掲示板 Forums - Tip for multiple choice users

This topic comes up from time to time, and I'd like to share the advise that I give many users who contact me directly about it. This is always in response to a question/comment along these lines:

Q: When I do multiple choice, it's too easy to pick out the correct answer from the choices. What should I do?

A: Let me suggest to you something I did myself when I used renshuu, and some I often suggest to others. Ultimately, multiple-choice is a flawed system, because what we need is not to be able to pick out an answer (there is no real corollary in actual language usage) but to be able to recall the information. Unfortunately, fill in the blank is less-than-ideal for those who want to quiz quickly, are on mobile, etc.

If you tap the settings icon in the top-right when you are in a quiz, there is a "Hide multiple-choice answers" setting. Try turning that on. Then, do this:

1. When question appears, attempt to recall answer. After thinking of answer, reveal multiple choices.

2. If the answer you thought of is there, choose it. If it is not (even if you can deduce the answer from the other choices), tap the "I don't know" button, and renshuu will send it back to you for review.

This gives you the speed of multiple choice, but the more realistic action of knowledge recall, and not "which answers are not correct".

I think it would also be good if there was an "I totally fluked the answer" button (for when you luckily guess correctly but really need more review of that kanji.)

This is great thank you so much

It doesn't, largely because the grammar ones require you to fill in the blank (in the sentence), whereas the vocab ones are more of a flashcard style, where you are going from info A to B.