Most Effective Sorting Order for Learning

Bunpro
#1

I was wondering out of the 4 sorting methods available when doing reviews, is there one that would be more effective for long term retention?

2 Likes
#2

Assuming there is no review limit, I’d think random. Especially if you hide UI. You have no expectation and cant see/guess the SRS level which removes a meta component.

5 Likes
#3

Definitely frequency. Learning the most common words or grammar patterns first gives you a lot of power.

1 Like
#4

If you do all your reviews then random. This way you’ll avoid getting points you learned in batch back to back at reviews associating them with each other.

If you won’t be able to do all your reviews that day then sort by lowest level first. The lowest level item have the shortest spacing (hours to days) and are at higher risk of forgetting if not reviewed, while a high level item (spacing weeks to months) can wait for a few more days without being forgotten.

2 Likes
#5

Feeling a bit stupid here, but how do you set preferred order for reviews ? I didn’t know that was an option and can’t seem to find it in my settings :’)

1 Like
#6

Click on your reviews, then click on the cog that’s above the review item. Click on Queue Order and scroll down.

2 Likes
#7

Found it ! Thanks a lot, I didn’t think starting the reviews was necessary to change it for some reason haha

2 Likes
#8

I sort expert to beginner, I benefit a lot from the positive feelings of getting answers right at the start, it gives me motivation to continue with the reviews (anecdotally failing the first few reviews of the season make me want to quit and move to something else)

So try different settings and see which one works best for you

5 Likes
#9

I use this one, especially since I barely do any reviews these days. I’m pretty confident with everything up to N3 and all of those are either at expert 1 or 2 now so very close to reaching master on most of them. I’m expecting I’ll get a whole slew of the later N2 and most of N1 things wrong in reviews and I’m not ready to create a whole lot of ghosts and not particularly in the mood for cramming all of them so I just want to hammer out all of the things I will definitely remember even after a year of no study. Once that is done and all that remains is the N2-N1 things I’ll commence the bloodbath and just randomize everything again.

1 Like
#10

Thanks all for taking the time to reply. Some great perspectives here. It really helped.