Hey everyone. I've been using Skritter for about 6 months now, and have noticed that my retention rate has never even got close to 95%, being closer to 85, or below, in most cases.

Is this normal when starting out, and will i get closer to 95% over time, or does this show a weakness in my studies?

Does anybody else show a similar retention rate. I'm worried that either stupid, or studying inefficiently.

My retention rate is also constantly in the 80's, usually at 85 or 86. Personally I think that's a pretty good rate, I mean it's not possible to remember everything. Also, it depends on how strict you are with yourself when grading. Sometimes I'll grade something wrong even if I got it right because it took me too long to think of the answer.

I think you can adjust the retention rate you're going for in the settings, and it'll add more reviews to compensate until you get up to where you want to be, retention wise.

Retention rate will be higher when you study every day, when you have good outside-Skritter context for what you study inside Skritter, and for various other reasons.

If 85% feels frustratingly low to you when doing reviews, you might want to engage more with mnemonics, actively deal with leeches, get more context for what you're studying, etc. If it doesn't feel frustrating, though, it's fine: slightly lower retention rates can actually lead to slightly faster overall learning.

Personally, I changed my study settings to adding words 'slow' and I pause every time I finish a section, like that I can control my retention rate (in other words, I study the same unit until my retention rate is well over 90 before starting a new section.) It really depends what you're studying for, how strict you are with yourself, and what your expecting of yourself grades wise... I'm not proud to say I'm a 'miss know it all'' but it gets me good grades and potentially good scholarships to come.

I found that studying all four modes (writing, tone, pinyin, definition) helped my retention a lot as it boosted my exposure to the characters in between, for example, writing reviews. I think all four are enabled by default now, but I had to change this myself.

Also, nice avatar. Love that album.