Practice

The practice bench

A small deck of spaced-repetition flashcards drawn from the four chapters. Grade each card honestly and it returns later in the session. Cards you miss come back sooner. The deck lives in this tab only, so reloading the page starts it again.

Practice benchStarter cards

The starter cards

Each entry below is a question followed by its answer. When JavaScript is on, these same cards become an interactive drill.

What did Hermann Ebbinghaus measure in his memory studies?: How well he could recall lists of nonsense syllables at set intervals after learning them.
Why does the first review after learning matter most?: The memory is still fresh, so getting it back costs little, and each successful return makes the next gap safely longer.
What is the spacing effect?: Learning spread across several sessions tends to last longer than the same total time packed into one sitting.
What is retrieval practice?: Trying to answer from memory before you check, which strengthens the memory more than rereading does.
Why can rereading feel productive without being so?: Familiar text feels known, and familiarity is easy to mistake for the ability to recall it.
What makes a flashcard recall-based?: It asks you to produce the answer, rather than pick it from options you can see.
What should you do after missing a card?: Shorten the gap and, if the card asked for too much, split it into smaller cards.
What does grading a card Easy mean?: The answer came at once, so the card can move forward faster.
What should you keep outside the practice bench?: A copy of the cards you care about, in a notebook or a file you control, because the bench forgets when the page is closed.

Practice benchDrill

Drill the deck

Cards in deck: 0 Reviews this session: 0

Question

With the answer showing, press 1 for Again, 2 for Hard, 3 for Good or 4 for Easy, or use the buttons. Tab moves between controls.

0 Not yet seen
0 Shaky
0 Settling
0 Secure

Shaky cards come back soon. Settling cards wait longer, and Secure cards are checked least often.

Practice benchAdd a card

Add your own card

Cards you add join the rotation for this visit only. Write a question that asks for recall, then an answer in your own words. Both fields are needed.