Option to go through non-memorized cards in a once-through fashion
This would support an approach where you go through each non-memorized card exactly once per day, not repeating it anymore during that day.
In my experience, flashcard repetition in a single day is not particularly effective, for me at least it's much easier to go through the non-memorized cards exactly once per day, and when I already know them when they're shown in a day, that's when I finally mark them as learned.
Currently, the flashcard algorithm makes this impossible, since it keeps showing me the same cards over and over, which for me is very ineffective, I would much rather go through 100 cards once per day, than the same 20 cards 5 times per day.
P.S. Yes, I've already set the number of non-memorized cards to hold to its maximum (99) but it doesn't help all that much, I'm still wasting collosal amounts of time trying to skip cards I've already seen.
You can achieve this by using the cramming scheduler and activating the cards you want.
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What you suggest is exactly the behaviour of the cramming scheduler (see under plugins)
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Anonymous commented
I totally agree. I also suggested the 1 time method for review but it too has been removed for feature voting/inclusion. The algorithm method is great for learning mode but for review it takes way too much time commitment. I used a DOS flash card program in college that went through the card stack once, gave you a score, and then asked if you wanted to take only the missed cards. If you said yes, then you were tested only on the missed cards and at the end you would receive a score on these cards and if you still missed some you had the option again to take only the missed cards. It ended when you are finally left with no more cards. Very fast and very efficient for review before a test.
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Perhaps I can also suggest that you try and see if you can learn cards faster by setting the number of cards to hold in your hand to a much lower value and don't worry about unlearned cards coming up more than once during study.
Your main objection seems to be that if a card is shown again, it's a waste of time, but if you don't remember it at that stage and you spend some effort to memorise it, I don't think this is a waste of time :-)
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Mihai Ionita commented
To answer the question of difficulty, I'm using this to study Japanese vocabulary primarily, and a card tends to take me 2-3 seconds to answer. That means within around 5 minutes, I could easily be going through 100 cards. I think it would be more effective to repeat these 5-minute 100-card intervals once or twice per day, than to try to hammer in on just a few specific cards and learn those right then and there, the way Mnemosyne is currently trying to get me to do.
Anyway, I'll try what you've suggested for a few days, using exclusively 1 and not 0, and see if it changes things.
Thanks for your help :)
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Say you set the number of cards to hold in your hand to 50.
Then Mnemosyne should first show you 50 new cards in the order they were added. Grade "ALL" of them 1. After exhausting these new cards, Mnemosyne will start showing some of these cards again. If you recognise a card as being shown again, just stop and come back the next day.
The next day, for the unlearned cards, Mnemosyne will go through these 50 cards again in random order. Provided you've not used grade 0, each card should show up exactly once, before Mnemosyne starts to repeat. If you notice that, simply come back the next day.
Again, I'm not sure trying to learn such a large number of new cards at the same time and only seeing them once a day is better than just focussing on a smaller number of cards at any time, seeing them many times during many sessions per day or even over the course of several days, and only start learning new cards once you've successfully learned the previous ones...
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Mihai Ionita commented
I've tried marking them as both 0 and 1, and either way they keep being repeated. After only what seems like 20 non-memorised cards or so, I keep getting them repeated near-ad infinitum, and it can take forever for the algorithm to go into showing me some more of the cards it's supposed to be holding "in your hand".
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Mihai Ionita commented
The cramming scheduler takes me through things I've already memorized, I can't select to only show those I haven't memorized yet, and it would be unrealistic to expect me to manually tag learned vs non-learned in order to be able to use that. Plus, the cramming scheduler doesn't affect the regular scheduler, so I'd have to go through hoops then to mark things as learned in the regular scheduler as well.
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BTW, I think if you grade each card 1 instead of 0, it will only come up once in the queue before Mnemosyne starts to go through the number of cards set by 'number of unmemorised cards to hold in your hand'. If you start seeing cards you've already seen, just stop.
Personally I'm not convinced that going through a large number of new cards (especially if they are difficult) only once per day is the best way to learn them.
In the current scheduler, you're also not really obliged to learn new cards the same day. I typically leave difficult cards unlearned for a few days.
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Mihai Ionita commented
To sum up, I dislike how the flashcard algorithm is trying to force me to mark something as learned sooner than I'm ready to. In Mnemosyne's inner workings somewhere is likely a value that determines how many cards it shows before it starts repeating them, I would much rather this be configurable so I could set it to a very high value and not have to keep seeing the same cards over and over again. In my experience, if I learn something using same-day forced repetitions like that, the retention is very poor, whereas with them spaced across different days it tends to be very good.