Reading your mistakes

• A mistake stays open until you answer that question correctly. Reading the explanation does not close it.
• Before you re-drill anything, work out which of four kinds of mistake it was.
• Only one of those four is fixed by doing more questions.
• Come back to it a few days later, not the same evening — you will pass it either way today.

Not all wrong answers are the same problem. You can misread the question, know the topic but not that detail, half-know it and pick the plausible option, or simply never have met it. Those four need four different responses, and doing more questions only fixes the last one. Sorting them takes about ten seconds per mistake and saves hours of drilling the wrong thing.

The list stays open on purpose. If reading the explanation closed a mistake, the list would measure how much you have read rather than what you can do — and understanding an explanation the moment it is in front of you is close to free. Having to answer it correctly, later, cold, is the only evidence that anything changed.

One — Open Mistakes and read, do not drill

First pass, no answering. Just look at what is on the list and notice what keeps coming back — one subject, one kind of question, one specific thing you keep confusing.

Two — Label each one to yourself

Misread · knew it, missed the detail · half-knew it · never met it. You do not type this anywhere; the point is to notice it. If most are 'misread', your problem is pace, not knowledge.

Three — Bookmark the ones that need reading, not repeating

Put the 'half-knew it' ones in a folder of their own. Those need the book or a Coid answer, and drilling them before you have read anything just produces a second wrong answer.

Four — Wait, then run a trial

A day or three later, start a trial from the mistakes list or from the folder. It asks the questions cold and in a new order, and it is marked as a sitting of its own, so you find out whether anything actually stuck.

Five — Let the list shrink, and check it is shrinking

An honest mistakes list should be getting shorter week by week. If it is growing, you are covering ground faster than you are consolidating it — slow the first pass down.