Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
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Quick answers
Spaced repetition: What is this, in one honest paragraph?
A schedule that asks for a retrieval just before you would have forgotten, then lengthens the gap after a success.
Spaced repetition: What does the evidence actually say?
Ebbinghaus showed savings on relearning; Cepeda et al. found expanding gaps beat cramming for delayed tests; Leitner and SuperMemo turned the idea into boxes and algorithms.
Spaced repetition: How does it help a high-stakes exam?
It fits listing, definition and formula items that return on later papers. It does not grade a proof you have never written.
Spaced repetition: How fast is a first honest gain?
A first honest lift is often two to three weeks of daily reviews, not the first night of card-making.
Spaced repetition: What do beginners usually break?
They write encyclopedic cards, never fail a card, or pause the deck for a week and then blame the algorithm.
Spaced repetition: Which tools are enough to start?
A deck, a daily time box, and a rule that one card holds one fact. Paper Leitner boxes work if you actually move the cards.
Spaced repetition — a protocol you can run this week. A working protocol for atomic cards is capture, schedule, retrieve, repair, mix, audit.
Scores here are relative ranks inside this atlas, not lab grades or official cut scores.
Steps
- Capture
Write cards from a public outline, one fact each, answer hidden.
If you need a comma in the question, split the card.
- Schedule
Set a daily due time and a new-card cap so the queue cannot explode.
Cap new cards before you cap reviews.
- Retrieve
Grade honestly: a peek is a fail, even if you then recognise the line.
Recognition is not recall.
- Repair
Suspend or rewrite leeches after a set number of lapses.
A leech is usually two facts glued together.
- Mix
Keep related procedures on separate cards and mix their due dates.
Interleaving lives in the queue, not inside one card.
- Audit
Once a week, mark young high-yield cards and check them against the public outline.
If the outline moved, the deck must move.
Protocol
- Daily queue — Clear due atomic cards before adding anything from public outline. Leftovers are scheduling debt.
- New-item cap — Cap new atomic cards so the queue cannot explode the night before a sitting.
- Repair clinic — Rewrite atomic cards that failed twice instead of grinding it infinitely.
- Pre-event freeze — Freeze new atomic cards 10–14 days before the sitting so only mature retrieval remains.
Variants
- Software queue — A digital list of due atomic cards. Useful when volume exceeds a shoebox.
- Paper analog — Index cards or a notebook column for atomic cards. Honest if you actually move them.
- Oral walk-through — Speak atomic cards aloud. Good when the exam rewards oral retrieval.
- Calendar-only — Write review dates for atomic cards in a diary without ease grades.
Educational atlas — not an official syllabus, medical advice, or leaked item bank. Spaced repetition: Keep the public outline in view and treat this page as method, not a leaked key.
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