Apologies if this has been discussed before, but I've just switched to using Anki for Tae Kim and KO2001, and am confused about it's SRS system.

When I add a new card to Anki, I'm immediately tested and asked to score it. Problem is they're still fresh in my mind, so obviously logically I should mark it "easy/good". Problem is that would hide the card from me for another 4-6 days - a huge period for a new card which I'll probably forget by tomorrow.

Should I cheat and press "hard"? How does everyone else handle this??

aphasiac Wrote:When I add a new card to Anki, I'm immediately tested and asked to score it.

No, you are not automatically tested on new cards. You can decide when and how many new cards you want to learn. Just change your "Study Options".

aphasiac Wrote:Problem is they're still fresh in my mind, so obviously logically I should mark it "easy/good".

Go to "Deck properties" and change "Initial Hard/Good/Easy Interval" to any value you like. The default values are for not intended for studying completly new cards, but rather to keep knowledge you already have.

aphasiac Wrote:Should I cheat and press "hard"? How does everyone else handle this??

That's not cheating. There are no negative side effects as long as the card is not scheduled for more than 21 days (after this it will affect long term scheduling). For short intervals you probably know your own memory better than Anki, so make any choice you like.

Put in all your new information before you review, and then spread those cards out through your reviews. Mark the cards however you like and know that in the end, they'll even out anyway. Initially, if you think a card is going to be hard, mark it hard, otherwise, mark it according to ease.

I set all my new cards to hard unless it's a word I'm already more or less familiar with and just want to firm up my knowledge.

xaarg Wrote:

aphasiac Wrote:Problem is they're still fresh in my mind, so obviously logically I should mark it "easy/good".

Go to "Deck properties" and change "Initial Hard/Good/Easy Interval" to any value you like. The default values are for not intended for studying completly new cards, but rather to keep knowledge you already have.

This is not true at all. Why on earth would Anki have default _initial_ intervals that were not designed for learning new cards? The default intervals are designed to be sufficient for almost any learner out of the box: users with more difficult material will tend to use hard on the first correct answer, and more experienced users / users with easier material will use the higher buttons. If you want the initial 'good' to be 1-2 days, you can change the initial intervals, but pressing hard is a perfectly reasonable alternative, and it will not adversely affect the scheduling of the cards, as Anki treats them differently while they're being learnt.

resolve Wrote:Why on earth would Anki have default _initial_ intervals that were not designed for learning new cards?

I guess, because its author resolve expects the people to at least look once at the cards, e.g. while inputting them, making them not so new. There is even a graph for eases used on new cards. This makes no sense with really new cards, because you would answer 100% fail on all of them, if you see them the first time. I am not saying the default initial intervals are bad, just that they work only with the most common type of workload. Maybe my choice of words was unfortunate.

The first answer graph is useful in its own right in that it's telling you what percentage of the material you already knew on first review. Even with a pre-made deck, this may not be 100%.

As for me 'expecting' things, while I _recommend_ that people make their own decks, I'm well aware how often pre-made decks are used, and the default settings should work just as well with them. You just need to adjust which buttons you're using depending on the difficulty (be it the inherent difficulty of the material, or the amount you've seen the material before).

I always press hard the first time I see a card. This usually means you see the card again in about half a day (by default).

My normal technique is to add cards before I go to bed and don't review them till the next day. Lately, I have been doing KO2001 and before bed unsuspend 10-20 facts. The next day I usually get to them by mid-day or at worst late afternoon. By then if I grade myself as I would any other fact that I have previously seen.