That’s a great blog post, and it’s good to read about your progress so far. I look forward to hearing more as you go. It’s a very worthy project, and also very daunting! I’d be interested to know how much time per day you think you’ll need to spend on this?
Another possible way of managing the review queue… when I was in the same position, I realised I had to ‘let go’ the one-new-verse-every-day habit. I was motivated towards the consistent learner badges, and it was a great rhythm, to add one new verse each day. But the review queue was growing ever longer, because I was completing verses at a lot less than 7 per week. (I’m sure I have some verses that have been in the review queue for literally years, because I stumble over them again and again!) So I told myself I didn’t need to add a new verse each day - the daily habit of Bible memory work is what’s important for me. And now I allow myself pauses between adding new chapters, which gives me time to keep up with the review queue. I’ve found for myself, that having 600-700 verses uncompleted is manageable. But it will depend on how much time you want to spend each day, and how good your long-term memory is.
Yes, it is a useful option for passages where many verses are at 70-80-90%, because it keeps those verses ‘alive’ with shorter intervals between testing. But it won’t get you to 100% any faster, even if you get them perfect. And if you have a passage with some verses that are fully learned, ‘test instead of read’ is a high-risk strategy, because just one or two errors in a short verse can take it down from 100% to 80% or even worse, and it will take many months of reviewing to recover that!
Thanks Joosep. God is speaking to me about this at the moment - how waiting on the Lord can sometimes mean to rest, be still, and allow him to act in his own time, and sometimes it means to go, to follow his lead, to act in faith. And in both cases, we need to be praying without ceasing, listening to him, expectant that he will guide us when to be still and when to go.
Thanks Joosep. God is speaking to me about this at the moment - how waiting on the Lord can sometimes mean to rest, be still, and allow him to act in his own time, and sometimes it means to go, to follow his lead, to act in faith. And in both cases, we need to be praying without ceasing, listening to him, expectant that he will guide us when to be still and when to go.
Regarding the rounding, I’m pretty sure that the %age score is rounded down, not up - especially at 99%. I remember many years ago, it was possible for the verse score to reach 100%, even though the verse was not actually ‘complete’ - because the true score was 99.5% or more. Then Luke made a change to prevent this happening. So now, only a fully completed verse displays 100%. But I don’t know whether the displayed score is always rounded down, or whether it was a specific fix for the 99-100% situation.
I think you’re right, Joosep, on the way the site works when you review a verse early, but like you, I can’t say what the exact formula is. My preferred system is now this… I learn chapters, without any section breaks. Then I let the site dictate the review cycle, which it does based on the weakest verse in the chapter. But when the chapter comes up for review, I use ‘test instead of read’ so that I’m actually reviewing all the verses, not just the few that are actually due for review. This way the %age of the nearly-finished verses increases by a very small amount, and the weakest verse increases by up to 5% (if I get it right, ha ha!). This way, completing the whole chapter usually takes years, because my memory is far from perfect, and I make mistakes on some of the 100% verses as well as the ones I’m supposed to be doing. But the early-morning LearnScripture time with a pot of tea has become a very valuable part of my routine and a time to connect with God at the start of the day.
That’s tremendous, FinalAsgard! And great to see and hear you in person too. It’s a blessing to hear you recite it with such depth of meaning. God bless you! What will you tackle next?
Wow! Congratulations! To complete 3000 is truly impressive. And I’m also impressed that you’re keeping up with adding one new verse every day. I had to slow down, because my completion rate was too patchy, so that my review list was getting ever-longer. But you obviously have a great rhythm. May God bless you as you continue to both add and finish verses.
Great analysis, OnFire! And I also agree with you, Joosep - I think the system works with fraction of % points, which are then rounded for display. Sometimes you can review a verse that’s (for example) 98% finished, and gain +1%, and still be on 98% afterwards. In such a case, I assume it was actually 97.7% to start with, +0.6% = 98.3% afterwards. I’m reviewing almost all my verses ‘early’ most of the time, because I usually review a complete chapter using ‘test instead of read’, which means that the system drives the review cycle based on the weakest verse in the chapter.
I’m in the opposite position - I’ve added John chapters 10-21. (Started learning, that is, far from ‘fully learned’!) Now I need to add John 1-9. But it’s a long-drawn-out project, and I’m also interspersing other chapters that strike me as I read or hear them preached. (Currently 2 Timothy 2)
We had a couple who visited our church several times who had a very powerful prayer / healing ministry, and they regularly started with that simple question: ‘what would you like Jesus to do for you?’ Too often, when we pray for others, do we jump to our own conclusions about what to pray for. The story of Jesus and Bartimaeus reminds me how important it is to listen to people and encourage them to express their heart’s desire and their faith.
I feel for you with those tragic verses! I can completely relate to this. It’s usually a short verse, and a brief lapse of concentration and/or poor typing can bring it crashing down to 70% or even worse! But my memorisation technique is a lot more haphazard than yours, so I’m sure I’ve got a lot more than 7 of them. Congratulations on 489 out of 642. I’m confident in you. I predict 95,000,000.