Suppose you have a card with 3 cloze deletions, C1, C2, and C3.
As a concrete example, letās use the following card:
I think that over time, it would be preferable to have all three of these separate cards condensed into a single card with all three deletions on it.
Cards of this sort would be very easy to condense into a single card. Not the perfect example since in this particular case, if you turned all three into C1 thereād be no hint to get you started. But thatās pretty easy to fix too.
The simplest approach to this would be to have a premade 4th card (letās call it C4) that condenses them all into a single cloze parameter C1.
If you want to automate the decision on when to āunlockā these condensed cards, there are two possible approaches:
The first approach is to let the user set the condensation breakpoint. If review intervals for C1/C2/C3 > k days, then unlock the 4th condensed card. You may also want to incorporate the option to suspend the C1/C2/C3 cards when the C4 card is unlocked to minimize review count.
The second approach is probably easier. Instead of allowing the user to determine the condense breakpoint, you can just use Ankiās built-in āmatureā tag. If cards with cloze C1/C2/C3 are mature then unlock the 4th condensed card.
There are some kinks to iron out but Iām interested to see how many people would be interested in an option of this type. It has two major benefits. The first is obvious, decresed review count. But I think the less obvious benefit is more important - this is probably how the brain natively links together facts over a prolonged period of time. Having a visual manifestation that reinforces this process would likely aid with retention and understanding.