Spaced repetition for the exam period

What is spaced repetition?

Spaced repetition means spreading your reviews out over time with growing gaps, instead of going over the same material many times in one sitting. You see a new card again after a few days; if you still know it, the next gap is a week or more, and then longer still. If you get it wrong, the card comes back soon.

The idea behind it is the forgetting curve: what you learn fades over time unless you recall it, and each successful recall slows the fading, so the next review can wait longer. The point is to stop spending time on cards you already know and spend it on the ones you are about to forget.

How does KognitiMind schedule your reviews?

1. Generate flashcards. On a document's Flashcards tab, press Generate Flashcards.
2. Open the Review page. The dashboard shows how many cards are due today and how many new ones are waiting. On a flashcard set's page, the Review button reviews only that document's cards.
3. Due cards come first. The ones that have been due longest are at the front. After them come up to twenty new cards you have never rated.
4. Recall the answer, then reveal it. Press Show answer, or the space bar.
5. Rate how well you knew it. Four buttons: Again, Hard, Good, Easy, or keys 1 to 4. Each one shows how many days it would schedule the card for.

A card becomes due at midnight, Hungarian time, on its scheduled day, so "due today" means the same thing all day. Reviewing also counts toward your study streak.

How is the next review calculated?

With a simplified version of SM-2:

• The first rating of a new card gives a fixed step: Again 1 day, Hard 2 days, Good 4 days, Easy 7 days.
• Later ratings grow the previous gap. Hard grows it a little, Good by the card's own ease factor, and Easy by more than that. The next gap is always at least one day longer than the last one and never more than a year.
• Again sends the card back to the start: it comes back tomorrow and builds its gaps up again from there.
• The ease factor changes per card: rate a card Hard often and its gaps grow more slowly; rate it Easy and they grow faster.

You do not need to remember any of this: the buttons always show the exact number of days.

What does a week of reviews look like?

Say you generate a set from a biochemistry lecture on Monday and see the cards in review for the first time. You rate the card on glycolysis Good, so it is scheduled for Friday. You cannot recall a step of the citric acid cycle, so you press Again and it comes back on Tuesday. On Tuesday you get it with some effort and press Hard, so it comes back two days later, on Thursday. On Friday the glycolysis card still goes well, you press Good, and this time the button shows ten days: two and a half times the previous four-day gap.

This is an illustration; the exact days are shown on the buttons and depend on your own ratings.

Can you use it with Anki?

Yes. Every flashcard set can be downloaded as an Anki package (.apkg) and as CSV, on every plan. The cards arrive in Anki as new, and the review history from KognitiMind does not carry over. If you decide to review in Anki, rate the cards there from then on; otherwise you will have two schedules running side by side.

How do you review well during the exam period?

• A little every day. Short, regular sessions work better than one long session a week.
• Do not add too many new cards at once. Every new card comes back as a review a few days later.
• Rate honestly. If you only half knew it, press Hard, or the card will come back too late.
• Start early. Spaced repetition pays off over weeks, so start it when the semester's material arrives, not the night before your ZH or kollokvium.