Flashcards
Flashcards use spaced repetition: a card you know well comes back after days or weeks, and a card you forget comes back tomorrow. You spend your time on what you don't know yet.
A review session
- Open Flashcards and pick a subject. The list shows how many cards are due in each.
- Read the question and answer it in your head.
- Tap the card (or press Space) to see the answer.
- Grade how well you remembered it. The next review date depends on the grade.
- When nothing is left, a summary shows how many you reviewed, recalled and missed.
A card you've never seen counts as due, so a new deck starts with every card.
The grade buttons
| Button | Key | Use it when | What happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blackout | 1 | You had no idea | Back tomorrow, start again |
| Hard | 2 | You barely got it, or got it wrong | Back tomorrow, start again |
| Okay | 3 | You got it with effort | Next gap grows a little less each time |
| Good | 4 | You got it easily | Next gap grows steadily |
| Easy | 5 | It was instant | Next gap grows a little more each time |
A card you get right comes back after 1 day, then 6 days, then a longer gap each time. Graded Good every time, the gaps run 1, 6, 15, 38 and 95 days. A card is mastered once its gap reaches 21 days.
Be honest with the grades: grading a guess as Good just pushes a card you don't know further away.
Nothing due?
You're caught up. Come back later, or press Review anyway to go through the deck again. Reviewing early doesn't hurt, but the schedule only really needs you when cards are due.
Filter by topic
Each card has topic tags. Use Find a topic above the card, or tap a tag, to review only those cards; tap it again (or clear the filter) to go back to the whole deck. The app remembers your filter for each deck.
Your hardest cards
Below the session, Your hardest cards lists the cards in the deck you've forgotten most often. They're worth rewriting in your own notes. The Progress page and the exam plan also list the topics you keep forgetting across every deck.
Other things on a card
- Read aloud: the speaker buttons read the question or the answer out loud (your device's voice).
- Explain this: after flipping, open it to see the passages of the subject's ebook and summary that cover the card. See Alfond and Explain this.
How it fits the rest
Cards you review count towards your streak, today's plan, readiness and the leaderboard. If you have an account, reviews sync to your other devices. Exactly how the next date is worked out is in the developer docs.