> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.pawtograder.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Flashcards

> Work through your course's flashcard decks, sort cards into a mastered pile, and pick up where you left off

# Flashcards

Flashcard decks are practice material your instructor writes for the course. You
go through a deck one card at a time, deciding for each card whether you have it
or whether you want to see it again. Nothing here is graded and nothing is due.

Open **Flashcards** in the course menu, or press `g` then `f`.

<Note>
  Some courses do not use flashcards. If yours does not, there is no **Flashcards**
  entry in the course menu at all — that is a course setting your instructor chose,
  not a problem with your account.
</Note>

## The deck list

The **Flashcard Decks** page lists every deck your instructor has made for the
course. A badge above the grid counts them ("6 decks available"), and each deck
shows its name and a short description. Click a deck to start on it.

The list does not tell you how many cards a deck holds or how far into it you
are. You see both as soon as you open the deck.

If your course has flashcards but your instructor has not written any decks yet,
the page reads **No flashcard decks yet**. Decks appear as soon as they are
created, so a deck you open early may not have cards in it yet: that deck reports
**No Cards Available**.

## Studying a deck

Opening a deck shows you one card at a time from the *practice pile*, shuffled
into a fresh random order every time you open it.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Read the question">
    The front of the card reads **Question:** followed by the card's title, with the
    question underneath. Hovering over the card shows the hint "Click to show
    answer".
  </Step>

  <Step title="Flip the card">
    Click anywhere on the card to flip it. The back reads **Answer:** followed by the
    same title, with the answer underneath. **Back to Question** flips it over again
    if you want another look before you decide.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Sort the card">
    Two buttons sit under the answer:

    * **Got It!** takes the card out of the practice pile and moves it to
      **Cards You've Mastered** at the bottom of the page. This is saved to your
      account.
    * **Keep Trying** sends the card to the back of the practice pile. You will see
      it again later in the same session. Your mastered pile does not change, but the
      press itself is recorded — see [what your instructor can see](#what-your-instructor-can-see).
  </Step>
</Steps>

Above the card, a bar tracks **Progress: 4 / 20 cards mastered** on the left and
**Remaining: 16** on the right.

Card text can be formatted, so a card may hold a code block, a list, or a link
rather than a plain sentence.

<Note>
  **Keep Trying** records nothing. Only **Got It!** is remembered, so the progress
  bar measures how many cards you have set aside as mastered — not how much
  practice you have put in.
</Note>

If you press **Keep Trying** when that card is the only one left in the pile,
there is nowhere to send it. Pawtograder says so — "No more cards to move. This
is the last card in the pile." — and flips the card back to the question side.

## Cards you've mastered

Everything you marked **Got It!** in this deck collects in the
**Cards You've Mastered** panel below the card, with a badge counting them. Each
one appears as a small tile with a checkmark and the card's title, plus an undo
button that puts that single card back into the practice pile.

Once every card is mastered, the practice pile is empty and the page shows
**Great job! 🎉** with a **Start Over** button.

## Your progress is saved

Your mastered pile is stored with your account, separately for each deck. Close
the tab, come back next week, or sign in on a different computer: the cards you
marked **Got It!** are still out of the practice pile, and the deck resumes with
what is left.

Two controls put cards back:

* The undo button on a tile in **Cards You've Mastered** returns that one card.
* **Reset Progress** in the deck header — the same action as **Start Over** on
  the finished screen — returns *every* card in the deck to the practice pile and
  confirms with a "Progress Reset" message.

<Warning>
  **Reset Progress** empties your mastered pile for the whole deck at once. There is
  no confirmation step and no undo. If you only wanted one card back, use the undo
  button on that card's tile instead.
</Warning>

## What flashcards do not do

A deck is a two-pile sort and nothing more, so several things you may expect from
other flashcard tools are simply absent:

* **No scheduling.** There is no spaced repetition, no "due for review today",
  and no interval that brings a mastered card back on its own. A card leaves the
  practice pile when you say **Got It!** and comes back only when you put it
  back.
* **No grade.** Practice is never scored, and nothing about it shows up in your
  [gradebook](/students/gradebook).
* **No dates.** Decks have no due date and no release date.

## What your instructor can see

Your practice is recorded, and course staff can see it with your name attached.
For a whole deck they see how many cards you have mastered, how many you have
returned to the practice pile, and how many questions and answers you have looked
at. Card by card, they see how many times you viewed it, how many times you
pressed **Got It!** or **Keep Trying**, and how long you spent before each press.

<Tip>
  That is a record of practice, not of performance. Pressing **Keep Trying** several
  times on a hard card is exactly what the deck is for. The
  [staff guide](/staff/flashcard-decks#analytics) lists everything the reports
  show, if you want to know precisely.
</Tip>