Learn Italian: Prendi appunti, poi ripassa lo schema. - Take notes, then review the outline.

In the informal imperative (giving commands to a single person), verbs ending in -are like ripassare take an -a ending (ripassa). However, verbs ending in -ere or -ire, like prendere, take an -i ending (prendi).

Is appunti always plural when it means "notes"?

Yes! When talking about notes taken during a class, a meeting, or for studying, Italian uses the plural masculine noun gli appunti. Here, the article is dropped just like in English because you are talking about the general action of "taking notes" rather than pointing to specific ones.

Schema ends in -a, so why does it take the masculine article lo?

Schema (outline/diagram) is one of several Italian words derived from ancient Greek that end in -a but are actually masculine (just like il problema or il sistema). Because it is masculine and starts with an "s" followed by a consonant, it requires the article lo instead of il.

Since we are learning about gerunds, how would using one here change the meaning of the sentence?