Cards That Actually Teach

What it is for

One card format survives spaced repetition and three common ones waste every review: the card with two facts, the card you can answer from its own wording, and the card that tests recognition instead of recall.

The skill Copy

A card is a single retrieval. Most bad decks fail on format, not content.

Write cards that are:
- **One fact per card.** A card with three facts is reviewed as a unit, so you
  keep re-reviewing the two you know to reach the one you do not.
- **Answerable from the front alone.** If the front needs the back for context,
  it is not a question.
- **Cued the way you will need it.** Study for the direction you will use: if
  you need to produce the word, the front is the meaning. Both directions means
  two cards, and that is fine.

Three formats to avoid, all common:
- **Definition-shaped fronts** ("Mitochondria — ?"). They test recognition, not
  recall, and recognition does not transfer to an exam or a conversation.
- **Lists on the back.** "Name the seven..." is seven cards, or a diagram, not
  one card.
- **Cloze with only one blank per sentence, always in the same place.** You
  learn the sentence shape instead of the content.

Before importing a generated deck, read twenty cards and delete the ones that
fail the rules above. A deck is worth the time it takes to fix it; a bad deck
costs you every review session thereafter.

How to install it Copy

1. Open the tool and start a new conversation, project or template.
2. Paste the text below wherever the tool keeps standing instructions
   — usually called system prompt, instructions, or persona.
3. Save it so it applies to every run rather than a single message.

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Where it came from