Practice and Retained

falsewrk reports two error figures and never blends them into one.

Practice

Practice is your median error across every answered rep. It includes reps you did straight after a reveal, reps on a type you saw yesterday, and reps on a type you have just started. It is the warm number: how you do while the method is fresh.

Practice is useful, and it is flattering. Fresh memory and knowing what is coming both help.

Retained

Retained is your median error on cold reads only.

A cold read is the first rep of a type after at least seven days without seeing it. Nothing has reminded you of the method in that time, so your answer shows what survived the gap — the judgement you would actually bring to a project on an ordinary Tuesday.

You never have to ask for one. Once a type’s interval reaches a week or more, every time it comes back due is a cold read. Nothing prompts you when the seven days pass; the type simply comes back when it is due.

A few rules keep it honest:

• Only the first rep of a type that day can be a cold read. The rest of the day’s reps of it come after its reveal, so they are Practice.
• A skip after seven days spends the cold read without recording one: the reveal showed you the answer, so you are no longer cold.
• Practising a resting type early resets the seven days.

Reading the two together

The gap between them is the thing being trained.

• Retained close to Practice — what you learn is sticking.
• Retained well above Practice — you can do it while it is fresh, but it fades. That is normal early on, and spacing is what closes it.
• Retained missing — a type you have not left alone for a week yet. A type still being learned comes back every few days, so it needs time before it has any cold reads.

Both figures are medians, not averages. With only a handful of cold reads, one wild answer — a unit slip that is out by 300% — would drag an average a long way. A median shrugs it off.