SUMMIT
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You learn something on Monday. By Thursday, much of it is gone. That isn't a flaw in you: it's how memory works for everyone. The good news is that the forgetting follows a pattern, and you can use it.
The forgetting curve
In the 1880s the psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus memorized lists of nonsense syllables and tested himself at different delays. He found that memory drops steeply in the first day or two, then levels off. He also found that each time he relearned a list, it faded more slowly afterwards.
Researchers have confirmed the same shape many times since, with real study material. Each review flattens the curve, so the time you can wait before the next review gets longer. That's the core idea of spaced repetition: review just as you are starting to forget, and stretch the gap each time you succeed.
Why cramming fails
Cramming puts all your reviews in one night. It can work for a test the next morning, because the material is still fresh. But it gives you only one steep curve: a week later most of it is gone, just in time for the final exam that covers it again.
Spacing the same total study time across several days produces much better long-term retention. The reviews feel harder, because you have partly forgotten, and that effort is exactly what strengthens the memory. Our guide to active recall explains why effortful retrieval works.
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How Summit schedules reviews
Summit keeps a review queue for you automatically, in the style of a Leitner box system, which uses a few boxes with longer and longer gaps:
- When you score under 60 points on a prompt, it goes into your review queue, due the next day.
- When it comes up and you do well (60 points or more), it moves to the next box: due again in 3 days, then 7 days, then 14 days.
- Pass it after the 14-day gap and it counts as mastered, and leaves the queue.
- Miss it at any stage and it goes back to the start, due tomorrow.
The review climb on the home screen shows how many prompts are due today. It mixes prompts from all your routes, so you also get the benefit of mixing topics. Reviews don't use up your daily new routes.
Using spacing before a test
If your test is a week or more away, you have room for the full schedule. Map routes from each topic early, climb them, and do your reviews each day. Anything you keep missing will keep coming back until it sticks.
If your test is in two or three days, the long gaps won't fit, but spacing still helps on a small scale. Climb a route in the morning, again in the evening, and again the next day, rather than five times in a row. Even gaps of a few hours beat no gap at all. The one-week study plan lays out a full schedule.
Tips that make it work
- Little and often. Ten minutes of reviews a day beats an hour once a week. The schedule only works if you show up on the days things are due.
- Don't peek before answering. A review is only a review if you try first. Looking at your notes turns it back into rereading.
- Read the explanation when you miss. Tapping Why? on the answer you were missing gives your memory something to attach the fact to.
- Start earlier than feels necessary. Spacing needs days to work. The best time to start is when the material is first taught, not when the test is announced.