Some HSK cards never selected for SRS test, ellipsis character maybe an issue for card selection

brcort

Member
Dear Pleco, I love the app and use it all the time, currently studying for HSK5 using SRS to study all HSK1-5 vocabulary. I have studied all but 5 of the approx 2500 HSK1-5 words at least once. There are 5 cards that never show up in any test session. I found them by Search Cards #reviewed = 0, and these are the 5:
虽然 。。。但是
因为。。。所以
不但。。。而且
只有。。。才
百分之。。。

All 5 have an ellipsis <...> in the text, and I don't recall if any other flashcard that has come up for review has an ellipsis in the definition. Maybe the ellipsis character is confusing the flashcard selection algorithm? I have Limit new cards on, by maximum unlearned, Count 50, prioritize by approx oldest. Now that I've seen all but these 5 and it's been several days with less than 50 cards to review, they should be in the mix.

Another thing I've noticed - not related to the above - is that during a test session the total number of cards in the session drops. I will start a test and it will indicate top left that I'm on card 1/32 (first of 32 cards selected for this test session). Later I look and I'm on card 3 of 31, and then 10 of 30 (random reductions - not always at 3, 10, etc.) It also sometimes prematurely ends, e.g. having answered the 3rd to last card 28/30, instead of giving me card# 29 it pops up the end of test dialog.

I'm using Pleco for IOS Version 3.2.39 on an iPhone5C

Thanks for a great app and for any insight you can provide on these minor quirks.
 
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mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Hmm... the ellipsis shouldn’t be a problem by itself, but what Test Type are you using? Also, do the cards have definitions? And by any chance are you using the “remap to dicts” feature in New Test / Display?
 

brcort

Member
Test Type: Self-graded.

Remap cards to dicts: Yes (long ago - I think I had wanted it to always present the CC definition - I'm working on remembering and writing the characters from definition. Will try with remap to dicts turned off.)

The cards do have definitions, I imported them from 2012-2015 HSK. Looking to see if there's more info about the exact filename or file source but not finding it...

I now think the two issues I noted are related. I kept track and I think the cards with ellipsis chars are being put in the test initially, and then when the test gets to that card it's skipping it and dropping it from the test. It was always dropping at most 5 cards - the # of cards with ellipsis chars.

I edited 百分之。。。 and removed the ellipses from both simplified and traditional headword entries. 百分之was in the test and there were only 4 dropouts during the test.

I then edited 虽然 。。。但是 , replacing all four ellipsis chars with four sets of three '.' characters, and it was still a dropout (4 dropped during the test and 虽然...但是 was not included in the test. Then I tried it with a single space character ' '. I should give it another day perhaps to make sure it was not left out because it was not yet due. But if there were 4 dropped cards during the test and 4 cards remaining with this issue including the one with '.' '.' '.' instead of '...' then maybe any non-hanzi character is the issue, not the ellipsis character specifically.

Update: I just tried with remap cards to dicts turned off, and "only if ... then ..." was the first card in the test!

只有 ' turn off remap cards to dicts' 才 'cards with ellipses will appear :) '

Also I checked for more ellipses I hadn't eliminated from 虽然 。。。但是 and there were two of them in the pinyin pronunciation (you know it's an ellipsis when you backspace once and all three dots disappear. If it's 3 dots, it takes three backspaces...) The definition already had two sets of 3 dots instead of ellipses. Trying again with all ellipses converted to 3 dots and remap cards to dicts back to 'yes' just for curiosity.

Thanks for your help and speedy replies,

Brian / 柏安
 
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