Doing 500 reviews in one sitting / day?

[adamchan2010]

I’ve sort of let my reviews stockpile even though I’ve kept at 50+ reviews a day D:

Though in the past I used to do around 100 reviews but I’ve been getting slower at getting through them and needing more time for work in general, progressing through levels seems to be taking more than double the amount of time it used to :’(

So I was thinking, is it productive in the long term to have days where I go through this backlog of reviews? Or should I be content going at a slow but somewhat steady pace?

[Pep95]

For me at least, I find that I start rushing when going through big review piles. Besides that, I also get a bit tired which makes me unable to make the right calls. Things that were obvious for a while suddenly don’t connect in my brain.

In my opinion, if you have the time, go slow and do your reviews as fast as possible. Doing big review sessions also makes for large review batches in the future.

[afunian]

I think it will be unsustainable to do only 50 reviews a day at higher levels, depending on your speed. At about 8 days per level, im doing usually ~200 reviews a day… But if you have a backlog of 500 reviews you could tackle it in one or two days, maybe in 2 or 3 sittings.

As @Pep95 said, rushing could lower your accuracy, leading to more apprentice/faster review times again.

[cehrlich]

I find that doing more than 60 or so at a time is difficult. So on days with a lot of reviews I’ll do a batch in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening.

[adamchan2010]

Yeah I understand how rushing could be an issue… That being said I also maybe sometimes take too long on a single item? xD like sometimes I’ll sit there pondering the answer for 5+ minutes, take a guess and get it right, which is good but taking that long on too many reviews is obviously a problem… I think that’s where a system like Anki shines since you respond with how difficult it was to remember, but for WK I can only think to time myself. At this point I’m just rambling though

[afunian]

I just did around 100 reviews, having done 100 earlier today already. I still have around 70 in queue, and just for your reference this image shows I have 384 reviews coming up in the next 48 hours.

Just want to show you that if you plan on finishing in a certain fast amount of time, 60 reviews probably wont cut it. Although you have lifetime so maybe you want to take your time, anyways good luck!

[cehrlich]

Yeah, I’m planning to do WK in approximately double the fastest possible time. I’ll just have to see what works when I get to the dreaded 20s.

[Myria]

I wouldn’t recommend spending so long over single items. If I were reading a book, I wouldn’t spend 5 minutes sitting there trying to remember if I know this word or not, I would maybe take ten seconds, and then look it up. Sometimes it’s of course a word that I have studied in WK or Anki before, but I just take it as a sign that I’m quite shaky on that word, so looking it up immediately is the quicker option and also reinforces it again.
Same thing with a conversation; only that you don’t even have the luxury of thinking for 10 seconds.
That’s why during reviews I try to see whether I instantly recall something or not, and if I don’t, just mark the item wrong and check the meaning / read the mnemonic again.
Having to think for so long and not being quite sure is a sign that the item is still quite shaky, and would probably benefit from dropping a few SRS levels for stronger reinforcement, even if that of course increases your reviews.

I agree that rushing too much or feeling pressured by too many reviews is also counterproductive for leaning, and that sometimes it might actually be beneficial to take the time and try to recall a time/context where you have seen the word “in the wild” before, thus actually strengthening the memory. But in my opinion that should be 20 seconds max? But maybe other people think differently.

[adamchan2010]

I’ll try something like this ^^ though is there any way to mark an answer as wrong or do you just type in whatever?

[Myria]

I just type in ‘a’
There’s also this thread asking people what they put in if they don’t know the answer:

What do you type in when you have no idea what the kanji is?

Personally, I always press “f” to pay respects.

[Guambear]

Last Friday I zeroed, woke up to 285 Reviews!

[jerseytom]

With regard to reviews piling up, make note of your apprentice count. More of those you have, the more more reviews will crop up on a high frequency basis. Need to find whatever number works best for you and your ability to get down to 0 reviews on a daily basis. ~100 for apprentice count isn’t a bad start point.

I think doing 25-50 reviews per sitting at least a couple times a day (morning, evening… maybe noon, maybe before bed) helps breaks things up into reasonable workload.

I’d agree with the other comment too on not spending too much time on any single card. For proficiency, you need to know a meaning/reading/whatever instantly. If you don’t know the answer within ~10 seconds, you don’t know it well enough, and you might as well just intentionally type in whatever and move on.

[Gereto]

Rushing is an issue for me too. I have been finding that my hands will outrun my brain, especially with single kanji vocab where I see kanji and think kanji reading not vocab.

I’ve had to force myself to take my fingers off the keyboard between review entries. If I force myself to stop for a second it helps my brain catch up and recognize what WK is actually asking. Probably also helps retention.

[kenbongort]

Ideally you should clear your review queue at least twice a day. Otherwise, you may take too much time between reviews of shakier items to get them into your medium-term memory.

If you haven’t already, stop doing lessons. Keep working through your reviews until the daily workload is more manageable for you.

As others have said, ~200 reviews/day is necessary to complete the program in 18 months to 2 years. So be aware that at 50 reviews/day it’ll take significantly longer than that. Not that it’s a problem: The best pace is the one that works for you! But don’t be surprised if you need to give each level a few weeks.