After a miss, reset the card

A card that has been Good three times is not “known” in a permanent sense. It is due in a longer gap because the last three recalls worked. The next failure is information. Study Lab treats it as a reset, not as a stain and not as a hint to skip the card.

Switch the chart. “While it is holding” is the Good streak from a new card: 1 day, then 6, then 15 (6 × the starting ease of 2.5). “The moment you miss” is the learning step: Again in 10 minutes, or Hard in 60 minutes if you are still in learning and only wobbled.

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What the buttons write after a streak

What happened	Next gap
1st, 2nd, 3rd Good	1 day, then 6 days, then 15 days
Again, any time	10 minutes, repetitions back to zero, ease down 0.2
Next Good after that Again	1 day — you are starting the streak again

Why this method works

Leaving a missed card on a 15-day gap is how a small hole becomes an exam surprise. Bringing it back in 10 minutes checks whether the repair stuck. It does not finish the job. The one-day Good after that is the real test: can you produce it without the warm-up of having just read the back?

Name the kind of miss before you rate, or the rating will be random.

• Fact — you knew the method and lost the item. The back should be the item, in your words. Rate Again, then say it once more before you leave.
• Method — you knew the item and lost the steps. Write the steps with the card covered. A card that only stores the final number will miss the same way next time.

Do not ask a chat to fill the blank and then rate Good. The rating is a claim about you.

Timed session — one miss

1. 1 minute. Find the card you just failed in Study Lab.
2. 3 minutes. Cover the back. Try again. If you fail, rate Again. You will see it in 10 minutes.
3. 6 minutes. Write the repair. Fact: one sentence you can say cold. Method: the steps, numbered, without the worked numbers copied from a solution.
4. 10 minutes later, 3 minutes. The Again card returns. Produce it. If you can, Good — that is a 1-day gap, not a pardon. If you cannot, Again again.
5. Stop. One miss, finished. Other misses stay in the due pile for the next session.

Pitfalls

• Rating Good immediately after reading the correction. That hides the card for a day you have not earned.
• Deleting the card because it feels annoying. Annoying is the signal.
• Promoting a written-exam miss into a card that only says “be clearer.” Quote the step you failed to produce.

Written work is a different repair: submit the draft, then read the quoted criteria on assignment feedback. A timed paper’s misses can go back to cards and into the next retrieve. The session shape is in the 25-minute block. The button meanings are in the ratings chart.

Fact or method, in one example

A selective-style item asks for the next number in a rule you were shown. You pick the wrong operation. That is a method miss. The card back is the first decision — “look at how the gap changes, not at the last term alone” — plus one clean example with different numbers. Rating Good after you reread the official explanation does not repair it. Again, ten minutes, then the one-day Good only if you can start the decision with the card covered.

A vocabulary card where you knew the sentence and lost the word is a fact miss. The back is the word and a phrase you can say. Do not store a dictionary paragraph. You will not produce a paragraph under time, and the card will feel familiar without being retrievable. Familiar is the five-minute column from the rereading study.

Keep a scrap line for the week: date, card, fact or method. Five lines is a log. Fifty lines is a diary you will not read. The point of the reset is that the scheduler already shortened the gap. Your job is to make the second meeting a real attempt, not a second reading.