Until now, I've been able to ignore the implications of not knowing some items of vocab as thoroughly as I should. Now, though, the first words I put into Volats are coming to the end of monthly testing and moving into yearly testing; so if I'm not certain that I'll remember them, it's a bit risky to let them through this final barrier. With the old shoe-box system, you could take a dodgy word and bring it back to any random place in the box so that it would be tested more times before moving forward. (In fact, I remember sneakily doing that when I'd let too many days pass without testing myself and couldn't clear the backlog). With the database, you can easily do the same, by manually reducing the number of 'passes' for the item, thereby increasing the number of tests and the frequency of testing. But that feels a bit haphazard.

So I've developed three new buttons, and used one of them in anger on this very forgettable word:-



"70% happy" reduces the number of passes to 70% of the number you've actually recorded. This would return a monthly item to weekly testing, for example. "You work in the butcher's don't you? Give me a clue. Is it Harold?"

"30% happy" reduces the number of passes to 30%. This would return a monthly item to daily. "Ah yes, I'd have remembered you if you'd brought your sister along again."

"0% happy" returns the item to the very beginning of testing. "Look, I've seen you a few times, but wouldn't know you from Adam. Let's start over."