Really Long Review Intervals

🙋 Support
1

Hi,

I have been reviewing the Anking Step 2 Deck for about two months, today my review consists of review intervals as long as 1.2 years. It typically varies for some cards, some can be reviewed in 6 months and others up to 1.5 years from today. I mean, i am hoping to take the exam this year so this scares me a bit.

Am i doing something wrong? Please help…

2

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3
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You’re not doing anything wrong – this is how Anki’s spaced repetition is designed to work, and it’s normal to see long intervals (6–18+ months) even fairly early on.

A few key points:

  1. What those long intervals actually mean

    • Anki is predicting when you’re likely to forget a card given your previous answers.
    • If you’ve hit Good/Easy consistently on a card, Anki gradually stretches the interval. After a few correct reviews, it’s completely expected to see:
      • 3–4 months
      • then 6–8 months
      • then >1 year
    • That does not mean you won’t see that fact again until then in any form – you’ll usually see related cards, cloze deletions, and concepts repeated elsewhere in the AnKing deck and in your studying.

  2. Why this is usually okay for Step 2

    • By the time a card reaches a 1+ year interval, Anki’s saying: “Given your performance, you’re very unlikely to forget this in the next year.”
    • For Step 2, most of your weak and medium cards will still be on much shorter intervals (days–months), so that’s where your effort is focused – which is what you want.

  3. What to check in your Anki settings
    To make sure your scheduler isn’t overly aggressive, you can look at:

    • Deck Options → Review:
      • Maximum interval (e.g. 36500 by default). If you’re uncomfortable, you can lower it (e.g. 365–730 days), but that will increase your workload.
    • Deck Options → Advanced:
      • Interval modifier (default = 1.0).
        • If it’s >1.0 (e.g. 1.2), you’ll get longer intervals.
        • If you want slightly shorter intervals, you can set it to something like 0.9–0.95, but avoid drastic changes.
    • Make sure you’re using the v3 scheduler (Anki preferences → Scheduling).

  4. How to feel safer if this still worries you
    If certain topics feel too “far away” considering your exam date, you have options:

    • Tag-specific custom study / filtered decks
      • Tag weak areas (e.g. weak:renal, weak:onc) and periodically create a filtered deck:
        tag:weak:renal is:review
        This lets you manually bring specific content forward without changing global intervals.
    • Temporarily lower max interval for the Step 2 deck
      • For example, set maximum interval to 365 days for that deck only. This keeps “far” cards a bit closer at the expense of more daily reviews.
    • Use “Hard” a bit more on borderline cards
      • If a card barely feels solid, hit Hard instead of Good/Easy. That alone will slow interval growth for those cards.

  5. Quick self-check: Are your results in a healthy range?

    • Open Stats → Answer Buttons for the AnKing Step 2 deck.
    • Look at Mature retention (right side of the graph):
      • Around 85–92% mature correct rate is typically ideal.
      • If you’re in that range, your intervals (including 1+ years) are probably appropriate.
      • If you’re much lower, it might be a sign to:
        • lower the interval modifier a bit, and/or
        • slow new cards, and
        • add more understanding (videos, reading, sketches) instead of just grinding reps.

If you’d like, reply with:

  • A screenshot / description of your Review and Advanced options for the AnKing Step 2 deck, and
  • Your Stats → Answer Buttons view for that deck,

and I can suggest concrete, exam-focused tweaks (e.g., specific interval modifier / max interval values) that fit your timeline this year.

6

Hello,

It is hard to say for certain since it depends on your FSRS settings and your current algorithm data. However, FSRS typically creates longer intervals, meaning you need to review the same card fewer times while maintaining your desired retention. As long as your actual retention is close to your target (usually around 90%), you have nothing to worry about.

I recommend watching this video from AnKing on best practices for these settings to ensure everything is configured correctly: https://youtu.be/uo-qQvOZDfg?si=nIkugbknj3ienS1j

Let me know if you need help with anything else. :blush:

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