Smart Learn picks the question format per word, based on how well you know that word. A word at mastery 0 appears as a flashcard you simply read. At mastery 1 or 2 it becomes multiple choice. At mastery 3 and above you have to type it. Answer wrongly and the word drops a level, so the next time you see it the question is easier again.
Why not just test the hard way every time
Because typing a word you have never seen is not a test, it is a blank. There is nothing to retrieve, so you sit there, give up, and read the answer — which is what a flashcard would have done immediately and without the frustration.
The opposite failure is just as common. Multiple choice on a word you know perfectly is free: four options, three obviously wrong, and you click the right one without recalling anything. It feels like studying and measures nothing.
The three formats and what each one asks of you
- Flashcard, at mastery 0 — first exposure. You are being shown the pairing, not quizzed on it.
- Multiple choice, at mastery 1 and 2 — recognition. You have to pick the right meaning out of plausible neighbours, which you can do before you could produce it.
- Typing, at mastery 3 and up — recall. Nothing on screen helps you. This is the only one of the three that proves you actually have the word.
The order matters more than the formats do. Recognition arrives before production in the ordinary course of learning a word, so a mode that demands production first is fighting the sequence rather than following it.
What happens when you get one wrong
The word is demoted and put back in the queue for the same session, and its new question type is worked out from the lowered mastery. So a word you failed at typing comes back as multiple choice rather than as the same typing question you just missed.
That is deliberate. Repeating the identical question you just failed mostly teaches you the shape of your own confusion. Dropping to recognition gives you something you can actually get right, and the typing question returns once you have.
How the queue is ordered
Lowest mastery first. The words you know least well come at you at the start of the session, when you have the most attention to spend on them, rather than at the end after twenty easy ones have worn you down.