For October, I'd like to spend some time expanding and improving one of the most popular parts of renshuu's quizzing system, the Focused Review. I've gotten various suggestions over the last couple of years, but I'd like to gather them all in one thread. What you can add in this thread:
1. New ideas for changing/expanding/adding to the Focused Review system 2. Links to previously mentioned requests that you feel should be considered.
Any comments related to other features on renshuu will be removed.
I've never really thought about it much. Some of these have probably already been suggested, but that's all I could think of:
How about a "Most missed" option? For example, at "Quiz size" 10 it will give you the 10 terms in that schedule you've missed the most in general.
We have "Lowest mastery", so why not "Highest mastery"? I'm sure it would have its uses. Like going through high-mastery terms to check if you still know them?
You could have one that's the reverse of "Reviewed recently"? The idea being similar to #2.
Maybe one that allows you to select specific mastery levels? Like only level 9 or only level 5. Maybe allowing for multiple selection?
Maybe an option that let's you pick by how much mastery should drop on incorrect answers? I guess we already have the "When I answer something incorrectly" global setting, but a Focused Review specific option could be nice.
I'll just add to this post if I think of anything else.
Edit: I didn't know Focused reviews affect review dates. That's good to know :)
I can respond to #1. Most missed can be problematic - not in programming, but in the effect. Focused reviews affect review dates. If something was scheduled 4 days away, and then it's one day from being reviewed, a focused review will push it back out 4 days again, and repeatedly doing this will make it harder to actually advance the mastery level (despite studying it).
Now, this effect exists for all focused reviews, but pinpointing "most missed" kind of hones in on the ones most likely to be coming up soon, and then repeatedly pushing them away :(
#2 has the same issue. Again, not an absolute no, but worth considering how it affects the reviews.
Because #3 is the reverse, it would "suffer" the least from this effect :)
#4 - could get complicated - is mastery level the average? Do you also pick a study vector, or multiple vectors? Exact mastery level, or up to / more than? Not impossible, of course, but the option itself could get complex. Definitely has merit, but it would have to be restricted enough to keep it making sense to the average user.
Is there a particular reason for Focused reviews to affect review dates like that? Maybe you could have a toggle for that behaviour?
I thought they only messed with review dates on incorrect answers. Actually, how about a mode that doesn't touch mastery/review dates at all? It would be fully independent of the SRS system. Maybe have it so it doesn't count towards (some of) your stats at all. Focused reviews tend to inflate my accuracy stats :D
Sorry if I'm missing something obvious.
Edit: I understand that certain review styles might go against some of SRS's principles, but I like having options.
I'd love a way to study terms that are similar to each other. Ex: kanji that are visually similar or words that all start with the same kana. Or which terms are most often confused for each other.
I now that it's not the meaning of focused reviews, but it would be great if you can actually toggle for them to affect mastery level. Because sometimes you have a free day on your hand and nothing to study.
Als iit's not really clear about it not affecting mastery levels or study timing and I did not know that one for years. And just did focused review in hopes of it faster raising my mastery level.
I have some vocab lists that I would have liked to go faster on, if I have time, but other than that, normal pace. You can select for "study all vectors" to make it faster, but it only affects the next day, and I need it like now.
A thing I'd enjoy: being able to do a "focused review" on a schedule of a vector I don't have enabled for the schedule in general. I have a suspended "listening" schedule that I just unsuspend and review, but I'd love to just do "listening review" on my existing schedules.
Currently (correct me if I'm wrong), when I have two schedules of something (e.g. Kanji) for different vectors (e.g. meaning and writing) and I miss a term for one vector, when I do a focused 'missed today' review on the schedule that doesn't have that vector, the kanji still shows up. So I assume there is a simple bool for each entry for 'missed that day'. It would be nice if that was specific to each vector. That way 'missed today' on a schedule would only contain the kanji for which I missed a vector it contains that day, for the specifi vector that I missed (if it contains several).
I'd reakly love to also have focus reveiw integrated into these two places:
- In the daily repetition as "minum repetition", so that I don't forget to uphold my grammar streak when there is no or not enough repetition on that day.
- When learning new vocabs, it would be great to first activate a "feeding mode" before integrating with the full deck. I.e. just learn the new vocabs, ideally with selectable vectors, for a few rounds to get this initial upload into my brain through (without affecting mastery yet).
Seconding the idea of a "most missed" and add a "do not affect upcoming review dates" option that's enabled for it.
Enable us to briefly review what we're bad at without it affecting spaced review timing. Focused Review is somewhat buried anyway so if a user is going there, they probably know what they want to do.
I would like an option in reviewed recently that would not repeat the same vector within the same day. I tend to use a quiz size of 10 for the review and do those short bursts 10 times (or more) a day but I regularly end up with 2/3 duplicate terms per quiz. This is of course also an effect of my limited known terms as well.
Personally, I’d like the option to view a descriptive image/photo with the English term in vocabulary quizzes. Instead of having to translate “Apple” —> りんご, I’d be able to infer from the picture as well.
I think it would be great if you could also do focused review on multiple (or all active) schedules at once. I often like to do a focused review of newly learned terms multiple times a day, because I need to repeat a new word many times it to stick. Since I have multiple schedules for different topics, I always have to go through all of them, just to get 2-3 review terms per schedule. Having an option to review all new words would make that much easier.
Also, I highly agree with ギョルギ九十三さん and 猫たんさん, that there should be an option to not make focused reviews affect the SRS like that. I didn't even know that it did that until now, just assumed it was some "extra review" kind of thing.
#4 - could get complicated - is mastery level the average? Do you also pick a study vector, or multiple vectors? Exact mastery level, or up to / more than? Not impossible, of course, but the option itself could get complex. Definitely has merit, but it would have to be restricted enough to keep it making sense to the average user.
When I tap a schedule I see an overview of all terms put in mastery buckets telling me it’s 27 in 1, 36 in 2, … I can already tap the mastery bucket and see all terms in there. If I could start a focused review on those terms, that would be perfect.
So, whatever is the base information to make those lists - it’s already there. No further complicated selection.
So when I finish a schedule I merge it into a Collective Schedule ( an example was when I have finished basics and N5 grammar and am working on N4 I merge basics and n5 into a "grammar" schedule) this keeps the dashboard clean but I lose the ability to focus on particular lessons for any merged schedules and have to create repeat schedule to focus review certain lessons. I'm not sure if it would be a variable handling nightmare, but id like to have a list that details all lessons like we do for individual grammar schedules but also included into the merges if we ever want to go back and review past lessons without have to re-create the schedules.
Also I think this is the best place to learn Japanese and I'm so glad to be here! ありがとうございます！
I'd like to see the "Learned Recently" to be extended so that you can not only specify a time frame, but also just a number. For example, I'm currently reviewing the last 100 Kanji I've learned once a week, in addition to my normal schedule. Currently, I do that by having a separate schedule for these Kanjis that I update all the time, so that it always roughly contains the last 100 Kanjis I've learned and then I do a focused review with quiz size 100. It would be great if I could just use my normal Kanji schedule and do a focused review with "Learned Recently" 100, regardless of when I learned them. I don't really want to rely on the mastery level for this, because I often do this review together with someone I study together with. So I don't want my personal mastery level to affect what we study together.
