Do you rush your reviews?

Index » RtK Volume 1

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Reply #1 - 2008 June 08, 5:16 pm
Zarxrax Member
From: North Carolina Registered: 2008-03-24 Posts: 949

It can often take me about 2 hours to get all my cards reviewed each day, and it really burns me out. Today I was REALLY not wanting to do my reviews, but i decided to rush through them as fast as I could. To my surprise, I finished about a hundred cards in about 20 minutes, and my retention rate was about 75%-80% which isn't terribly bad for me.

What do you think of rushing through the reviews? Am I just setting myself up for failure the next time these cards come up, because I didn't thoroughly recall them?

Reply #2 - 2008 June 08, 5:28 pm
danieldesu Member
From: Raleigh Registered: 2007-07-07 Posts: 247

If you were able to write the kanji, isn't that thorough enough?  (Do you write out every kanji?)  I am actually going through RTK a second time, and I have found that my reviews are going a lot faster than they used to.  I do about 60-70 kanji in about 5-10 minutes.  I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

Edit:  I should say that I don't bother trying to relearn the ones I fail on the spot (unless it was a 'oh, duh!' type moment), I save that for later.  It definitely keeps me from burning out and I can devote more energy to problem kanji at a later time.

Last edited by danieldesu (2008 June 08, 5:31 pm)

Reply #3 - 2008 June 08, 5:58 pm
Zarxrax Member
From: North Carolina Registered: 2008-03-24 Posts: 949

Well i usually stare at the keyword for a second and think about whether I know the kanji, sometimes it takes me a little while to remember it. Then I write it out and check to make sure I wrote it properly.
Today it was more like, see the keyword and then immediately "I know it, im not writing it, WHABAM! LETS GO!" or "I dont know, *click show* ok i remember, *fail* GO GO GO"

Last edited by Zarxrax (2008 June 08, 5:59 pm)

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Reply #4 - 2008 June 08, 6:02 pm
uberstuber Member
Registered: 2007-03-27 Posts: 238

I did this for a while and it hurt me later after I had finished rtk.
If you are going to rush, at least make sure that you 'draw' the kanji in your head.

Reply #5 - 2008 June 08, 6:22 pm
suffah Member
From: New York Registered: 2006-09-14 Posts: 261

Are you talking about 100 RtK cards in 20 minutes?  5 per minute seems reasonable, but a tad bit on the fast side.

I did 120 RtK cards today (day and a half's worth) and 80 sentence cards.  I write out every Kanji.  The RtK cards were pretty quick.  The sentences take forever.

Reply #6 - 2008 June 08, 7:15 pm
stehr Member
From: california Registered: 2007-09-25 Posts: 281

Sometimes rushing through allows you to pick out the problem kanji that you don't have down to a perfect science.  In other words, often the ones you'll miss on the 3rd or 4th review.

Reply #7 - 2008 June 08, 7:42 pm
alyks Member
From: Arizona Registered: 2008-05-31 Posts: 914 Website

I just think, "Do I know this one"? If the answer is yes and I think it's solid, then I move on. It takes about a half hour to go through a couple hundred, on traditional flashcards. If it's "Yes, but it's not solid", then I move it to another pile to review again more thoroughly afterwards. These are the ones I carry around and review multiple times.

Reply #8 - 2008 June 08, 8:34 pm
lazar Member
From: Canada Registered: 2007-12-06 Posts: 103

2 HOURS?!?! woww man, how does it get so long ?? neutral I'm only around frame 400, and my reviews are about 50 per day, and I just write each kanji down once to make sure I know it 100%, and it takes 10 mins max... but yeah why 3 hours? do you study the ones you could not recall in between your review??

suffah wrote:

Are you talking about 100 RtK cards in 20 minutes?  5 per minute seems reasonable, but a tad bit on the fast side.

I did 120 RtK cards today (day and a half's worth) and 80 sentence cards.  I write out every Kanji.  The RtK cards were pretty quick.  The sentences take forever.

Wow man... how much time do you devote to learning those 120, or the 80 a day you normally learn? And what exactly do you do? think of story > write down the kanji several times > move on?

Last edited by lazar (2008 June 08, 8:35 pm)

Reply #9 - 2008 June 08, 8:52 pm
Zarxrax Member
From: North Carolina Registered: 2008-03-24 Posts: 949

lazar wrote:

2 HOURS?!?! woww man, how does it get so long ?? neutral I'm only around frame 400, and my reviews are about 50 per day, and I just write each kanji down once to make sure I know it 100%, and it takes 10 mins max... but yeah why 3 hours? do you study the ones you could not recall in between your review??

Well I get about 100-120 expired cards per day, and i also usually have about 30 failed cards from the previous day that I review, and about 30 new cards i learned the previous day to review. Also, when i fail a card, I'll usually read over it's story. I think the main thing is that with a total of something like 150 cards to review each day, it's really hard to just go straight through and not stop or get distracted.

Reply #10 - 2008 June 08, 9:42 pm
QuackingShoe Member
From: USA Registered: 2008-04-19 Posts: 721

I rush through or take it slow depending on my mood and my time constraints. I think it's better to take it slow because the time spent thinking about a kanji and finally bringing it out yourself is better for your long-term memory than giving up and seeing it again (as far as I'm aware). I also, obviously, get a higher score in these cases, but that's not really here or there aside from motivational aspects.
I believe I've read that things stuck deepest into your long term memory are actually HARDER to pull out on command, also, so...

Last edited by QuackingShoe (2008 June 08, 9:43 pm)

Reply #11 - 2008 June 08, 11:29 pm
rich_f Member
From: north carolina Registered: 2007-07-12 Posts: 1708

My reviews never take too long. Review the fail pile (it's usually under 10), review the rest, (50-70 or so a day) and then I'm done in ~20-30 minutes.

Reviewing the fail pile is easy for me-- I just bring up the fail list, and try to write out the kanji I failed. If I do, I mark it "learned," if I don't, it stays in the pile another day. I only bother with fixing stories if I have a lot of problems with a character.

Regular reviews are the same. See the keyword, write the kanji, if I don't get it, I write it out, write out the keyword underneath it, draw a big box around it, curse under my breath for forgetting such an EASY one, then move on to the next one. I don't give myself more than about a minute or so to remember it. If I don't remember it, it's not a big deal. (Okay, it irritates me, but that's more incentive to remember next time.)

Reply #12 - 2008 June 17, 5:59 pm
SineAzaroth New member
From: Japan and California Registered: 2008-06-17 Posts: 1

I draw kanji out using my fingers as its gives me an actual feel for the word when I'm too lazy to pull out the pen and pad (it reminds me of the days where I write kanji a few dozen times to get it in my short term memory).  Kanji usually happen 4 different ways, 2 successful, 2 fail...

1. either its immediate keyword associate sometimes with keywords from stories as secondary words that trail along, like remembering the mnemonic after having the answer,

2.grasping for those mnemonic keywords and recreating the story to get the word which can take a few seconds to a minute

3. drawing a blank, one one primary, or the entire keyword

4. or mismatching a keyword with another kanji

in told, i just did 30 in about 5 minutes, 100 takes about 20?

Heres a question:  How long do you wait between reviews?

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