Thanks, onfire247! Still can’t get beyond chapter 6, and I am worried about my capacity for this kind of work. I’ll keep grinding through chapter 8 (the halfway point) and see what happens. The real challenge lately, isn’t the site. It’s my recall during recitation. Brutal.
Thanks, onfire247! Still can’t get beyond chapter 6, and I am worried about my capacity for this kind of work. I’ll keep grinding through chapter 8 (the halfway point) and see what happens. The real challenge lately, isn’t the site. It’s my recall during recitation. Brutal.
Congratulations, TheMoviegoer! 10M is evidence of time well spent. Don't be too discouraged - it takes time and persistance to move the verses from short term memory to long term memory. Scripture memory is a marathon, not a sprint. And God blesses us along the way. :)
onfire24, THIS IS ALL HELPFUL! I spend a lot of time just wondering how I am really doing, so this feedback is excellent. Also, a verse a day is amazing. Keep up the good work. I haven't thought about getting beyond Mark, but I think knowing the whole NT would be great. Sadly, in about 10 years, I wonder how great my memory will be. Fortunately, when I have a new body and mind, recall will never be an issue.
Thanks, everyone! And the deep, deep, insight into the process is super helpful. My goal since the outset was to attempt to memorize an entire Gospel (Mark, in this case). At this point, I am not quite half way to my goal. I hope that I can keep it together mentally as I go. For the record, My highest percentage toward memorization on even my most solid verse is 88%. I am wondering if I’ll finish Mark before Mark 1:1 registers at 100%
Thanks, Mrsmoo! It is time certainly well spent! I need to spend more time reciting, however. Despite being able to recall these verses on the site with solid accuracy, I have had a lot more trouble reciting the more recent chapters. One thought I had was to step away from the site for a week and only work on reciting and recalling what I have learned so far. I have developed a routine with site work, but I am wondering if my process is flawed.
Thanks, Mrsmoo! It is time certainly well spent! I need to spend more time reciting, however. Despite being able to recall these verses on the site with solid accuracy, I have had a lot more trouble reciting the more recent chapters. One thought I had was to step away from the site for a week and only work on reciting and recalling what I have learned so far. I have developed a routine with site work, but I am wondering if my process is flawed.
Congratulations on the nine million! I too have wondered at times if my work process here is flawed. In a given passage of about 25 verses, I might be able to get half of them to fully learnt, but the other half "get stuck". Once a verse gets into the 90 percent progress range, you have to test at least at 95% to move it toward 100 with any significance. So, I keep a spreadsheet as a record of each passage, and try to rate its strength. The passages which are weaker I repeat more often ... that's my current process ...
The problem for me, ever since I joined this site, is that I always want to add more verses. And then a conflict ensues between dealing properly with memorizing new verses and also maintaining those which are "middle aged" and those which are nearing Fully Learnt. So, once again I'm attempting to slow down and add even none at all, but just to be satisfied with dealing with the ones I have added in some proper way.
Not saying that everyone should do that, no not at all. Just saying it's where I am at the moment.
I also did a total reset back in October 2019, but I don't recommend doing that. I ended up regretting having to start everything from zero again ... now my primary goal is to get each verse up to Fully Learnt. Having said all that, it's a great joy to come to this site, truly.
Are you familiar with the U shaped curved involved with starting any new endeavor?
At the top of left side of the U, you are at the beginning of your goal. In this stage, everything is all exciting. Every day is a new adventure pushing you further and further down your goal.
As the U starts to curve toward the bottom, here you begin to realize the cost involved with your goal. You still have excitement, but it is becoming tempered by the cost. Here is where thoughts of quitting begin.
As the U flattens, here is where your initial energy has been consumed by the cost of the goal. It is no longer new and exciting, but instead a chore to push through. It is here where most people give up on the goal. Instead, they go from new goal to new goal, never accomplishing anything.
For those people who push past the bottom of the U, the U starts to curve up. It is here where you know the cost, but you've made your peace with it. You start thinking about the goal in new ways, which begins to give you a new (but different) kind of excitement.
Eventually, the U straightens entirely. Here, you are starting to see the results of your hard work. You look back on what you've accomplished so far, and how you pushed through the hard times. These accomplishments propel you forward with a new level of excitement that is even better than the initial excitement. These are the people that eventually reach their goal.
It sounds to me like you are either approaching the U, or are hanging at the bottom of it. I'm right there with you. If I am wrong, please forgive my projecting on you.
I do not recommend you give up. In my experience "taking a break" or "trying something a different way" almost always ends with quitting. You've already built up the habit, and you're progressing so far. You're solidifying your understanding of Scripture even if it feels some days like there is no purpose to it. Don't quit! Quitting is only hard the first time. Every time after that, it becomes easier and easier. Instead, perhaps re-evaluate your goals.
Perhaps, instead, you should view your memorization a different way. Perhaps it is unfair to expect yourself to memorize a book with one hundred percent perfection? After all, none of the current translations are memorization friendly (which is odd, honestly, given that the ancient Jewish culture was so focused on oral tradition). Like you, I struggle with reciting the verses with perfection. I do not, however, struggle with understanding the flow of the story enough to get my message across when it comes up. Indeed, I find that I explain the Bible better when I paraphrase the unimportant parts (e.g., "he said" vs. "he answered", etc.) while adding perfection to the dialogue being spoken (i.e., the important parts). Had I not pushed through that pain while re-evaluating my goals, I would have quit a long time ago. But since I persevered (James 1:25), I can now quote half of John when the need arises.
You might also consider slowing down a bit. You are moving quickly, but perhaps you are setting yourself up for burn out. It might be a good idea to take your foot off the pedal a bit to give yourself time to catch your breath with the older material. But please don't leave. We need you here, and you need to be here as well.
Thanks, everyone! And the deep, deep, insight into the process is super helpful. My goal since the outset was to attempt to memorize an entire Gospel (Mark, in this case). At this point, I am not quite half way to my goal. I hope that I can keep it together mentally as I go. For the record, My highest percentage toward memorization on even my most solid verse is 88%. I am wondering if I’ll finish Mark before Mark 1:1 registers at 100%
You should be at about 88% based upon your start date on the website. Even if you get a verse 100% correct every time, it will still take a year to reach 100% on the verse. My highest verse is at 95%, and my current interval for that verse is five months. But I also started several months before you.
As far as memorizing goes, my most recent process has changed a bit. I've decided to bump my daily total from one verse a day to two verses a day. If I do that, I should be able to memorize the New Testament in 10 years. Right now, I look at my current active chapter in John (10). I begin by starting with verse one no matter what is due. I toggle it to test me, and I test on that chapter until I get to my new verses for the day. I do my two verses, and then I go back to my dashboard and select review again on John 10.
Once my known verses get to 40%, I stop reviewing them every day. So for example, John 10:1-10 are at 40%, so I edited my group to start with verse 11. Because of this, when I review John 10 again, it starts with verse 11. I will constantly adjust my group based upon my percentages. I used to just do the reviews every day until I finished the chapter, but I found that pushed out my interval too far on those early verses. When those verses would come around again, I would have forgotten them. Stopping at 40% seems to be the sweet spot for me.
Back to John 10. After I've clicked Review and started with verse 11, I toggle the chapter to test for each verse. I then go all the way to the review of my two new verses. I repeat this process until those two new verses of the day reaches around 20%. At that point, I go and do my other reviews. I do not touch John 10 again until the next day. Doing it this way strengthens my initial understanding of the new verses without hurting me on future reviews.
My other chapters that are due all sit in my review queue every day because I set the last verse of every chapter to remain under a 24 hour interval. So I look through my review to see which chapters show two or more verses due, and then I do those reviews. At this point, I look at how long I've been reviewing and how many reviews I have done that day. I have set my review maxes to one hour or one hundred reviews, whichever comes first. If I have not reached that goal for the day, or I feel like doing more, then I will pick one of the chapters with one verse due and review that whole chapter. There are some days, however, when I am not really feeling it or my schedule is hectic. On those days, I'll skip all my reviews and just do the new verses. But no matter what, I do my two verses.
With the above process, I typically review between 95% to 100% accuracy. Some verses, however, refuse to stick. For example, John 5:20-31. For these verses, I add these verses in groups of four as a separate set of individual verses. So, for the above example, I have one for John 5:20-23, 24-27, and 28-31. (These have separate timers from the originals, but do not add to your verse total). I then review those sets of four in order every time they come up for review. (If they get out of order, I skip the verses until the correct one is due, then test on it.)
Hopefully something within this wall of text will be useful to you or others on this website.
onfire24, THIS IS ALL HELPFUL! I spend a lot of time just wondering how I am really doing, so this feedback is excellent. Also, a verse a day is amazing. Keep up the good work. I haven't thought about getting beyond Mark, but I think knowing the whole NT would be great. Sadly, in about 10 years, I wonder how great my memory will be. Fortunately, when I have a new body and mind, recall will never be an issue.
Hey, Symota. Please do us all a favor and quickly add a verse to your list (any verse). On the leaderboard, it says you have started 666 verses, and I think it would be helpful if you could quickly push to at least 667. BTW, I say this with all due respect to the time, energy, effort, etc., behind learning so much scripture.
Thanks, JD3 and Symota! It was great today. I was teaching Sunday School (OT survey) and broke into a Mark quote and it just rolled out. It is moments like that that make you glad you took the time and effort to commit it to memory. Of course, the personal meditative value is also super helpful.
Congrats, TMG! If you ever find a verse or set of verses that you can't seem to memorize because the interval is too long, you can miss every word on your next interval and reset that verse to 0%. Doing this starts over the verse, but it does not break any Consistent learner streaks. If you don't want to go back to zero, you can miss less words for a smaller reduction.
I've started putting the last verse of every chapter back to zero so that I don't have to review the whole chapter when one verse is due. I think AnnetteCN recommended not starting the last verse to accomplish the same thing, but I find that clogs my Dashboard. Doing it my way makes it disappear from the Dashboard.
Congratulations, TheMoviegoer, on reaching this 8M milestone! 👏🏽
onfire247, I’m wondering if your last verse goes back to zero, when the chapter comes up again for testing, will the chapter be placed in the “Learn” section or in the “Review” section of the dashboard?
Thanks, JD3 and Symota! It was great today. I was teaching Sunday School (OT survey) and broke into a Mark quote and it just rolled out. It is moments like that that make you glad you took the time and effort to commit it to memory. Of course, the personal meditative value is also super helpful.
It goes into the Review section. I have three chapters sitting in review with one verse due. It still clogs the screen, but I personally read the whole chapter and then do the verse at whatever interval it gives me. Since most of my reviews for those chapters are at two months or longer, I suspect that I shouldn't have to reset that verse again until they are mastered. This might also be a good way to keep a mastered chapter active so that you see it more often than one year, but I've yet to master a verse yet.
Thanks TheMoviegoer for sharing about your successful Sunday School lesson. It’s great to be able to see the practical application of your daily memory work in action.
Thanks onfire247 for this additional clarification, this is helpful to know.
I'd like to add another possible "tip" to the mix. What I've been doing lately is this: If I have a passage where for example, there is one weak verse at 50% while the rest are 55-65%, I add that weak verse as an individual verse. What happens then is I can test on that individual verse when it comes due and afterward the passage will disappear from the review queue, until more are due.
The downside of this method is that I don't test very well on individual verses ... without having any context at all, I usually don't score very well, but at least it's "pushed forwards" toward the rest of the pack, without me needing to go through all the verses of the entire passage.
Odd. I am not experiencing that at all. For example, I created a verse set for Galatians 5:13-26, which I've been doing for a while so my interval is pretty long. But I wanted to be able to specifically target the fruits of the spirit verse, so I added Galatians 5:22-23 as an individual verse. I expected that the individual verses would mirror the three month interval of the set, but instead, the individual verses seem to have its own intervals. They also show up as a separate set of verses in a person's progress stats.
I hope it's helpful. In general I like this idea, but my ability to remember the verse really suffers when there's no context .... but, have a good evening! (where I am, it's evening)
Hey, Symota. Please do us all a favor and quickly add a verse to your list (any verse). On the leaderboard, it says you have started 666 verses, and I think it would be helpful if you could quickly push to at least 667. BTW, I say this with all due respect to the time, energy, effort, etc., behind learning so much scripture.
Ha, ha, TheMoviegoer! The day is fast approaching though when those remaining on the earth will need to heed Scripture’s warning in Revelation 13.
Thanks, joosep, for sharing your insights. Individual verses are more challenging without the context, but since the verse comes from a chapter one would be working on anyway, I can see how it would be helpful.
Speaking of 666, I find it interesting that John 6:66 talks about his disciples turning away from Christ: "After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him."
Wow. I love John, too. But you als hit on something very important. It is much easier to work on verses, passages, books, etc., that you have specific motivation. I was motivated by two compelling factors. 1. I have taught Mark twice in the last three years, and I find it very compelling. 2. I saw a video about scripture memorization wherein the speaker memorized 1 Corinthians. He opened the service with a little bit of background, and then he just spoke 1 Corinthians. It felt Alice, relevant, compelling, and I could go on and on. I thought, I would like to be able to do that.
Honestly, I spend 1 hour in the morning. I click through reviews, and only really pay attention to the testing part. For example, when I create a new set (about 5-7 verses), the review can sometimes include up to 50 total verses. I can breeze through them because I have been so thorough in the testing. Then, I’ll jump in periodically throughout the day and just test a set. All told, I’m putting in around 2 hours total - 1 hour in the morning, then scatter study throughout the rest of the day. I don’t know if it is dedication or neurosis. Honestly, I have made a goal of memorizing Mark, and I am afraid l’ll quit before I get there so I am plowing forward as best I can.
I'm amazed at how many reviews you are able to do a day. How much time are you spending doing this? Three or four hours a day? You have some serious dedication.
Honestly, I spend 1 hour in the morning. I click through reviews, and only really pay attention to the testing part. For example, when I create a new set (about 5-7 verses), the review can sometimes include up to 50 total verses. I can breeze through them because I have been so thorough in the testing. Then, I’ll jump in periodically throughout the day and just test a set. All told, I’m putting in around 2 hours total - 1 hour in the morning, then scatter study throughout the rest of the day. I don’t know if it is dedication or neurosis. Honestly, I have made a goal of memorizing Mark, and I am afraid l’ll quit before I get there so I am plowing forward as best I can.
I see. That makes sense. I started the same way with John. I'm about to wrap up the 9th chapter, but I've jumped around to whatever caught my fancy. Honestly, I have an easier time remembering the stuff I want to memorize than doing John straight through.
Wow. I love John, too. But you als hit on something very important. It is much easier to work on verses, passages, books, etc., that you have specific motivation. I was motivated by two compelling factors. 1. I have taught Mark twice in the last three years, and I find it very compelling. 2. I saw a video about scripture memorization wherein the speaker memorized 1 Corinthians. He opened the service with a little bit of background, and then he just spoke 1 Corinthians. It felt Alice, relevant, compelling, and I could go on and on. I thought, I would like to be able to do that.