Documentation
How practice exams, question reviews, flashcards, and lessons work in Synthay.
Jump to practice exams, question reviews, flashcards, or lessons.
Practice exams and drills
Choose your certification in the trainer before starting. Each exam has its own question bank and domain blueprint.
- Mock exams let you work through a timed session. You can revise answers and flag questions before submitting. Answers and explanations appear after submission.
- Domain drills focus on a topic. Commit your answer to see the explanation and the reasoning behind each option. Hints are available while you work.
- Multiple-response questions state how many answers to select. You must select the complete correct set; there is no partial credit. Unanswered questions count as incorrect when you submit.
Results show your score and a breakdown by domain, with sub-skills where the exam provides them. Use the breakdown to choose your next drill. Synthay's practice score and readiness indicators are study feedback; they do not reproduce the certification provider's scaled exam score.
Scheduled question reviews
A question you answer incorrectly enters a separate review schedule. Its first review is due one day later. Open Question reviews from the dashboard, practice, or flashcards to work through eligible questions.
Successful reviews move through gaps of 1, 3, 7, 21, and 60 days. Each gap starts from the review that scheduled it. After a successful review at the final step, the question graduates and stops appearing in the scheduled queue. A later incorrect answer restarts it at a one-day gap.
To advance, answer correctly on the first committed answer in a fresh session, once the question is due, without assistance. Reviews are available throughout their due day in your local time zone. Hints or viewing an answer defer a cold review until the next day. Early answers and immediate retries do not advance the schedule. An unanswered question leaves its schedule unchanged.
Question reviews and flashcards track progress separately. Completing one does not advance the other's schedule.
Flashcards and spaced repetition
Flashcards use active recall: answer from memory, check the result, and rate how difficult it was. An SM-2-based scheduler adjusts the next review date from your rating and previous reviews. Question order and answer choices are shuffled for each learning session.
What the progress labels mean
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Not studied | No scheduled review has been recorded for this card. |
| Learning | The card has been reviewed, but has fewer than three consecutive successful scheduled reviews. |
| Established | The card has at least three consecutive successful scheduled reviews. It still returns when due. |
Yes: a card stays Learning after your first correct answer. Choose Hard, Good, or Easy to record that successful recall. It becomes Established on the third consecutive successful scheduled review, with the required gaps between reviews.
Choose a recall rating
| Rating | Effect |
|---|---|
| Again | Resets the successful-review streak to zero and schedules a review in one day. The card is Learning. |
| Hard | Counts as a successful recall, but reduces the growth of later intervals. |
| Good | Counts as a successful recall with normal interval growth. |
| Easy | Counts as a successful recall and schedules longer gaps. |
An incorrect answer is automatically recorded as Again. Missed cards and cards rated Again return a few cards later for another attempt. These same-session retries help you practise the correction, but do not increase the successful-review streak or change the next review date.
Example: choosing Good each time
| Review | Progress | Next review |
|---|---|---|
| Today: correct + Good | Learning, 1 successful review | In 1 day |
| Tomorrow: correct + Good | Learning, 2 successful reviews | In 6 days |
| Six days later: correct + Good | Established, 3 successful reviews | After a longer, adaptive gap |
These dates assume you review as soon as each card becomes due. Reviewing later moves the following date later too. Easy starts with a three-day gap, then an eight-day gap; later gaps depend on your rating history.
Learning versus extra practice
- Learn new starts the review schedule for cards you have not studied.
- Learn due reviews cards whose scheduled date has arrived. These reviews can advance or reset the streak.
- Browse flashcards lets you flip through cards: the next button (or →, or a swipe) shows the answer, then the next card. Nothing is rated or saved, so scheduled progress is unchanged.
- 60s Blitz practises code recall against the clock. It also leaves scheduled progress unchanged.
Repeating a card before its due date does not move it toward Established. If an Established card receives Again or an incorrect answer during a scheduled review, it returns to Learning. Keep reviewing Established cards when they are due to maintain recall.
How lessons work
Lessons are short, practice-first units, one per exam skill, under Learn in the trainer. Each takes under ten minutes and makes you answer before it explains.
- One step per screen. A lesson moves through fixed steps, such as Learn, Practice and Check. Continue unlocks once you have answered the step's activities.
- Feedback on every answer. Each activity tells you why your answer is right or wrong. In practice steps you can try again after a miss.
- First answers count in the Check step. The Check step tests the lesson's objective and has no retry: the lesson's score is the number of its items you answered correctly. Synthay keeps your latest and your best score, and redoing a lesson never lowers the best.
- Written answers are not scored. Activities where you write your own text have no single right answer: compare yours with a model answer and its checklist.
Spaced review of lesson items
When you finish a lesson, each scored activity enters a review schedule. An item you answered correctly first comes back in 3 days; an item you missed comes back tomorrow.
Lesson items move through boxes with gaps of 1, 3, 7, 16, and 35 days. A correct review moves an item up one box; an incorrect one sends it back to the one-day box. An item in the last box keeps returning every 35 days. Redoing a lesson leaves the schedules of its items unchanged, so repetition does not reset the spacing you have built up.
Due lesson items appear in the trainer's Review screen, next to your question and flashcard reviews. All three keep separate schedules.
Lesson progress does not count toward the readiness score. Use the readiness breakdown to find a weak skill, and its lesson to work on it.
Open the trainer to choose your exam and continue studying.