Organising material

[Lost in Beijing]

Hi everyone

I've just got pleco and am trying to work out how best to organise my material on it.

I started ot by making multiple lists for my flashcards but this is now annoying me slightly as I can't remember where everything is.... So now I want to put all my flashcards into only a few lists.

My question is: is there any danger in doing this? I know the manual says that they recommend organising by chapters of texbooks etc. Is this just for convenience or is there any danger that a large wordlist will make it vulnerable to crashes/losing material. (I'm computer illiterate if this sounds like a silly question).

My second question is this: I am using the spaced repition system at the moment. I just want to make sure that I've understood this correctly..

...Say I put fifty odd words into a flashcard list managed by space repetition. Am I right in thinking that those words go to rank one, which (as a for example) is set to be tested once a day. So I go on in the morning and test myself and get some right and some wrong. If I then go on in the afternoon and test myself again it won't have any available for testing because I have done my test for that day...- is this bit right?

Assuming my cards which I get right progress to the next rank, which is tested after 3 days. Does that mean that the next day when I go on, it will only test for the ones I got wrong the day before (because they are scheduled for review everyday) and I won;t be tested on the ones that I did get right because htey are now scheduled for review every 3 days.

Then, on the third day, the cards I originally got wrong, will appear in the same flashcard pile for more testing (and will move ranks accordingly, depending on ym settings).

Have i understood this correctly? If I have, that'd very clever of the machine.

Thanks for any tips on organising material

 

[mikelove]

On Pocket PC long word lists can sometimes cause problems, but on Palm OS you should be OK - the Palm OS version in general is very unlikely to destroy your data, though it might be worth backing up your flashcard database occasionally just to be extra safe. (this happens automatically when you HotSync)

The main argument against using larger lists is that they can be difficult to keep organized (difficult to find a specific card if you want to delete it), but if you're planning to rely on the rank/spacing system to manage your studies anyway you don't necessarily need to worry that much about organizing your flashcard lists.

And re your second question, yes, you've understood all of this correctly - the cards you review in the morning won't come up again in the evening, and the cards you answered correctly wouldn't come up for another 3 days.

 

[Lost in Beijing]

Excellent - thanks very much.

It's all very clever! But I absolutely love it and am struggling to get off Pleco at the moment - so thanks for a great product too!