Comments on: SRS Scoring Heuristics: How To Decide What Score To Give Yourself When You’re On The Fence, So You Can Move The Heck On With SRSing and Life in General

By: Thomas

Thomas — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 05:42:39 +0000

I think this all depends on the software you use to learn.
Mnemosyne/iSRS make you give a score between 0 and 5, that is 6 scores in total ! That’s way too much
Some other methods give you the choice of Yes or No. Not enough.
I moved to using JapanEasy[1] (seems to be iOS only) and they ask for Yes/No/Maybe which is to my mind the best way to do it. I don’t spend time worrying whether I should rate this card 2 or 3 like I did with other methods and this gave me tremendous results. (and I like the example sentences that you can access from all the cards btw)

[1]: itunes.apple.com/en/app/japaneasy/id492061732?mt=8

By: Kimura

Kimura — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:55:51 +0000

The way I’ve been doing it for the Lazy Kanji deck in Anki:

*Remembered the keyword just by seeing the kanji: Very Easy
*Didn’t recall from the kanji itself, but remembered after reading the sentence with the kanji: Easy
*Didn’t recall even with the sentence, but was on the right track: Hard
*Total failure, not even close, “D’oh I missed!”: もう一度 (but I almost never use this button outside of the first or second review)

If I stick to these guidelines, I can usually power through a 25-block of kanji in about two minutes (I have all my decks timeboxed to questionlimit=25, another reason I really don’t like using the もう一度 button because it messes up the cardcount for the rest of that day).

By: 魔法少女☆かなたん

魔法少女☆かなたん — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 04:07:02 +0000

I don’t think I’ve ever been consistent about this, but maybe it’s not that important, because:
A, I’ll certainly see the card again, B, it’s one freaking entry out of thousands, and C, anything really important will turn up again in another context.
In short, I just wing it.

By: Clint

Clint — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:51:20 +0000

I use Surusu and I…so rarely give myself a 5. I only really do it if I’m just sick and tired of seeing the card, and would like it go away for months/years. Maybe I’m grading myself too harshly, but it seems right for me. I like having more reps I think 😀

But yeah, my default is 4 if I got it right, 3 if I got it right after serious hesitation (30-60 seconds or more), 2 if I got it wrong but was, like, super close mentally and 0 if I just totally drew a blank. I hardly ever use 1…can’t fathom a purpose for it.

Sometimes I’ll score myself a 3 knowing I will see it in exactly the same amount of time as the last interval, if I just really like the card or am having some struggle with it.

By: Perry

Perry — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 04:18:01 +0000

For Anki, if I don’t know it or I need to read the story to write the kanji, I grade it a 1 and do it again. When it comes up again I just hit spacebar, which let’s Anki decide the best grade (which is usually a 2 if you answered it wrong that day.)
If I can answer it correctly I just hit spacebar and move on. If I felt it was ridiculously easy, like 木、I’ll grade it very easy. Usually it’s just a hit of the spacebar, minimal thinking, minimal effort.

By: Thomas Smith

Thomas Smith — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:13:29 +0000

I’ve been SRSing for about 9 months now. Although I’m usually an anxiety goblin who worries about everything, it never occurred to me to worry about how to grade a card. So I’ve just been bashing the keys on instinct and immediately. My reaction to this article was 100% surprise to learn that anybody worries about grading.

The point for you guys is this: I’ve done zero worrying for 9 months and the scheduling has been fine. So if you want to worry less, you can rest assured that the scheduling will still be OK. It is safe to chill. 🙂

By: Squimpleton

Squimpleton — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 02:49:18 +0000

I pick the first score that comes to mind. The way I see it, if I’m wrong, the next time the card comes around my knowledge (or lack thereof) will let me score appropriately.

Yes, there are times when I pick a score and I go “oh **** I really should have gone with the other”, but then I just let it go. No point worrying about it. Grab a score and go.