the fun capturing and tracking your daily goals, priorities, and deadlines. No strings attached. Just free stuff. You’re welcome.

Say hi to Brainscape’s Director of Content, Natasha Schön:

If sunshine were personified, its name would be Natasha. Natasha is the queen behind the categorization, organization, and creation of flashcard content in the Knowledge Genome. You know the 'Get Smarter' flashcards that came for free with your Brainscape account? Yeah, that’s her baby!

While Natasha’s focus is locked on making Brainscape the world’s foremost knowledge repository, she’s actually more footloose than Kevin Bacon. An irrepressible digital nomad at heart, Natasha has worked her magic for Brainscape from literally hundreds of coffee shops and work communes in over 12 different countries. (I once even had a meeting with her on a bus.)

Natasha has just three criteria for a good home: space to spread out her yoga mat, good matcha, and a strong wifi signal!

Our favorite place to hang out: the Brainscape Community

You know Thea? She’s a real person! In fact, she is (I am) writing this very email as we speak! Also: Natasha, Courtney, and Andy? Real people. You’ve seen their names in your inbox countless times and now we want you to hop into the Brainscape Community on Discord and talk to us in person!

Here, you can also chat with other self-motivated learners who are studying exactly the same subjects as you; boss us around by telling us how we can improve; and receive free training on learning as efficiently as humanly possible. What’s not to love? Join the Brainscape Community today!

Coming soon…

• Easier, faster flashcard creation using AI
• Better understand your study behaviors and trends with even more learning stats, available in the app
• Earn achievements to keep you more motivated
• Request more features in the Brainscape community (after you’ve joined with the link above ⬆️)
• Web study algorithm updates

This year, the Brainscape team unleashed a veritable tsunami of fresh features and content upon the world, from a whole new editor that revolutionized the flashcard creation process, to an ambitious (and totally free) collection of general knowledge flashcards that could single-handedly make you the smartest person in any room (except perhaps NASA’s rec room).

We also, finally, added the features you’ve been begging for: 

• Study reminders
• Free imports/exports
• Learners tab metrics
• Mobile algorithm updates that make learning as fast and painless as possible. 

It’s been one heckuva year and we’re beyond pleased at how far we’ve come. But we couldn’t have done it without all of YOU. So, thank you for entrusting your learning journey with us. We can’t wait to see where it takes you—and us—in 2024! 

New (or Trending) certified class you should know about: Multiplication Tables 

We know, we know… it’s about time we unleashed an optimized set of flashcards for memorizing multiplication tables! After all, flashcards are, like, the perfect vehicle for banking your sums in literally HALF the time it would otherwise take. So this collection is a little overdue but it’s here and it’s awesome: neatly organized so you—or your kids or students if you’re a parent or teacher—can crush those number milestones from 1’s, 2’s, and 3’s all the way to 25! 

(And don’t forget to download these free multiplication tables to print for school and college!)

Latest social media highlights

YouTube: Combat seasonal-induced insomnia, thanks to too much festive feasting and that heated political debate you had with your idiot uncle.

Social media: Check out Brainscape’s greatest hits of 2023!

Academy: Tis the season for finals! Here’s how to use exam stress to IMPROVE performance and prevent burnout.

The people of Brainscape: Jake Foraker

Meet Jake, Brainscape’s lead mobile engineer and a total devotee of the Brainscape user, absorbing feedback and using it to fuel our latest and greatest mobile improvements and features.

When asked about his proudest Brainscape accomplishment, Jake totally name-dropped Smart Study, probably one of academia’s biggest innovations since lined paper (jk). “It was a collaborative effort and we believe it’s a feature that has positively impacted how users approach learning. We are very proud of it.” Did I mention that Jake is humble?

In between superhuman bouts of mobile engineering, Jake pops squats and does stretches at his work desk to “keep things lively and helps me stay on top of my game.” It’s his go-to productivity hack! But his favorite party trick is another story: Jake moonlights as a DJ, spinning tunes for fun and good vibes. Somehow we find that completely unsurprising.

Here’s a good vibe from Jake: “Behind the scenes, the Brainscape team is committed to continuous improvement, user feedback, and creating an awesome user experience.”

You’re the best, Jake!

Our favorite place to hang out: the Brainscape Community

You know Thea? She’s a real person! In fact, she is (I am) writing this very email as we speak! Also: Natasha, Courtney, and Andy? Real people. You’ve seen their names in your inbox countless times and now we want you to hop into the Brainscape Community on Discord and talk to us in person!

Here, you can also chat with other self-motivated learners who are studying exactly the same subjects as you; boss us around by telling us how we can improve; and receive free training on learning as efficiently as humanly possible. What’s not to love? Join the Brainscape Community today!

Coming soon…

• Easier, faster flashcard creation using AI
• Better understand your study behaviors and trends with even more learning stats, available in the app
• Earn achievements to keep you more motivated
• Request more features in the Brainscape community (after you’ve joined with the link above ⬆️)
• Web study algorithm updates
• Free study planner and exam countdown templates to keep you focused, organized, and on track to crush your studies!

As someone who’s taken on the Herculean task of passing the WSET’s Diploma of wine program, you’re now facing the summit of your undertaking. Affectionately dubbed the “Mother-of-all exams” by some wine nerds, the WSET Diploma’s third module (D3) on the principal still wines of the world is the Olympus Mons of the WSET solar system, making the other modules look like mildly inflamed pimples in comparison.

To hike this beast, you’re going to need a full rucksack of study tips and resources so that your approach can be as efficient and effective as possible, but also fun because you chose this direction for a reason: for the love of wine. This WSET D3 study guide delivers on those needs with all the insider’s study tips you need to skip the unnecessary learning curves and have every minute of studying paying triple dividends!

Hi! We’re Brainscape

We’re the brains, minds, and hearts behind the world’s smartest app for learning about wine. We’ve brought together some of the most accomplished people in the realm of wine, wine education, and WSET test prep to compile a comprehensive collection of study guides and digital flashcards for the WSET Diploma exams: 

• WSET D1: Wine Production
• WSET D2: Business of Wine
• WSET D3: World of Wine
• WSET D4: Sparkling Wine
• WSET D5: Fortified Wine

Together with Master of Wine candidate, Advanced Sommelier, and wine educator Sarah Looper, we’ve distilled each of these modules’ curricula into collections of flashcards that cover all of the facts you need to know to pass the exams. Considering the size of these curricula, this quite literally saves you hundreds of hours on making the flashcards yourself. Plus, we’ve formatted them for optimal learning.

Then, combined with our adaptive learning algorithm, which leverages decades of cognitive science research, you’ll be able to learn the facts 2-5 times FASTER. The WSET Diploma exams are challenging and voluminous enough: you shouldn’t be wasting your time on inefficient learning techniques.

So, now that you know a little more about Brainscape and why wine students all over the world love and trust our certified wine flashcards, let’s empty our complete rucksack of study tips and hacks for passing this truly enormous exam!

[Oh, and by the way: if you’re as geeky about wine as we are, join our Wine Community in Discord where we share our wine knowledge, food pairing tips, wine life hacks, trivia, and so much more. Also, be sure to catch Brainscape Wine on YouTube for tons of great content that is right up your vineyard! We're also on Instagram and Tiktok, so please come say hey 👋]

WSET Diploma D3 exam prep: Before you start

Tip # 1: Refresh your WSET D1 module content

The first of the WSET Diploma’s modules establishes the essential foundation for everything you’ll be learning about the still wines of the world (as well as sparkling and fortified wines in those latter modules), which is why you should begin with a refresher of the WSET D1 Wine Production content.

Understanding how wine is made—from seed to cellar and grape to grocery store—at the level of detail demanded by the WSET Diploma is crucial for establishing a powerful foundation for you to then build your knowledge of the still wines of the world.

Pro Tip: The easiest, most seamless way to complete this review is to spend a little time every day working through Brainscape’s WSET D1 flashcards so that any gaps of understanding that may have been created since you last studied that information are bridged.

Tip # 2: Create a detailed study schedule to stay on track

Of all the WSET Diploma’s modules, D3 is the most knowledge intensive and demanding in terms of memorization. To make sure you cover everything in time and avoid the awful possibility of arriving at your exam date not fully prepared and confident, it’s essential that you map out a detailed study schedule. 

(Hey, you should totally use one of Brainscape's free study planner or exam countdown templates we've made for exactly this purpose!)

Decide upon your study milestones so that you stay focused and on track in the months, weeks, and days leading up to the exam. This’ll also quickly alert you to when you’re falling behind, giving you a chance to adapt your schedule to compensate for time lost, whether it’s because a topic took you longer than anticipated or you had to take a half-day off because, oops, there wasn’t a spittoon at the wine tasting.

Pro Tip: Cushion your study schedule with plenty of extra days here and there to account for the above-mentioned circumstances.

Tip # 3: Strictly stick to the content covered by the WSET

While you may be seduced into reading external resources out of interest or, perhaps, the ambition to substantiate your knowledge, don’t invest a lot of time actually ingraining/memorizing that content. You will only ever be tested on the content that comes up in the WSET textbook. (Brainscape's WSET Diploma flashcards focus explicitly on drilling you on this content, too.)

Time is a precious resource and considering the amount you need to learn to pass the WSET D3 Diploma exam, you can’t afford to be anything less than razor focused.

Tip # 4: Understand how the exam is structured

Going into the WSET Diploma D3 exam without knowing how it’s structured and what’s expected of you wouldn’t be your smartest move yet. You need to know where the goal posts are in order to kick for them, right?

Here are the basics…

The WSET Diploma D3 exam consists of a theory and a tasting exam held on consecutive days. (Awesome news: if you pass one and fail the other, you only have to retake the one you failed.)

The theory paper is then split into two papers:

• Paper 1 (2 hours): four open-response questions, of which you can cherry-pick three to answer for a total of 300 points (100 points per question)
• Paper 2 (1 hour, 20 minutes): three open-response questions, of which you can cherry-pick two to answer for a total of 200 points.

Please note that there are NO compulsory questions, short-form questions, or compulsory essay-format questions, although you are encouraged to write in essay format where appropriate (more advice on this later).

The tasting portion is split into two examinations and a total of 12 wines:

• Paper 1 (1 hour 30 minutes): 
  • Question 1: three wines of one common varietal
  • Question 2: three wines from one country of origin
• Paper 2  (1 hour 30 minutes): 
  • Question 3: three wines from one region of origin
  • Question 4: three unspecified wines

… all for a total of 50% of your total Diploma assessment. I know, right? No pressure.

WSET Diploma D3 study tips

Now let’s talk about the inescapable task of memorizing the truly staggering amount of information you’ll need to learn and understand about the principal still wines of the world…

Tip # 5: Use flashcards to efficiently understand & memorize the facts

This is where Brainscape’s legendary study tool and collection of WSET D3 Wines of the World flashcards will help you (1) prioritize the most important information, (2) learn and understand the facts, (3) efficiently memorize them, and (4) conveniently review anytime, anywhere, and on any device; even offline. They also save you from the incredibly arduous task of distilling the WSET textbook down into flashcards yourself.

This comprehensive collection of 2,600+ flashcards (neatly organized into 46 decks) has been created by our experienced team of wine experts led by Master of Wine candidate Sarah Looper, who has run the gauntlet of the Diploma exams herself! 

Together, we broke down the most current WSET 4 D3 curriculum into individual adaptive flashcards, which leverage the learning power of spaced repetition, metacognition, and active recall to help you absorb and permanently ingrain the facts in your brain as fast as humanly possible.

Each flashcard delivers a nugget of crucial information in the form of a question and an answer (as you’ll see in the picture above). And to ensure that you understand how that answer weaves into the greater tapestry of wine production, where applicable, footnotes provide more detailed explanations.

What happens next? You rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5 on how well you knew that particular piece of information, and this determines how frequently you’ll see that card again. It’s called spaced repetition and it’s literally how your brain is hardwired to learn information. 

By leveraging it, therefore, Brainscape’s adaptive flashcards are able to help you learn TWICE as efficiently while drilling you on your knowledge weaknesses until they become strengths. Our app won’t let you forget anything either—even those concepts you’ve rated a 5. Now and then, those flashcards will pop up to make sure that knowledge is fresh.

So, get Brainscape’s WSET 4 D3 flashcards to help you study more efficiently. And if you upgrade to Pro, you’ll get uncompromised access to ALL of our wine flashcards, including our certified collections for: 

• WSET 4 D1 (Wine Production)
• WSET D2: (Business of Wine)
• WSET 4 D4 (Sparkling Wine)
• WSET 4 D5 (Fortified Wine)

By the way, we also have wine study guides (like this one) for these modules so make sure you check ‘em out ahead of your other exams, too:

• How to pass the WSET 4 D1 exam on Wine Production
• How to pass the WSET Diploma D2 exam on the Business of Wine
• How to ace the WSET Diploma D4 exam on Sparkling Wines
• How to pass the WSET Diploma D5 exam on Fortified Wines

Tip # 6: Do NOT learn the facts in isolation!

Dry facts are not enough to do well on the WSET Diploma exams. (This is precisely why we’ve gone to great lengths to ensure that the facts our flashcards deliver also contain further explanations in the footnotes.) You need to understand how each fact relates to the greater picture.

Remember, the WSET Diploma requires skills of analysis and logical thinking. So when writing about a wine, you must be able to explain not just how this wine tastes but why, relating flavors, aromas, acidity, and alcohol to factors such as climate, soil, production methods, and so on.

Tip # 7: Use maps and other visualization techniques to ingrain the facts

Context is everything. When talking about France or Germany or Australia or South Africa or any wine region, you should be able to mentally picture a map of that region and the various mountains, rivers, lakes, and coastlines that shape its landscapes. 

The human brain learns quicker when picturing or conceptualizing things in HD. That’s why reading a textbook is probably the least effective way to actually remember information. Sure, you might learn something and remember a little bit of it but a few days later, 90% of that information would have leaked out of your ears.

Of all the visualization tools you can use, studying fine-grained regional maps to commit the various wine regions to memory (down to individual notable vineyards) is probably chief of all. In fact, many WSET Diploma students actually draw (and redraw) these maps themselves, coloring them in, and sticking them up all over their house so that the constant exposure literally carves those maps’ contours into their brains.

Pro Tip: Search for your chosen winemaking region in Google Maps and activate the “terrain” filter (top left-hand drop-down menu). Then, zoom in and explore the region’s topography, identifying how its features influence viticulture (see example below).

Tip # 8: Practice WSET Diploma D3 questions as early on in your prep as possible

By now, you should have some experience with how the WSET Diploma lays out its exams, which is helpful… but there’s much more work to be done. The more WSET Diploma D3 questions and past exams you can get your hands on, the better. Answering these is a skill in itself (and we’ll tackle some of the tips you can take into the exam with you in the next section).

The great news is that the WSET does offer previous exam questions for students to practice. They also provide feedback as to what makes a great essay. To access these resources, log into WSET Global > Diploma Student Resources Area 2023/24 > Modules > Scroll to Exam Guidance > Select any Examiners' Report > Scroll down within the report to ‘Theory Paper’.  

This is a start but since every student will be making use of these same WSET Diploma D3 questions, you might even consider them the bare minimum of practice. At this level, it is up to you dear reader to be resourceful. Google is your friend.

Speaking of which, a simple search coughs up all kinds of resources, like this PDF of WSET Diploma practice questions by Kelly Liang of ‘A Thousand Glasses’. There’s also a ton of other advice articles by people who’ve walked the same path you’re walking, for example:

• Top Tips for Passing WSET Diploma D3 Wines of the World by ‘How2EnjoyWine’
• WSET Diploma: How to survive D3 without losing your mind (completely) by ‘Vignette Wine’
• How to Prepare for the WSET Diploma D3 Exam by ‘The Grape Pursuit’

Our advice is to cherry pick a few and read them in your free time. In other words: do not consider them a part of your prep or else you might sink too much time into reading blog after blog after blog. 

Also, remember to treat these resources as subjective! These are posts written by other WSET Diploma candidates from the perspective of their own personal experience. What they have to say is incredibly helpful but what works for them may not work for you. Just bear that in mind.

Tip # 9: Join a study group with other WSET Diploma candidates

When it comes to the memory-intensive work of ingraining the WSET Diploma content into your brain, solo study is without peer. It’s nearly impossible to work at deeply internalizing the facts when there are people around you. However, there is most certainly a time and place for group study—particularly during WSET Diploma D3 exam prep—and it can really break the monotony of solo study. 

So, gather together a few other students—no more than 5—and set up weekly meetings during which you can:

• Perform a high-level review the material covered
• Address any areas of difficulty
• Practice your wine-tasting methodology and notes

Just be sure to read this article on group study so that you’re able to squeeze maximum benefit from them. Like I said, studying in a group can be pretty distracting and counterproductive if you don’t go into your sessions well-prepared and with the right goals in mind.

Tip # 10: Memorize a wine elements grid

Make it a priority to memorize a simple grid that lays out all of the elements involved in wine production. It could look a little something like this:

Then, when the exam starts, quickly jot this grid onto a piece of paper and use it as a totally legal reference tool when you compose your responses to each question. This grid will (1) inform the structure of your responses, (2) ensure you cover every conceivable element, and (3) prevent you from leaving marks on the table.

For example, let’s say you get a question about site selection for a new vineyard. A quick look over your grid would immediately help you isolate keywords like location, heat, soil, water, nutrients, laws, and pests. Right off the bat, that’s seven coherent concerns you can discuss in your answer, which is WAY better than getting flustered and forgetting something.

Pro Tip: You can even use Brainscape to help memorize such a grid by making a flashcard that reads “What are the important factors to consider when writing about viticulture?” To which the answer would be “Land, location, water, heat, pests, soil, nutrients, ripeness, flavor, sugar, harvesting.” And then repeat that for the other three columns.

Tip # 11: Devise and lean on useful acronyms

Additionally, or alternatively to the aforementioned tip, you could memorize a suite of acronyms designed to jog your memory every time you’re faced with a particular WSET Diploma D3 exam question. Brainscape’s fearless wine educator Sarah Looper weighed in with the acronyms she engineered and memorized in order to pass her exam:

For questions about the vineyard: WESTCLIDS

Water availability

Elevation

Sunlight interception

Topography/geography

Climate

Latitude (length of growing season)

Influences (proximity to water, temperature, air flow)

Diurnal shift (yes/no?)

Soils

For questions about grape-growing options: TMHMP

Trellising / planting

Management: water, canopy, pest & disease

Harvest dates 

Mechanization vs hand-pick

Pruning

For questions about the winery: AAY FFM PMBP

Arrival -- sorting, chilling, destemming, crushing, pre-fermentation skin contact

Adjustments -- acid, tannin, sugar, deacidification

Yeast -- cultured or native

Fermentation temperature -- cool (54-61F), mid-range (63-77F), warm (70-90F)

Fermentation vessel -- inox (reductive), cement, wood (oxidative), pump overs or punchdowns

Malo -- lowers acidity, adds body and aromas and flavors

Post-fermentation soak -- extracts more tannins

Maturation -- lees, oxygen, wood

Blending -- is it typical for the region?

Packaging -- can indicate price and quality

Feel free to grab these or make up your own!

WSET Diploma D3 tips for exam day!

Tip # 12: Look after yourself to optimize your performance

At this point in your adulthood, you’ve probably learned the importance of good sleep, nutrition, hydration, and exercise. In spite of that, all it really takes to knock someone off course is a dose of good old fashioned exam stress and since the WSET Diploma D3 exam is a real doozy, you’d be forgiven for a few all-nighters and subsisting off ramen noodles and caffeine for three weeks straight.

Here’s the thing though…

Your brain is your ultimate weapon against the WSET Diploma D3 exam. And if you want to pass or—I daresay—do really well, you need your brain to be in its best possible condition. So in the weeks leading up to your exam (and DEFINITELY in the three nights prior), prioritize:

• Getting good sleep
• Eating nutritious, protein-rich foods (the more colorful your plate, the better)
• Drinking enough water
• Movement every day, even if it’s just a light walk
• Limiting alcohol consumption

If you’ve been a bit of a hopeless case in the weeks before the WSET Diploma D3, at least try your hardest to get these right the three nights prior to the exam. Trust me. You will perform so much better if your brain is well-rested, fed, and hydrated. Check out this guide for all the “tea” on caring for your noggin: Optimize your brain health for effective studying

Tip # 13: Manage your time carefully

We already mentioned in tip # 4 that the WSET Diploma D3 theory exam consists of two papers, one with three open-ended questions (2 hours) and one with two (1 hour 20 min). With a little math magic it’s clear that the examiners allocate 40 minutes per question so right there is your goal post. Keep an eye on the clock and if you don’t finish in 40 minutes, move on to the next question and try to make up a little time so you can come back to the previous one when you’re done.

Likewise, for the tasting portion, there are two papers, each 1 hour and 30 min long, covering six wines apiece. That gives you 15 minutes per wine to fully capture your tasting notes. Stay dialed in to your time allocation and you won’t have to contend with the howling disappointment of not getting through everything in time.

Two bits of advice that can help with this is to (tip # 14) know the command words so that you explicitly answer the questions without getting off track and (tip # 15) answering the easy questions first…

Tip # 14: Know the “command words” and what they require of you

In other words: answer the damn questions!

What exactly is the WSET Diploma D3 examiner asking you? Look for the command words in the questions, like “define”, “describe”, “explain”, or “compare”. These will tell you exactly how you should answer the question and the level of detail you should provide.

If the question says “describe”, it’s obviously expecting you to explain a single concept in as much detail as possible (and you can use the grid and acronyms above to guide how you lay those answers out). But if the question asks you to “compare”, then you’ll have to define TWO different or similar things and relate them to each other in as much detail as you can.

The take-home here is to make sure you understand exactly what the examiners are asking you to do by explicitly identifying the command words, and then delivering on that using your extensive knowledge base.

Tip # 15: Answer the question you’re most confident in first

As soon as the starter gun for the WSET Diploma D3 theory exam goes off, scan the four exam questions and spend no more than a couple of minutes deciding which you are the most confident in. Then, answer it first. 

Why? Because the question you find easy—easy because you know your sh*t—is likely to contribute the most points in the least amount of time to your results! Also, you’ll work out your exam jitters much quicker on a question you know you can ace. Then, by the time you tackle the harder questions, you’ll have one solid answer done, perhaps a little extra time on the clock, and your nerves thoroughly in the rearview mirror!

Don’t pass up on easy points by leaving the “easy questions” for last!

Your personal Everest, conquered

So there you have it! 15 Tips for preparing to take on the WSET Diploma D3 exam: the “Mother-of-all-exams”, your personal Mount Everest, and the Olympus Mons of the WSET solar system. Just remember that there’s no shortcut around learning, understanding, and memorizing all the WSET Diploma D3 information, so the earlier you start and the more efficiently you study, the better.

Brainscape’s WSET Diploma D3 flashcards make the theory portion easy for you because they:

• Have already broken down the entire WSET Diploma 3 (D3) curriculum into the most essential facts you need to know;
• Organize all of this information into 33 neatly labeled decks, which you can study independently or in one great mix;
• Use spaced repetition and other proven cognitive science principles (like metacognition and active recall) to help you learn more efficiently; and
• Come in an app on your phone, device, and laptop, which you can take with you any and everywhere you go, sneaking in quick study sessions in any free time you may have.

So now there’s nothing left to say except that the team here at Brainscape wishes you all the best with your studies! And when you’re ready to move onto your next module, know that Brainscape has got your back with these awesome resources:

• Flashcards for the WSET Diploma D1 on Wine Production
• Read: How to pass the WSET 4 D1 exam on Wine Production
• Flashcards the WSET Diploma D2 on the Business of Wine
• Read: How to pass the WSET Diploma D2 exam on the Business of Wine
• Flashcards for the WSET Diploma D4 on Sparkling Wine
• Read: How to ace the WSET Diploma D4 exam on Sparkling Wines
• Flashcards for the WSET Diploma D5 on Fortified Wines
• Read: How to pass the WSET Diploma D5 exam on Fortified Wines

*Disclaimer: Brainscape has worked with top wine experts to supplement the official publications and preparation offered by WSET.

Right in time for the new year, Brainscape has unleashed a suite of customizable study planners and exam countdown templates in Google Sheets that’ll help its learners easily capture their daily learning goals and priorities, and work smoothly towards their deadlines. These templates are completely free and customizable.

Excelling in any exam, no matter how big, requires students to adhere to three core tenets:

1. Start early,
2. Lay out a strategy, and
3. Study efficiently

The first, starting early, is just a matter of working back from an exam date and diarizing a start date a few weeks or months beforehand. The third, studying efficiently, involves leveraging cognitive learning tactics like spaced repetition to progress quickly through the material, which is exactly what the study app Brainscape is designed to do.

The second, lay out a strategy, is absolutely paramount to keeping learners focused and on track to cover everything well in time for their exams, without any stress or cramming. That’s what prompted Brainscape to create these easy to use Google Sheet templates, which learners can copy and use absolutely free of charge to plot their course to success.

There are five to choose from, but they fall into two broad categories: 

(1) Study or daily planners, which break each day of the week down into 15 or 30 minute intervals (customizable) and…

(2) Exam countdown planners, which allow learners to plot out the topics they need to cover in the days, weeks, and months leading up to an exam or test. These can even be used to strategically plan for major projects and dissertations.

It’s totally up to the YOU.

The page in which these free study planner templates are housed contains all the instruction learners need to create their own editable copy, which they can then change to suit their own, unique needs.

Armed with these strategic resources, together with Brainscape’s flashcards, every learner will have what they need to rise to the challenge of your next test, exam, or assignment!

Here at Brainscape, the conviction that daily habits are the stepping stones to even the loftiest of goals—like graduating from school or college, running a four-minute mile, or writing your first novel—is so deeply coded into our thinking, there isn’t a team member among us who doesn’t make use of some kind of daily planner or habit building app. Actually, come to think of it, Brainscape itself is the ultimate study habit app!

But for those of you who are looking for customizable study planners, class schedules and exam countdown templates to easily capture your daily learning goals, priorities, and deadlines, we’ve got some really pretty Google Sheet templates you can copy and use, absolutely free of charge. You’ll find them below. Simply click on the design you like the look of and it’ll open that design in Google Sheets.

But first…

How to make your very own study planner with our templates

In the section below, click on the study planner preview you like (or all of them) and you’ll be magically teleported to Google Sheets. These templates are read-only because we don’t want anyone accidentally making any edits to them duh. To create your own copy (which you can then customize):

• Click “File” and then…
• In the drop-down menu, “Make a copy” 

• Name your unique copy, and 
• Choose where you want to save it: 

Now you’ll see all the usual editing tools available to you in Google Sheets and you can start editing! If you’re still struggling, this two-minute YouTube video PERFECTLY explains how to make an editable copy of a read-only template. (Thanks Rick Bray!)

And with that said, here are our free study planner templates!

Daily / study planner template 1

Laid out in the beguiling rainbow colors of Brainscape’s confidence-based rating system, this totally customizable study planner breaks every hour of the day into 15 minutes, perfect for laying out finer-grained details of your daily commitments, classes, and goals. 

The template starts at 05:00 AM and ends at 22:30 PM but you can easily customize the start and end times based upon your own chronotype (What’s a chronotype?). This study planner can also be used as a daily schedule and is perfect for people of all ages and stages of their education or career!

Daily / study planner template 2

For those of you who love the sweet dopamine spike of checking off the items you’ve successfully completed, you’ll love this daily study planner, which has even more customizable features. Within the sheet itself, you’ll notice a few fillable fields at the top that allow you to specify the:

• Start time of your planner to coincide with your wake-up time or perhaps the time you arrive at school, college, or work, etc. It’s up to you!
• Time intervals, whether you prefer to break your day down into 15, 30, or 60-minute time slots. (Just remember to write the actual number in minutes and not hours.)
• Week start date, which’ll detail the day and date at the top of every column, saving you from having to write it out each week.

Daily / study planner template 3 (exam countdowns) 

If you’ve got a big exam coming up, these exam countdown schedules will help you break down all the work you need to do between now and your deadline. We’ve got study planners with two-week countdowns, three-week countdowns, one-month countdowns, and three-month countdowns for major exams that require a lot of time to prepare for!

A few things to remember:

1. The more specific you are with your daily study goals, the better; so make sure you detail the exact topic(s) or chapters you aim to cover each day and the specific study-related tasks you wish to accomplish, such as making notes, working through flashcards, practicing the Feynman Technique, etc.

(You might want to read this article on how to set SMART goals first!)

2. These templates are YOURS to customize! If you need more rows per day or more days in general, simply “insert row” (or copy and paste a few rows). If you need fewer, hit that “delete” button! You want your exam countdown schedule to correspond with the exact number of days you have left.
3. Make sure you schedule a couple of rest days—or at least additional cushion days—for those major exams that require long-haul study, like the MCAT or MBE. You don’t want a sick day or two to derail your entire study planner.
4. Read ‘The best 22 test-taking strategies used by top students’ to really equip yourself with the best toolbox for performing well in exams. 

Two-week exam countdown planner

Got finals coming up? Or a pretty big college test? This two-week exam countdown planner will help you plot your path towards success, even if you've got a ton of other work on your plate.

Three-week exam countdown planner

For major high school and college assessments (like finals), this three-week exam countdown planner provides the perfect study runway to send you into that exam confident and fully prepared! It's also particularly useful if you find yourself so busy, you can only really spare 30 minutes to an hour per day to study!

One-month exam countdown planner

For those big exams that require a full month to prepare—or for students who like to give themselves a longer runway with a whole lot less cramming—this one-month exam countdown planner is your template to success! (Think: NCLEX study planner)

Three-month exam countdown planner

You're not messing about here! We're talking the MCAT or even the MBE... if you've got the biggest exam of your life barrelling towards you like an Earth-bound asteroid, this three-month exam countdown planner is the emergency NASA mission that'll help you plot your path to victory!

Your next steps…

Charting out a road map toward your academic or professional goals is a powerfully motivating way to actually crush them. It gives you that 30,000-foot view over where you’re headed, which is why the team here at Brainscape is such a huge fan of using study planners, daily schedules, and exam countdown templates like the ones we’ve made for you!

Now that you’ve taken that first, essential step towards getting organized, the next thing you can do is equip yourself with a study tool that empowers you to learn TWICE as fast as the traditional study methods you may have been using until this point.

Yeah, I’m talking about adaptive digital flashcards!

Download the Brainscape app (free), head on over to our extensive library, and get the right flashcards for the subjects you’re studying. Schedule just 20-30 minutes of daily flashcard practice into your study planner, and I can just about guarantee that you’ll do better than pass your subjects and exams… you’ll crush them!

If your kids or students would rather eat a mountain of brussel sprouts than learn their multiplication tables, we have a brand new collection that’ll change everything for your math-resistant rebels…

Brainscape has officially launched these awesome multiplication tables flashcards, which kids of all ages—and even adults!—can use to drill themselves on their sums, from those required of all school students (1 to 12) to the higher tables of 13 to 25.

Because flashcards are the perfect vehicle for spaced repetition—and other key learning tactics like active recall, metacognition, and interleaving practice—they’ve proven exceptionally effective for learning multiplication table sums, empowering learners to achieve mastery in half the time it would usually take them. (Flashcards are also so much more engaging and motivating to use than staring at a sheet of paper or writing out those sums over and over again!)

Here’s one helpful tip on using these flashcards as efficiently as possible, taken from our guide ‘How to memorize multiplication tables FAST’ (make sure you give that a read):

In Brainscape, once you’ve added the Multiplication Tables flashcards to your dashboard, you’ll see all the decks laid out from 1 through 13, for school; and from 14 through 25, for students who are motivated to REALLY improve their dexterity with numbers, perhaps because they have lofty ambitions of working in science or engineering one day.

To curate which tables Brainscape quizzes your kids or students on, simply check the circles to the left-hand side of the decks from 1 through 12. Anything you haven’t checked won’t be included when you hit the blue ‘study button’.

You might go that little bit further by unchecking the decks for the multiplication tables of 1 and 10 because those might be a little too easy for their level. Or not! It’s totally up to you to curate the study experience your kids or students need.

Finally, don’t miss out on Brainscape’s free, high resolution multiplication tables print-outs, which you can stick above your kids’ desks, in their books, or even on the walls of their bedrooms or classrooms.

Armed with Brainscape’s Multiplication Tables flashcards and the other resources we’ve put together for you, your kids will have the high-octane fuel they need to rocket right past their peers and rise to their challenge!

It’s an inescapable truth: the more you’re exposed to information, the more likely you’ll be to retain it! And so, to help you totally crush the memorization of your multiplication tables, the design wizards at Brainscape put together two high-quality multiplication table sets to print and stick up wherever you’d get the most out of it: 1 to 12 (below) and 13 to 24 (keep scrolling).

Put them above your study desk at home, in your math notebook or binder, as a bookmark for your textbook, or even above your bathroom sink, where you can run through your multiplication tables while brushing your teeth! You can even have them printed on posterboard—and laminated—for your study or classroom!

(Just remember that nothing beats flashcards for learning your multiplication tables as fast as humanly possible but having these pretty posters in strategic places where you’ll see them will really help to reinforce those memories!)

Multiplication tables of 13 to 24

For those high achievers of you who want to go above and beyond your multiplication tables of 12, we've put together the next series of 12 tables for you to learn. These are also included in our Multiplication Tables flashcards so you can really drill yourself efficiently on them anytime, anywhere (more on those flashcards in a bit).

How to download Brainscape's multiplication tables to print

• Right-click the multiplication tables you want to print and select 'open in new tab'
• Click 'file' at the top of your desktop
• Select 'print' from the drop-down menu
• Select 'landscape' orientation, choose your paper size, and hit 'print'
• Make sure you select 'color' (and not black-and-white or grayscale) when printing so that you capture the color-coded elemental groups.

If you don't have a printer and/or want to print on poster-sized paper, download and save this multiplication tables sheet to a portable hard drive (like a USB stick) and take it down to your local office supplies or print shop.

You can also save it to an email, which you then send to the print store assistant when you're standing with them:

• Right-click (PC) / Use two fingers to click (Mac) the image and select 'save image to downloads'
• Open your email account
• Select 'compose' to start a new message
• Attach the image file to the email or drag-and-drop it from your download folders
• Save to drafts (it should automatically do this anyway)

Then, when you're at the print shop, ask the assistant for an email address you can send your email with the image attachment to. This will deliver the printable multiplication tables to the assistant who can then print it out exactly to your specifications.

Failing all of the above, just ask the print store assistant to Google "Brainscape printable multiplication tables" and you should find this very page you're now on! They'll know what to do from there. 

Now, for an even more effective learning tool for your multiplication tables...

How to memorize multiplication tables FAST

Because Brainscape has such an enormous base of school students using our app to learn their subjects more efficiently, we decided to put together flashcards to help you memorize your multiplication tables as quickly and painlessly as humanly possible.

In this collection, you’ll find decks for each of your multiplication tables all the way up to 25 (for those of you math geeks who can’t get enough of this kind of practice)!

The cool thing is, you can curate your own learning depending on WHAT you’d like to memorize. For instance, if you’d just like to drill yourself on your multiplication tables up to 12, simply check the decks you want to be tested on, while unchecking easy decks like 1, 2, and 10 or whatever. 

Check out ‘How to memorize multiplication tables FAST’ for all the cheat codes on using Brainscape to position yourself first in class.

Armed with these printable multiplication tables for quick reference, Brainscape's Multiplication Tables flashcards (along with flashcards for the rest of your school subjects), your learning journey in school or college will be so much faster and easier!

I’m gonna level with you.

Math sucks.

It’s hard! We all remember it from our school days—or maybe you’re still in your school days, living the struggle. (If this is the case, good for you for actually researching how to memorize multiplication tables better and faster, rather than just fighting through like most other kids!)

Anyway, like I was saying, math sucks because it’s hard. But something amazing happens when you actually understand what’s going on in class: it stops sucking and kinda becomes fun. 

So, the earlier on you—or your kids or students—get comfortable with numbers, the better. And an essential part of being awesome at math is memorizing your multiplication tables. 

Since you’re here, I’m assuming you want to do that as fast and as painlessly as humanly possible. Great, you’re in exactly the right place!

Let’s start with the most important piece of advice on how to memorize multiplication tables; and that’s by using the right tool to commit them to memory TWICE or even FIVE times as fast as any other learning or study technique you may be using…

Tip # 1 for memorizing multiplication tables: use flashcards!

I’m not going to beat around the bush here: the fastest way to memorize multiplication tables is to use flashcards. One flashcard per sum, with the question on one side and the answer on the other.

But before you bee-line for the craft closet and start making flashcards on squares of cardboard, I have a much better suggestion. (Paper flashcards are SO last century.) Download a free flashcard app like Brainscape. Not only will you save a tree, you’ll also jump your learning speed by an order of magnitude. 

Because flashcards apps like Brainscape deliver the information to your brain the way it was biologically designed to receive and remember information, thereby literally scientifically optimizing your learning.

Also, flashcard apps:

1. Make creating flashcards really fast: literally, a few seconds per card as opposed to a minute or more per paper card
2. Make finding already-made flashcards really easy, saving you the time on making them yourself. (Here’s Brainscape’s set of Multiplication Tables flashcards)
3. Are super fun to play with, using learner stats, frequent progress meters, and daily streaks to show you how quickly you’re progressing.
4. Can go with you wherever you go, empowering you to work on memorizing your multiplication tables (or study for any subject, really) no matter where you are, even offline.

So, while the other kids in your class are put-putting along through their multiplication tables, with a flashcard app like Brainscape, you’ll have the high-octane fuel you need to rocket right past them. Your teachers will love you, your parents will be impressed, and your classmates will want to know what secret sauce you’ve got stashed in your lunchbox!

You can get those premade Multiplication Tables flashcards here.

Also, don’t miss out on our free multiplication tables to print (above). Remember, the more you’re exposed to information, the quicker you’ll ingrain it in your memory; so print this resource and stick it above your desk, in your books, or even on the walls of your bedroom or classroom! (Click here to download our multiplication tables of 1 to 12 and 13 to 24.)

Tip # 2 Configure your studies to deliver on your goals

Cool, so now that you have the ultimate study tool to learn your multiplication tables faster than you and your friends can hoover down a party pack of nacho cheese Doritos, here are a couple of important tips for using them in school if you’re a student, or with your kids if you’re a parent or teacher…

Specify the multiplication tables you want to drill yourself on

In Brainscape, once you’ve added the Multiplication Tables flashcards to your dashboard, and clicked on the class, you’ll see all the decks laid out in front of you, from 1 through 13, for school; and from 14 through 25, for those of you who are motivated to REALLY improve your dexterity with numbers, maybe because you want to practice for your next math olympiad or work for NASA one day.

If you only want to drill yourself on the multiplication tables of 1 through 12—as is required by the standard school curriculum—simply check the circles to the left-hand side of the decks from 1 through 12. Anything you haven’t checked won’t be included when you hit the blue ‘study button’.

Set your multiplication tables quiz to “Random” mode

If you’re bored of moving progressively through your multiplication tables then, at the top of your class dashboard (right above the very first deck), change the setting to “Random” mode. This’ll spit a random mix of flashcards at you from all across the multiplication tables you want to memorize.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: studying this way may seem harder because it’s compelling your brain to jump around a lot, but it is, according to science, the fastest way to deeply know and remember your multiplication tables. That’s why we’d encourage you to switch to “random” mode as soon as you’re able to.

Uncheck the multiplication tables that are too easy for you

Finally, go that little bit further by unchecking the decks for the multiplication tables of 1 and 10 because those might be a little too easy at your level. Or not! It’s totally up to you to curate the study experience you want and need.

Alternatively, if you’re the parent of a young kid, you might only check decks 1, 2, and 3 because anything higher than 4 is above their current skill level. But, as your kid progresses, you can add higher and higher multiplication tables and drop out the lower ones.

Do you see how customizable this study experience is? So make sure you select which decks you want to study and Brainscape will quiz you on those multiplication tables until you have them drilled deeply in your noodle.

Tip # 3 Study your multiplication tables a little bit every day 

If you spend just 15 minutes every day practicing multiplication table quizzes or flashcards, I can just about guarantee you that you’ll be fluent within weeks and quick to the draw anytime your teacher asks you a sum.

The reason so many kids struggle with how to memorize multiplication tables is that they stare at a piece of paper with all the sums laid out, reciting them over and over again, trying to cram all those little black-and-white numbers into their heads so they can pass a math quiz the next day. Then, once the quiz is over, they'll let weeks go by without looking at their tables... and then they end up totally forgetting everything.

But if you make multiplication table practice a part of your day, every day—whether it’s 5 minutes on the school bus, 5 minutes before bed at night, or 10 minutes as part of your homework—you’ll build such a solid working memory of these sums, you’ll never, ever forget them.

Pro tip: you can set up study reminders in Brainscape, which sends you a push notification to your phone when it’s been a day since you last studied to remind you to get back to your multiplication tables flashcards, even if it’s just for 5 minutes. You can also customize the time of day you’d prefer to receive these reminders. This way, you can keep up your daily study streak and learn your multiplication tables 2-5 times faster than anyone else in your class!

Final thoughts on how to memorize multiplication tables

So there you have it: the best tips for memorizing multiplication tables FAST! 

When we first set out to write this article, we considered the enormous variety of tricks and games used by students, parents, and teachers, from mnemonic devices and visual aids to stories and colorful grids. These kinds of tools are much more fun than staring at a piece of paper with numbers scrawled on it. But they’re also more distracting from the ultimate goal of instantly recalling the answer to a multiplication table sum.

After all, do you want to have to recite a rhyme or draw out a grid before you’re able to do that? Or do you want the answer to pop into your head instantaneously? If so, smart, digital flashcards are the fastest way to get there. And this is because they’re scientifically optimized to work with your brain to help you learn so much faster than any other learning method!

Think of your brain as a sitcom with two leading actors who play roommates. There’s the organized, sock-folding, spreadsheet-loving roommate and the spontaneous, art-on-the-walls, Bob-Ross-loving roommate. And, somehow, these two unlikely friends come together equally to steer the screenplay that is YOU and your human experience on this Earth.

In this windy metaphor for your brain, the orderly, analytical roommate represents the left hemisphere of your brain and the creative, emotional roommate, the right hemisphere. (Because, indeed, your brain is divided into two hemispheres.)

Each of these hemispheres are responsible for controlling different aspects of your thinking but they come together in a synergy that is complex and symphonic. Trying to simplify the brain’s functions into left brain vs. right brain is like trying to draw a rainbow with only two crayons; however, for the sake of simplicity, I’m going to forge ahead with this characterization.

(For more advanced discourse on left brain vs. right brain functioning, kindly take the MCAT and go to medical school.)

In this article, we’ll answer in broad strokes:

• What’s the difference between the left brain vs. the right brain?
• What does it mean if you’re a left-brain person? Or right-brain dominant? 
• Is “left brained” or “right dominant” even a thing? 
• If they are, what can you do to optimize the left/right brain characteristics you’re #blessed with, while maybe overcoming some of the shortcomings?

It’s all here, and I’m glad you’re along for the ride! Let’s dive right in…

Left brain vs. right brain: What’s the difference?

The two hemispheres of your brain look very much alike but there are important differences in how they process information. This was first discovered in the 1960s by Nobel Prize-winning psychobiologist, Roger W. Sperry. According to Sperry’s (now dated) research, if you are left-brain dominant, you’re naturally gifted with:

• Logic and reasoning
• Sequencing
• Math
• Science
• Language learning and processing 
• Grammar
• Fact-based thinking

Picture a little chemistry lab filled with bespectacled, number-crunching nerd minions. The left hemisphere is the analytical, rational center of your brain. So, if you have a habit of acing your math quizzes, effortlessly dropping words in conversation that people need to Google, or trying to win arguments with your significant other by rationalizing them out of their feelings, you may be left-brain dominant.

The right hemisphere of the brain is your wellspring of creativity, imagination, spatial awareness, and recognition of people, places, and things. Here, flare jeans and flowy blouse-wearing minions flounce about cooking up new creative ideas, thinking in metaphors, and experimenting with imagination. To put it in Sperry’s words, if you are right-brain dominant, you naturally excel at:

• Using your imagination
• Holistic thinking
• Using your intuition
• Arts
• Rhythm
• Nonverbal cues
• Feelings visualization
• Daydreaming

Side note: Interestingly, the dyslexic brain is powerfully right-sided and therefore super creative, a most wonderful benefit to an otherwise frustrating condition that can make it very difficult to read, sequence tasks correctly, and recall information. Read more about how dyslexia impacts learning here.

So there you have it: left brain vs. right brain and what it means, in theory at least, to be more dominant in the other. 

By the way, did you know that each hemisphere of the brain controls the opposite side of the body AND gets information from the opposite visual field? This is why a stroke on the left side of the brain affects the right side of the body, causing symptoms like right-sided paralysis and speech and language problems.

Isn’t that nuts? 

Well, whichever divine creator’s idea that was, it was written into the biology of Earth’s vertebrates at some point in our evolution and is now an immutable fact.

How do the two sides of the brain work together?

The idea that every single person is either left-brain dominant or shows right-brain characteristics fits the human desire to package everything into discrete boxes. But think of it this way: if you’re right-handed, does that mean your left hand lies limply at your side, as useful as a shaving kit to a Wookiee?

Of course not!

Both hands play fundamental roles in dressing, eating, playing sports, smacking your siblings, and generally interacting with the world. But your right hand—if you’re like 85-90% of the Western world’s population—is typically stronger and more coordinated than your left hand: the leading actor to your left hand’s supporting role; Indiana Jones to your Short Round. Both are awesome but one takes the lead.

According to psychobiologist Roger W. Sperry, the same applies to the two hemispheres of your brain. This sticky idea was embraced until 2013, when researchers at the University of Utah threw an epic spanner in the works of the theory of right brain vs. left brain dominance. After conducting MRIs on over 1,000 people, they wrote the following:

“It has been conjectured that individuals may be left-brain dominant or right-brain dominant based on personality and cognitive style, but neuroimaging data has not provided clear evidence whether such phenotypic differences in the strength of left-dominant or right-dominant networks exist.”

Who says “conjectured”?

Anyway, the point is that these researchers didn’t find physical evidence in one side of the brain working harder or showing more development than the other. While the two brain hemispheres work differently, one side is not stronger than—or “dominant over”—the other, unless it’s damaged.

So, when someone is described as right-brain dominant, it means that they tend to see, approach, and think about the world more through the right-brain lens than the left-brain lens. What it doesn’t mean is that the other hemisphere of their brain is chilling on a beach in Ibiza while their right brain calls the shots.

Likewise, despite what some bully may have told you in middle school, neither brain size nor strength correlates to intelligence. It’s the strength of your neural connections that determines how skilled you are at a particular task or area of knowledge and—wonderful news—neural connections can be strengthened with practice! 

This is literally the whole idea behind the study app Brainscape, which uses spaced repetition to help you learn information 2-5 times faster than traditional study techniques.

Because of this, it is possible to develop your skills in either brain hemisphere.

Balancing your left brain vs. right brain thinking

So, it’s clear that the two hemispheres of the brain work just as hard as each other. It’s just that some people show more advanced neural connections in certain areas that either lie on the analytical left or the creative right side. And, like I just mentioned, neural connections are built through practice, which means that it’s within your control to develop the skills you feel you’re lacking.

Let’s say, for instance, you’re the stereotypical artistic type who’s super creative, empathetic, and imaginative… but your apartment looks like the serengeti after the wildebeest migration and you kinda wish you could get your sh*t together. Well, you CAN teach yourself to start noticing mess and disorder:

1. Put a sticky note up on the door frame of your living room or bedroom that reads: “Stop and look”. Use this as a prompt every time you leave the room to intentionally assess its condition.
2. If the bed is unmade, if there are food wrappers on the floor, if the bin is overflowing, if your desk is a total mess, and so on… FORCE yourself in that moment of exiting to clean just one thing, even if it’s just taking one dirty plate with you to the kitchen.
3. With repetition (and being strict about adhering to your new rule), the mere act of exiting the room will trigger the habit of turning around and looking for something to clean up or take with you to the kitchen.

Voila! You’ve built a habit that’ll help you keep a more orderly environment!

By the same token, sitting down at your desk to write just 500 words every single day will eventually teach you to be a better, more confident writer. And practicing a language or plucking a guitar for an hour a day will inch you towards proficiency in either, regardless of whether you think you’re left-brain- or right-brain dominant.

(For more advice on how to change your habits—and learn anything—read “How we learn: the secret to all learning & human development” or watch this video…)

Remember, it’s not a simple matter of being strongly one OR the other. Most people have skill sets controlled by both hemispheres of the brain. For instance, you might be super creative, but also analytical and organized.

Whatever the skill it is you’d like to build or the knowledge you’d like to gain, you can do so through mindful, routine practice. (And Brainscape is the perfect, scientifically optimized tool for helping you accomplish that if your goal is geared towards knowledge acquisition and learning!)

Final thoughts on the left brain vs. right brain debate 

The brain is a big squishy bowl of pink noodles with a hyper-intelligence we’re far from fully understanding. What we do know is that the left hemisphere of the brain governs more analytical, rational thought while creativity and imagination is the domain of the right hemisphere. And while both serve us in equal measure, many people have proficiencies that would seem to place them in one camp or the other: left-brain dominance or right-brain characteristics.

We now know that, from a scientific perspective, these are really just labels. Your cognitive, skill-based strengths come down to which region of the brain shows the most neural development, which can be built through practice.

There are naturally exceptions to this: neurodivergence and brain trauma can alter a person’s ability to build skills in a specific area. But assuming you’ve got a typical brain that’s also healthy, there likely isn’t a single skill you can’t get better at with enough practice, devotion, and motivation, whether your talents lie more in the left or right hemisphere of your brain!

More awesome articles like this…

If you liked this, here are some other articles from the Brainscape Academy you’ll dig:

• How to keep your New Year's Resolutions (or any goals)... FINALLY
• The Power of “Yet”: How to Unlock a Growth Mindset
• Is waking up early bullsh*t?
• How to level up your personal growth with Brainscape