Each section below answers one question: where a card went when it never turns up, what the three groups on the session summary say about a word, and why most of what you answer is flashcards.

How a right or wrong answer moves a card's next review date is in How Vocards decides when a word comes back. This guide doesn't repeat it.

What you need

• The deck the card is in.
• For the summary groups, a session you've finished.

Why doesn't a card show up in my sessions?

Open the deck the card is in and work down this list.

It has no back yet

A card with an empty back is left out of every session until it has one. On the deck page it carries a Needs back tag, and a banner above the cards says how many need one.

• Type a translation into the card yourself.
• Or click Complete on the card, or Complete backs on the banner to fill them all. Both use AI and spend credits.
• Review drafts on the banner lists only the cards that need a back.

Note: On iOS and Android, Complete only shows on the card while you're online.

You hid it with Don't show again, or discarded it as a duplicate

Don't show again in a session takes a card out of your sessions without deleting it. So does discarding a copy in Duplicate words, the review your decks page offers when the same word is in more than one deck. Both put the card in the deck's discarded list. To bring it back:

1. On the deck page, click Discarded next to the card list. It only appears when the deck has at least one hidden card, and it shows how many.
2. Click Restore on the card.

The card is back in your sessions straight away, with its level and date as they were.

Note: On iOS and Android, tap Discarded above the cards, then Restore on the card. Restoring needs a connection.

The deck is paused

A paused deck is left out of the sessions you start from Home, out of mixed reviews and out of Practice. You can still study it from its own deck page: the start button there works the same as on any other deck.

The app uses two names for this. On web, the deck page shows a banner that starts "Learning paused" , with Resume Learning. On My Decks, the same deck is marked Inactive, and its menu has Activate. Either button puts it back in rotation.

Note: On iOS and Android, the deck screen's banner starts "Inactive" and has Activate, which needs a connection. To pause a deck there, tap More options (the ⋯ button) on the deck screen, then Deactivate.

It isn't due yet

A card you've studied only comes back on its next review date. The deck page shows the date on each card, next to a clock. Point at it for the hint When this card is next due for review.

When nothing in a deck is due and it has no new cards, its start button reads Practice Again. That session gives you cards that aren't due as practice, and they keep their dates.

The session filled up before it got there

A session holds 10 cards unless you've changed Cards per session in Settings. It fills those places in this order:

1. Due cards you haven't seen today.
2. New cards, the oldest-added first.
3. Due cards you already saw today.

So a card you added today waits until the due cards and the older new cards have had their turn. To get through more cards in one sitting, raise Cards per session. It goes from 5 to 100.

Once you've fixed the cause, the card counts toward the deck's due or new numbers again, and the next session can pick it up.

What do Easy, Tough and Lapsed mean?

When a session ends, the summary shows Great job! and a ring with the number of cards reviewed. Under the ring, every card from the session is in exactly one of up to three groups. A group with no cards isn't shown.

• A Lapsed word stays in that group even if you got it right later in the same session. It dropped to Learning the moment you missed it.
• Only a word you'd already learned can lapse. A new or Learning word you miss goes to Tough once you get it right.
• A wrong answer on multiple choice, gap-fill or typing doesn't put a word in Tough. Only flashcard answers count.

Click a group to see its words. Click it again to close the list.

Done for today at the bottom of the summary takes you back to Home.

If any word moved up a level, a line under the groups says how many. Click it to open Moved up this session, which shows each word and the level it reached. The line doesn't appear when nothing moved up.

Note: A session can also hold practice cards, which are cards that weren't due yet. They land in a group like any other card, but the group only describes how your answers went. A practice card keeps its level and its next date.

Note: On iOS and Android the summary has the same ring, the same three groups and the same level-up line. Tap a group to see its words. Done for today closes the summary there too.

Why is almost every exercise a flashcard?

A card that's due or new always starts as a flashcard, and it stays a flashcard until you get it right. A right answer takes it out of the session.

Multiple choice, gap-fill and typed answers only reach a card in these cases:

• Near the end of a session. When one or two cards are left, cards you already got right are mixed back in, often as one of these exercises.
• On practice cards. Cards that aren't due yet fill the empty places when fewer cards are due than the session holds. They're also what Review Anyway and Practice Again give you, and what Keep practicing gives you once the deck's due and new cards are used up. A practice card you've studied before can be a quiz from the start.
• In Practice. You can drill one exercise type on its own. See Drill one exercise type with practice rounds.

So a session full of due and new cards is flashcards almost all the way through. Quizzes turn up more often on days when little is due. They're extra practice, and a wrong answer on one never counts against the card.

Check your exercise mix

On web, open Settings from your account menu and choose Exercise mix. On iOS and Android, open the Settings tab and tap Exercise mix.

If Multiple Choice, Gap-fill and Typing are all set to Off, the page says Only flashcards for now. where the colored bar would be. Set at least one of them to anything but Off. Flashcard is Always on and can't be switched off.

The settings are chances, so a short session can end without one of the types even when it's switched on. How it works on the page explains the mix in full.

When one quiz type never appears

Each type also needs something from the card or the session:

• Gap-fill needs an example sentence on the card that contains the word.
• Typing needs an answer of up to two words and 24 characters. It's never used when you're learning Japanese, Chinese, Cantonese, Arabic, Hebrew or Persian. If you picked No typing this session in a session, typing stays off until that session ends.
• Multiple Choice needs at least four cards in the session, so it has wrong answers to offer.

If something goes wrong