One of our SuperMemo.com users who joined the service recently has addressed us with questions about the repetition process and the buttons that SuperMemo uses for assessment:

During the first recommended repetition, even twice, by mistake, there's no countdown to track the progress and after repetition completed, REPEAT is still frozen with the same 27 items. Did I miss something? How to manage those 3 buttons properly: I know, Almost, I don't know?

When repeating with SuperMemo, please note that there is a countdown to track the progress in the top menu. A number appears next to the “REPEAT” option in the menu, and it goes down with every page that you repeat and assess with the “I know” grade.

In the example above, the number of repetitions is 72, and with every page repeated and assessed with the “I know” grade it will go down one by one: 71, 70 etc. Please note that if you assess yourself with either “I don’t know” or “Almost” during repetitions, the countdown will not change. You might say that the countdown is frozen, and it is a correct way for the system to behave. The page will be marked in orange in the bottom progress bar and queued in drills for the day. The countdown will change only when you have assessed yourself with the “I know” grade.

In the example above, there are some pages marked in orange and queued for drills for the day. These items will “return” when you go through all your repetitions planned for today. You can also go through them earlier by clicking the orange part of the progress bar (in the web browser) or by re-entering the course from the main screen with the list of all your courses and switching from “LEARN” to “REPEAT”.

When it comes to the buttons, there are 3 options for assessment in SuperMemo.com:

• I KNOW: use this when you know the answer or solved the task correctly; next repetition: your next repetition interval for this card will increase, depending on you individual history of repetition
• ALMOST: use this when you can recall the answer but with some difficulty, know only part of the answer or for example you typed in the answer with just a minor typo; next repetition: your next repetition interval will still increase but you will have a chance to review this card again today until successful
• I DON’T KNOW: use this when you don’t know the answer to the exercise or when you tried solving it but were incorrect; next repetition: your next repetition interval will be shortened and you will have a chance to review this card again today until successful.

Please note that you can use either your mouse, touchpad or keyboard to navigate through the process of grading yourself at SuperMemo.com. If you would like to use the keyboard, here are some useful tips on which buttons will help you perform what action:

• for the CHECK button, press Enter
• to navigate from one grade to another, press the left and/or right arrow
• to confirm a grade, press Enter

The SuperMemo Team