JimmySeal Wrote:Yeah, I realize that, but I figure it's better to play it on the safe side than have even more cards getting failed and have to start repping them from scratch again.
Crap turns out I didn't post my reply I thought I had.
Its true that when you fail a card the interval resets however the Ease on the card does not. Fails cause the ease to decrease but not reset back to some lower level.
The ease on a card determines how the interval is changed. Cards with say a 1.3 ease will result in having intervals that increase much more slowly, while a 2.4 ease card might have intervals that increase more quickly.
Example:
You add and start reviewing a new card, 植物. When you first start reviewing it's pretty easy and you consistently pass it with a 3 or 4. Eventually the interval reaches a point where its interval is 4-8 months. 5.5 months later you run in the card again, but can't recall it and you fail it. The interval resets back to 'days.' However now the ease is 2.0 so maybe now it only takes 3-4 reviews with 3's to get it back to scheduling in the 'months' range. While a card with an ease of 1.3 might require 7-8 reviews to reach the same point again. The algorithm that Anki uses takes into account that the card was easy for you to remember at first and suspects that even though you failed it, you will likely re-remember it just as easy. So as a result you won't be wasting your time on a card that only needs a handful of reviews to recall. Because of this point as well, you also aren't likely to suddenly end up with a clumping of cards to review like you seem to think. The only clumping that is going to occur is for Young cards. I suspect you get way more clumping with your method than if you actually graded using the full spectrum. In addition, when you allow the algorithm to work like its suppose to, sometimes when you fail mature card with a high ease, the algorithm won't actually entirely erase the interval like you think it does. This is why on some cards that you end up failing sometimes the button that should be "Hard" actually reads something like "Good" (i forget what it was). This is because the card was mature, and by default will push the card back out further instead of resetting back to something like 3-8 hours.
When you fail a card the ease slightly decreases but when you only pass cards at a 2, the ease doesn't really increase. The ease of a card only increases with 3 and 4 and this is why you have 2000+ cards with a 1.3 (the lowest ease possible) because through constant failures and constant 2's they have never grown. Unless your material is so critical that you can't stand to forget some of it, then I can't understand why you wouldn't want to spread some stuff out. Anki's algorithm runs on the assumption that you will forget about 10% of your mature cards. If this number is below it then you are grading yourself too liberally, if its too high (98% correct on mature) then you are grading way too conservative and increasing your time reviewing.
Your more than welcome to continue reviewing like you do, but I just think you could improve your productivity and spend your time doing other stuff, because with a reviewing system like yours you must be studying cards way more than need be.
Its okay to forget stuff!
Edited: 2012-01-15, 7:56 pm
