Spaced Repetition Science & FSRS Algorithm

THE PULSE MANUAL

Spaced repetition is a cheat code for your memory. Powered by the Apis Protocol, Pulse Decks keep medical knowledge alive in your head like a heartbeat. Here is your operational blueprint to master the system.

Start Studying Pulse Q-Bank Manual Leaderboards

1. How to Grade Yourself

When you flip a card, you will see four buttons. Do not overthink this. Be honest with the algorithm, and it will ensure you start retaining for real.

Again

Shortcut: 1

You blanked completely. Resets the card interval to 1 minute so it repeats in your current session.

Hard

Shortcut: 2

Remembered with heavy mental strain. Slightly increases interval. Use sparingly to avoid review loops.

Good

Shortcut: 3 / Space

The Sweet Spot. Remembered with normal effort. Hit this 90% of the time to build exponential intervals.

Easy

Shortcut: 4

Too simple. Drastically inflates interval. Use for trivially easy cards so you don't waste daily reps.

Mobile Swipe Gestures: On the native iOS and Android apps (iPhone, iPad, and Android), swipe right for Good and left for Again. Tactile haptic vibrations confirm your grade instantly without tapping tiny buttons.

2. Card Lifecycle & Colors

Your deck overview displays three color badges representing the card lifecycle.

New Cards (Cyan)

Unseen cards introduced according to your daily limits. Learn these steadily without overwhelming tomorrow's workload.

Learning Cards (Red)

Cards actively in short-term learning steps. If you hit 'Again' on a review, it drops back to Red until mastered.

Due Reviews (Green)

The core of spaced repetition. Predicted memory decay triggers these cards right before you forget them. Clear all green reviews daily!

3. The Math: Trust the Algorithm

Interval Growth: Hitting "Good" vs "Hard"

Consistently hitting "Good" expands intervals exponentially into months, while abusing "Hard" traps cards in short review loops.

The Golden Rule: 20-30 New Cards Daily

Start with 20 to 30 new cards daily. Every new card learned generates future reviews. 20 cards a day creates a smooth, permanent habit; 100 cards a day creates a review avalanche. Consistency compounds.

4. The Apis Protocol & Auto Pace Setter

The Auto Pace Setter

Set deck completion deadlines without manual spreadsheet math. Click the cog icon () on any deck.

Enter your target completion days or desired cards per day. The Auto Pace Setter automatically calculates and assigns daily limits across the parent deck and all sub-decks.

Daily Study Limits & Uncapped Reviews

Default: 9999 Uncapped

In your Deck Options, you have two primary control dials: New Cards / Day and Max Due Reviews / Day.

Why Due Reviews Are Uncapped By Default

1. The Memory Decay Threshold: The Apis Protocol schedules each review at the exact mathematical moment right before you forget. If you artificially cap your reviews (e.g. to 50 cards when 90 are due), the remaining 40 cards are postponed.

2. The Backlog Avalanche: Postponed cards suffer exponential forgetting. When you finally review them days later, you will fail them ('Again'), dropping their stability back to zero and multiplying your future review load.

3. How to Actually Reduce Your Workload: Never choke your due reviews. To reduce daily study volume, reduce your New Cards / Day to 10 or 15 instead. This smoothly tapers your future review load within a few days without sacrificing cards you have already mastered.

Learning and relearning repetitions (red cards) are always uncapped and never blocked by review limits, protecting active session mastery.

Front vs Back Time Tracking

Pulse tracks your learning speed split into Front Time (time spent answering) and Back Time (time reading explanations). Monitor your time distribution on your Dashboard or disable the stopwatch in Account Settings.

5. Card Management Tactics

End of Queue, Bury, & Suspend

Hit the options menu (three dots) while reviewing a card to take control:

End of Queue: Moves the card to the end of your current active session.
Bury: Punts the card to tomorrow's queue to space out similar concepts.
Suspend: Freezes the card indefinitely (removes from active study).

Open the Card Manager () on your Deck Overview page to unbury or unsuspend cards anytime.

Streak Freezes

Earned, never given. Every 10 consecutive study days awards an automated Streak Freeze. Miss a day, and the system burns a freeze to protect your streak.

The Honey Pot (Focus Timer)

A 25-minute floating Pomodoro timer. Tap to lock in and run focused study sprints without zoning out.

Q-Bank Mistakes & TITAN 360°

Transform any missed or saved MCQ from the Q-Bank into atomic flashcard suites with 1 click. Cards nest cleanly into your private Q-Bank Mistakes deck hierarchy with full in-place FSRS history preservation.

Trouble Cards Hive

Cards failed 8+ times are tagged as Leeches and banished to the Trouble Cards Hive for focused isolation. Reaching a 7-day interval automatically graduates and reinstates cards to your parent deck.

6. Native Apps & 100% Offline Engine

Native iOS App (Apple App Store)

Get BeambePrep on Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad with 100% offline local storage, hardware acceleration, and fluid gesture grading.

Native Android App (Google Play)

Get BeambePrep on Google Play for hardware-accelerated, distraction-free studying on mobile and tablet.

Native Windows App (Microsoft Store)

Get BeambePrep from Microsoft Store for instant desktop launch, keyboard shortcuts, and full offline study parity.

Offline Preloading & Auto Sync

Opening the app over Wi-Fi automatically preloads your daily decks. Turn on Airplane mode and review cards offline. Reconnecting to Wi-Fi instantly syncs your review logs and streak metrics to the cloud.

7. Spot a Typo? Squash It.

BeambePrep is cloud-native. Every flashcard features a ladybug report icon. If you spot a typo or factual error, tap it! Backend notifications alert Ibrahim instantly, pushing corrections to all devices without manual re-syncing.

KNOWLEDGE BASE & VERIFICATION

Frequently Asked Questions

Verified technical, scientific, and cognitive architecture details about the Pulse Engine.

The Pulse Engine in BeambePrep utilizes the Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler (FSRS v6) algorithm. Unlike legacy SM-2 ease factors that cause review avalanches, FSRS independently models memory stability and memory retrievability for every card, scheduling reviews at the exact moment before recall decays to guarantee 90%+ exam-day retention with fewer daily repetitions.

Traditional Anki uses the SM-2 algorithm published in 1987, which adjusts intervals using a rigid Ease Factor. If a card is graded difficult, Ease Hell occurs: the ease factor permanently plummets and cards appear excessively often. FSRS v6 replaces this with a 21-parameter machine learning model of human memory. It calculates memory stability (how long a memory lasts) and retrievability (the probability of recall today), reducing review volume by 20% to 30% while maintaining target retention.

When reviewing a flashcard, you grade your recall using four precision states: Again (resets the card for immediate same-session repetition), Hard (increases the interval conservatively after high mental strain), Good (the target retention state, scaling intervals exponentially), and Easy (significantly inflates intervals for trivial facts).

The Auto Pace Setter allows students to specify target exam dates or preferred daily review quotas. It recursively distributes daily card limits across parent decks and all nested sub-decks using remainder-aware allocation algorithms so zero cards are lost to rounding.

Yes. The official BeambePrep apps on the Apple App Store (for iPhone and iPad) and Google Play (for Android) feature a 100% offline local engine. Opening the app over Wi-Fi preloads your study queue, allowing you to complete review sessions in airplane mode without internet. Your logs and streaks automatically sync upon reconnecting.

Cards failed eight or more times are automatically quarantined to the Trouble Cards Hive to prevent pace clogging. Once a quarantined card reaches a review interval of seven days or longer through targeted remediation, it automatically graduates back to its parent deck.

Every flashcard in BeambePrep is rigorously curated and verified against the official PMDC syllabus. The deck repository contains zero filler, zero out-of-syllabus bloat, and zero typos. In rare cases where an authentic past paper originally contained a mistake from the examining board (such as UHS or NUMS), BeambePrep preserves the historical paper faithfully while providing a transparent Propolis autopsy explaining the board nuance and the scientifically correct answer.

BeambePrep was created as a love letter to Anki, engineered specifically for pre-medical students. While traditional Anki requires manual deck sourcing, complex add-on setups, and configuration overhead, BeambePrep works seamlessly out of the box with over 60,000 pre-curated flashcards, modern FSRS v6 spaced repetition, and 12,000+ clinical and past paper MCQs with step-by-step cognitive autopsies. Compared to conventional academy portals that offer only passive video lectures and static quizzes, BeambePrep is leagues ahead with dynamic latency zone pacing, the Amber mistake recovery loop, and cross-platform native apps with 100% offline study support.

In a question-by-question forensic audit against the newly conducted NUMS 2026 paper, BeambePrep public Anki flashcards covered 95 out of 135 science questions (70.4% verified coverage), including 72.5% in Physics (29/40 MCQs), 70.0% in Chemistry (28/40 MCQs), and 69.1% in Biology (38/55 MCQs). All 40 true coverage gaps are transparently documented on our Achievements page and are actively being added to the public library.

Cloze deletion masks key medical terms, enzyme names, formula variables, or anatomical landmarks within a clinical sentence. Rather than memorizing an entire card passively, students actively recall the missing nugget in context, reinforcing synaptic connections required for rapid multiple-choice recognition on exam day.

Whether reviewing cards on the web browser, native iOS app, Android APK, or Windows desktop client, all review events and timestamps are logged locally and pushed to the cloud upon connection. Your daily streak and Dual-Engine leaderboard rank update instantaneously across all devices.

Ready to build your streak?

Consistency guarantees retention. Clear your reviews daily, and the Apis Protocol will handle the rest.

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Got queries, feedback, or study strategy ideas? Reach out directly.

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