[andymatuschak]

> I did quantum country a while back and I sometimes needed more than an hour to get through all the questions in a single practice session.

That's very interesting! The review sessions cap at 50 questions, so that means well over a minute for each. Our design intent is that if you can't remember in a few seconds, you should mark it as forgotten, view the answer, and move on. The marginal benefit from exerting marginal effort to remember on your own from point is not high. But your comment suggests that it would be helpful for the interface to do something to suggest the tempo we have in mind. Thank you for sharing.

[ahazred8ta]

You ought to have the system detect slow progress / low success during the first 5 minutes, and then go "wait, this isn't working, try Plan B with much smaller chunks", and switch to drilling on a smaller number of questions over and over until the recall rate is high. Slogging through a long sequence of fail,fail,fail,fail does not generate enthusiasm or a sense of progress.

From your description, it sounds like, when a user flubs a question in a session and is shown the answer, you do not quickly re-test them on the same question during the session to improve recall, but just go on to other questions instead.

[cloogshicer]

That's interesting. When you can't recall a card though, and you mark it as forgotten, don't you need some time to actively memorize it again?

Like, I often had cards asking me a question, and then I'd have to think a little bit about the question, then I couldn't remember, then I look at the solution, and I have to think again about the answer, and how it relates to other concepts.

[ahazred8ta]

> I couldn't remember, then I look at the solution, and I have to think again about the answer, and how it relates to other concepts.

Yes, that's exactly how it's supposed to work the first few times you try to associate the answer with the question. Then it begins to sink in, and you can remember the answer for a few minutes after seeing it. When you've successfully remembered it several times after short-delay, then the program increases the delay. When you've successfully remembered it several times after medium-delay, then the program increases the delay again.

> don't you need some time to actively memorize it again?

The rapid repetition of asking / being shown the answer multiple times IS how you actively memorize it.

If the deck is so large it takes you an hour to get through one cycle, there are too many cards in it. Start over with a deck that takes you only 5-10 minutes, and spend an hour going through several repetitions. When your rapid-recall rate becomes high, slowly add more new cards.

[andymatuschak]

Yes, that does help a bit—elaborative processing. But it’s not something I’d consistently spend more than a few seconds per question on, generally speaking.