Flashcard Questions

J

jan86

Member
hello,

first i want to say i love your dictionary, by far the best on the iphone. since the update i started using flashcards, but now came accross some problems i havent figured out yet:

1. how do i set the number of cards being tested? it always starts with a hundred and i would really like to just test 30 to 50.

2. is there a possibility to just review the cards i already saw or failed on? i know the review comes after a complete run but then i have to do the next run to come to the review point. i am currently using the hsk level one with like 4000 characters and would prefer to keep having review tests on the lets say first 300 then always adding new ones. i remember zdt used to test the same cards over and over again until i got them all right, can pleco do this as well?

thank you!
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Thanks!

1) You can do that through the "Max number of cards" setting at the top of the main Flashcard Testing screen - that option isn't visible for Spaced Repetition, though, since in those tests you're generally supposed to study however many cards you have due. (they're ranked by priority, though, so you can cancel one of those sessions early if you really don't have time to deal with all of those cards)

2) That actually already happens by default; see the options for "Limit # of unlearned" under http://www.pleco.com/ipmanual/flash.htm ... elsettings, but they should already be set up for you in all 3 default profiles. Basically, Pleco limits the number of cards it will show you that haven't been "learned" yet (defined by default in such a way that as soon as you answer a card correctly once, it becomes "learned") to a number you specify (normally 100 or 200 by default). It'll keep showing you the same small set of "unlearned" cards (also mixing in all of your "learned" ones) until you get them right, and as cards cease to be "unlearned" it will gradually add new ones for you.
 
J

jiacheng

榜眼
Another interesting trick for reviewing missed cards is to set up a duplicate profile that references the same scorefile, then change the card selection to fixed, Scoring type to "None". Then for the test options, select #reviewed > 0 and last answer = "incorrect". Not sure how it is on iphone, but it seems the option has changed in the WM beta version and selecting "incorrect in a row 1" seems to work.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
That's under "Record Filter" and "History Filter" on iPhone - set the former to # reviewed > 0 and the latter to "incorrect in row" 1.
 
T

tennonn8

秀才
I didn't want to multiply forum threads beyond necessity, so I thought I'd append my questions to this one, especially because my questions fit perfectly into the topic "Flashcard Questions." I hope it's OK.

Now to my questions.

1. Sorry if I'm asking something very stupid. I have used Pleco Flashcards quite intensively since I purchased Pleco for my iPad, but I've always used either "Fixed," or "Random," or "Frequency-adjusted" card selection types. A couple days ago I tried the famous "Repetition-spaced" card selection for the first time. I selected several categories of cards with about 350 cards altogether and started the session. Pleco limited the number of cards to 200. After I reviewed these 200 cards, I got the following screen:

Session Complete
[Continue]
[Continue w/o dates]
[Stop]

which perplexed me completely. I mean, I have no idea what could happen if I click "Continue w/o dates," and I don't understand with what purpose the option "Stop" is shown here? That is, I'm free to stop the session at any time (using the "X" button), so why this option is shown to me now that I have only just reviewed the first 200 cards for the first time? Isn't the purpose of "spaced repetition" to show me unlearned cards over and over again until I learn them and to squeeze in more unlearned cards along the way?

Anyway, could someone please explain to me what exactly will happen when I click all of these options? (I "froze" at that screen for the time being, which is kind of funny; of course I can try clicking these options myself, but only one at a time and it would take me too long to reach this screen again, at least without "spoiling" the scores.) I'd greatly appreciate any help!

2. The second question refers to the same session that I described above. I kind of expected the Pleco flashcard system in the "Repetition-spaced" mode to organize the cards into smaller groups for me automatically (with like, 20-30 cards in the group), let me review the cards in the first group at the beginning, and then add more unlearned cards to the current group after I have learned some of the cards in the current group. Instead, all 200 cards were simply "presented" to me one by one. I only mean to say that it's not what I expected, but I'm sure that I'm doing something wrong myself. Probably I set some wrong options. Could someone please help me to set up the Pleco flashcard system so that it behaves the way it is usually described at other web sites about "spaced repetition?" Thanks!
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
tennonn8 said:
I mean, I have no idea what could happen if I click "Continue w/o dates," and I don't understand with what purpose the option "Stop" is shown here? That is, I'm free to stop the session at any time (using the "X" button), so why this option is shown to me now that I have only just reviewed the first 200 cards for the first time? Isn't the purpose of "spaced repetition" to show me unlearned cards over and over again until I learn them and to squeeze in more unlearned cards along the way?

Anyway, could someone please explain to me what exactly will happen when I click all of these options? (I "froze" at that screen for the time being, which is kind of funny; of course I can try clicking these options myself, but only one at a time and it would take me too long to reach this screen again, at least without "spoiling" the scores.) I'd greatly appreciate any help!
Click to expand...

This is basically our way of dealing with the problem of people wanting to review more cards but not having any cards left that are actually due for review - in other words, it's for when you're in the happy situation of being fully up-to-date on your studying.

"Continue" keeps going with cards that aren't due for review yet, and treats them like the cards you just reviewed; i.e., after testing yourself on them they'll be assigned new due dates based on whether you answered them correctly or incorrectly.

"Continue w/o dates" keeps going as with "Continue," but leaves the cards' due dates untouched; they'll still come up for review again at the time they were already scheduled to come up.

"Stop" ends the session, and is probably the option you want unless you get to this point and still feel like you want to do more studying.

tennonn8 said:
2. The second question refers to the same session that I described above. I kind of expected the Pleco flashcard system in the "Repetition-spaced" mode to organize the cards into smaller groups for me automatically (with like, 20-30 cards in the group), let me review the cards in the first group at the beginning, and then add more unlearned cards to the current group after I have learned some of the cards in the current group. Instead, all 200 cards were simply "presented" to me one by one. I only mean to say that it's not what I expected, but I'm sure that I'm doing something wrong myself. Probably I set some wrong options. Could someone please help me to set up the Pleco flashcard system so that it behaves the way it is usually described at other web sites about "spaced repetition?" Thanks!
Click to expand...

Go into "Card Selection" / "Learned Cards" and set "Limit # of unlearned" "to" to a lower number to fix this; we keep it high by default since we've found that a lot of people actually prefer to study in that sort of quantity, though we're cooking up some changes for 2.3 that will make this adapt to the user more dynamically instead of having to be manually configured.
 
T

tennonn8

秀才
Thank you for your help, Mike, and for the explanations!

In fact, after I clicked "Continue", Pleco showed me 3 more cards and finished the session. Which kind of puzzled me even more... :oops: Well, it looks like there's still a lot that I don't understand about how the spaced repetition algorithm works, but I think I'll try to experiment more with Pleco, read the manual more carefully, and also read other posts on this forum that deal with this topic before asking more questions. Thanks again!
 
A

andrewjr8

秀才
Stroke order

When I go to take a stroke order test it only includes single character cards. Is there anyway to test yourself on cards that include more then one character? Thanks
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
tennonn8 said:
In fact, after I clicked "Continue", Pleco showed me 3 more cards and finished the session. Which kind of puzzled me even more... Well, it looks like there's still a lot that I don't understand about how the spaced repetition algorithm works, but I think I'll try to experiment more with Pleco, read the manual more carefully, and also read other posts on this forum that deal with this topic before asking more questions. Thanks again!
Click to expand...

Sorry about that... FWIW, that last 3 just means that there were 3 cards that weren't due yet for study, perhaps because you reviewed them more recently or because they were the only fully correct (score 6) answers in a recent test and so had farther-off due dates than the rest of the cards.

andrewjr8 said:
When I go to take a stroke order test it only includes single character cards. Is there anyway to test yourself on cards that include more then one character? Thanks
Click to expand...

Not for stroke order, no. Basically the problem is that we can't keep a "score" / track your progress for how you remember stroke order for each character on a multi-character card; our score-tracking system is tied to cards, not to their constituent characters, so if for example you knew 鱼 but not 鲸 you'd see the card for "鲸鱼" a lot and waste a whole lot of time practicing how to write 鱼 because you were trying to learn 鲸.

At some point soon (2.3 probably), though, we'll be adding an option to automatically generate single-character cards for characters appearing in multi-character cards that don't already appear in single-character cards; I believe some vocabulary lists (NPCR e.g.) already do this. But aside from that the only way to fix this would be to totally redesign the flashcard system, or to implement multi-character-word stroke order practice as a buried / "experimental" option with the current scorefile system for people who didn't mind spending time on characters they already knew well if it lets them easily practice multi-character cards.
 
A

andrewjr8

秀才
Ok thanks Mike. I just ended up making individual cards for each character :eek: Wouldnt mind the buried option though I guess . 谢谢
 
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