What is Spaced Repetition?
Spaced Repetition is a learning method where you do regular, short study sessions over a longer period of time instead of cramming for hours on end. This is better for your brain because it needs time to process new information. Science has shown that forgetting information and putting in some effort to remember it is crucial for learning!
"Spaced Repetition" is our new study mode besides "Practice" and "Quiz". In comparison to those modes, Spaced Repetition uses an algorithm to determine the best time for you to review flashcards you’ve already learned, thus improving your efficiency and increasing your long-term retention.
How does Spaced Repetition in StudySmarter work?
After you have learned new flashcards, you take a break before reviewing them for the first time. If you still remember them in your first review, the time until your second review will be longer (usually around 2-3 days). This interval increases every time you review flashcards successfully.
But If you forget a card, the intervals will become shorter again!
Don’t feel bad if you forget a card! Forgetting is a normal and expected part of learning. For the algorithm to work optimally, you must sometimes forget between 10-15% of all cards.
How do I use Spaced Repetition?
You can activate Spaced Repetition Mode individually for every Study Set. Once turned on, you will first enter the learning cycle.
Learn cycle
The goal here is to learn new flashcards, which are represented by the dots in the progress bar at the top of the screen. These dots will change depending on how you rate each card:
There are four ratings for you to choose from: “Bad”, “OK”, “Good”, and “Perfect”. Decide the rating that best represents how well you know each card.
Below the rating options, you see the next time our algorithm will show you the card. In each cycle, you can only progress after all cards have been rated “Good” or “Perfect”. To increase your retention and improve your learning, you need to choose “Good” two times for a card to be considered learned:
Once a card is considered learned, it is shown as completed in a segment on the left.
After all cards are learned, the learn cycle ends and you get a summary of your learning progress. Here, you can learn more cards or stop for now.
When you stop, you return to the “Progress” view of your Study Set. Here you will now see a Spaced Repetition progress bar and two new buttons: “Learn +15” and “Review”. The bar shows you how many cards you have already learned. In the future, it will also show you how many reviews you currently have active.
The “Review” button is deactivated because your first review is still ongoing. It shows you the time interval until the next review is scheduled for you. Check back later to start the review from here.
You can also access “Learn +15” and “Review” after tapping the “Study flashcards” button in your Study Set:
If you have push notifications turned on, we will remind you on the review day. Study Sets with active reviews are highlighted with a small red badge that shows how many cards you should review:
Review cycles
On the day of a review, the “Review” button will be active, and the Spaced Repetition progress bar will show a colored segment that shows the percentage of cards you need to review.
A review can consist of multiple review cycles, each including a maximum of 15 cards (just like the learning cycle in the beginning). The goal again is to rate your knowledge of each card.
Flashcards rated with “OK” will be shown after a shorter interval than flashcards rated “Good” or “Perfect”. You can see this in the text below the buttons:
When you forget a card, you need to relearn it and start out in a relearn cycle again. That means the card is marked as red and needs to be rated “Good” or “Perfect” again a few times to be considered learned again:
Tips for how to get the most out of Spaced Repetition Mode
- Understand that forgetting is a normal part of this process. If you forget a card, the intervals will become shorter again. This saves you time because you don’t have to keep reviewing cards that you still know very well.
- Be honest with yourself. When you see a card, take your time to remember the information, and then choose the suitable rating. The algorithm uses your rating to schedule your reviews.
- Try not to learn too many new cards per day. This will hinder your ability to remember them in the future, and the algorithm will schedule a review for many of them on the same day. This will result in a review that might be too time-consuming.
- Try to stick to the scheduled review dates. This is especially important for the first few reviews. The algorithm calculates your rate of forgetting and missing the scheduled date will lead to less successful learning progress.
Do you have any questions about Spaced Repetition?
Please email support@studysmarter.de, and our support team will handle your request immediately.