Regarding the review queue, sometimes it is good to combine sets to maintain your mental sanity. For example, I have almost 70 sets for the book of John. As a result, my review queue goes on for days, and it was depressing to look at sometimes. Since perception is reality, I decided to change the perception. So I combined those 70 sets into 21 chapter sets. Eventually, I created sets that were several chapters long, reducing John to 5 sets. My review queue now looks a lot more manageable.
Sometimes you also just have to perform triage on your review queue. There is no rule that says every verse you learn must go to 100% completion. There is also no rule that says you must review a verse tomorrow that you learned today. There is no need to put that pressure on yourself. If you need to put aside some verses to fit your schedule, go for it. Memorizing is hard, but it need not be a chore.
Personally, I like learning a new verse every day even if I don't keep them all actively on the path to mastery. I like that no matter how my day looks or my review queue looks, I'm going to learn something new today. I do not, however, review the verse the next day as most probably do. Instead, I prefer to begin reviewing them as a set once the section has been learned. I find that the verses stick better in memory when they are memorized in context with the section. I end up doing the same amount of work but just all at once instead of spread out across several days.
So, for example, I am currently in Romans 2. The first set is vv. 1-16. I found that it is easy to spread that section into vv. 1-11 and vv. 12-16. So for the first 11 days, I will learn one verse per day until the section is complete with no subsequent reviews on the following days. Once I reach the 11th verse, I will cram that section the next day, reviewing it over and over until I make no mistakes that day. The next day I will repeat the process for 12 while reviewing the previous section. So today, for example, from this hypothetical situation I will do the following in this order:
1. Learn Romans 2:12 2. Review Romans 2:1-11 multiple times 3. Review Luke 15 4. Review Romans 1 5. Review any John verses that have come up for review 6. Review any individual verses that have come up for review
This is all time permitting, of course. For example, the last few days I have done my new verse and no reviews because I've been sick. Today, I'll start my reviews again after my new verse is done. No stress, no mess.
No one process fits all. Pick and choose what works for you. We have lots of great users who find success with different processes and memorization philosophies. Just make sure your process avoids the stress which leads to burnout.
It is very useful during the initial learning stage. Go through the verse once, and then open the set again and repeat it over and over until you can do it without making any mistakes (and then do it five more times). The verses stick a lot better the more time you spend on them in the first hour/day of learning. Because of this, I only create passage sets for myself for individual verses instead of selection sets (although I rarely do individual verses, personally). I flag them as private, of course, to avoid spamming the group 30-40 times.
Can you clarify what you mean by comment? Is this a post by your brother to a specific group? If so, what group and what comment are you missing? Is this a comment on an achievement? If so, which one? To my knowledge, all comments are public, and there is very little policing on this website. That's why you see names like "deeznuts".
It is certainly possible to test fully learned verses, and dropping percentages is certainly a risk. I was referring to how the system prompts you to practice whenever you review a verse that is 100% instead of prompting it to go to the next verse. So, say you are reviewing a long passage or book, typically you'll just type the first verse and hit the space bar to go to the next verse in the series. Then you rinse/repeat until the section is done. If a verse is at 100%, however, it will instead prompt you to practice. It interrupts your flow because you have to move the mouse and click to move to the next verse instead of just hitting the spacebar.
I cannot see any impact on the points/percentages when refreshing or deselecting test other than what I described above. I've done the same on short verses with high percentages. There is one verse in Romans 1 ("foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless") which gives me nightmares every time I review it. One wrong fat finger and I know it will drop it 25%.
I have some follow-up information regarding our discussions about how the website calculates percentages. When I started back 24 days ago, I went through all of my John reviews to see how many I could finish from memory because most of them were in the high 90s.
This morning, I decided to review those same verses in John 12-16, where I have several verses at 98% and 99%. Out of 21 verses, 17 of them went from 98% and 99% to fully mastered when I scored perfect on the verse. I verified that the system registered them as mastered for the day as well. I also hit "Learn" again on the set and reviewed each verse to verify the percentage stayed the same. [Sometimes in the past I've seen the screen display a certain percentage but then change afterward (usually when you get 95% on the first review and then 100% on the second. It seems the first review takes priority.)].
Now given the intervals of 30 days per percentage point at that level, the expected result should have been that none of them advanced a point since I just reviewed them all 24 days ago. Now it is possible that some of the 99% verses might have reached 100% if there is rounding up on the display, given our previous discussions. However, of the 14 that were at 98%, 10 of them advanced to fully mastered if I did not make a mistake. That should not have occurred, right?
So I believe you guys may be right that there is a hidden percentage that is not fully displayed, along with some sort of rounding on the screen once you cross half a percentage point. But there also has to be some sort of bonus for getting the verse perfect. I believe I have a solution. Perhaps the mastery percentage algorithm matches the scoring algorithm. In other words, in the scoring algorithm when you get a verse perfect, you get the points-per-word score and a bonus 1.5x multiplier on top for making no mistakes.
If that were the case, it is possible that one of the 98% verses was actually at like 98.4% and was then given a .8% increase for the normal interval, pushing it to 99.2%, rounded down to 99% on the display. Then it was given another .4% for getting it perfect (98.4 + .8 = 99.2%, 99.2 + .4 = 99.6%, rounded up to 100%). This would also explain why some verses at 98% and 99% did not advance to 100%.
I agree, MarkAnthony. As PeterP said, my memory is just not what it used to be. Had I started memorizing the Bible as a child it would probably be much easier for me than it is now at 48. I want to keep everything active very badly, but my retention is what it is. Most of my verses I retain to about 95%, which is tremendous. The perfectionist in me hates it, however.
Thankfully, as I've been memorizing my brain has gotten into what I call "memorization mode." When I first started on this website, doing the first initial reviews seemed to take forever. Now I can look at a verse and retain it into short term memory after a couple of reads.
I hope no one takes any of my comments as a discouragement to memorizing the Bible in whatever way you choose. We have all been given different graces and callings from God, and one person's experience is not that of another. In whatever way you choose, by God's will I hope to be here with you in the struggle.