What Anki bury siblings changes in your review session

Start with the note that generated the cards. A vocabulary note might create one card asking you to recognize a word and another asking you to produce it. Those cards share the source note even though their directions differ. Two separately written vocabulary notes that happen to discuss similar words are not automatically the same relationship. That distinction prevents you from expecting a sibling option to solve every kind of conceptual overlap in a collection.

Inspect a sample in Browse and identify which cards come from the same note. Read the relevant note-type configuration rather than assuming each row represents a single card. A cloze note can generate several prompts, and a reversed template can add another direction of testing. Count the generated cards when estimating workload. If you do not know what one note creates, temporary withholding can look like a mysterious reduction in the number of questions you added.

Consider a learner studying a foreign-language verb. The recognition card shows the verb and asks for its meaning; the production card supplies a precise English context and asks for the verb. Seeing the first answer immediately before the second can provide a helpful cue that would not be present in an independent test. The two directions are still useful, but the timing of their appearance affects what the second success tells you about unaided retrieval.

Open the deck options used by the session and read the current burying descriptions. Anki distinguishes categories such as new and review siblings, so a single assumption about all related cards may be too broad. Check which preset is assigned and whether it is shared across decks. A change intended for one subject can affect another subject if both use the same preset. Record your starting configuration before experimenting.

Do not copy a setting solely because a popular deck author uses it. The learning tasks may differ from yours. A pair of tightly linked recognition and production cards presents a different cueing concern from a note whose prompts already require distinct reasoning. The right question is what information the first card reveals and whether that information makes the next card trivial. Look at actual examples from your collection before deciding what behavior you want.

For a small test, choose a note with clearly identifiable siblings and inspect their states around an ordinary study session. Note which prompt appears and what happens to the related one. Keep the test narrow and avoid combining it with a large import or scheduling migration. You are checking visibility and card relationships, not trying to estimate a retention improvement from a single pair of answers. Write the observation in plain terms so you can verify it later.

Imagine a history note containing an event, a date, and an explanation. One generated card asks for the date. Another asks which event matches that date. If they occur consecutively, the second answer may be available because you just read it. A successful response still involved retrieval of something, but it is weak evidence that the reverse direction would work in a later, independent context. Separate the timing before comparing the two directions.

Now compare two cards about a scientific mechanism. The first asks for a definition, while the second presents a novel scenario requiring an explanation. Seeing the definition may help, but the second task can still require substantial reasoning. Do not assume that every related card should be removed from the same session without inspecting the question. Sometimes the larger problem is that both prompts test exactly the same sentence with superficial wording changes.

Use an editorial test: cover the answer, attempt the card, and ask what the previous prompt supplied. Did it provide the exact missing word, a necessary concept, or merely the general topic? If it supplied the answer, improve separation or rewrite the duplicate task. If it supplied a prerequisite explanation, consider whether your study objective is independent assessment or guided practice. Those are legitimate but different activities, and the card design should make that distinction visible.

Use the browser's documented state searches to inspect buried cards. Confirm the note still exists and check whether the card is buried manually or as a sibling. Suspension is different and should not be diagnosed from the same assumption. Also check whether a filtered deck is holding the card or whether it simply has a future due date. The card-level explanation is more useful than repeatedly increasing a daily limit.

Suppose you added a reversed vocabulary note and saw only one direction during today's session. Instead of importing the note again, find both generated cards and inspect their states. Reimporting can create a second problem: duplicated or unexpectedly updated content. The original issue may have been deliberate sibling separation. Resolve that first. If you decide to unbury material for a specific exercise, understand the current app action and the purpose of making the related prompt immediately available.

Do not delete and recreate a note to force visibility. That can discard or disrupt useful history while leaving the underlying design issue untouched. When the behavior is hard to interpret, make a tiny test note with a known relationship and compare it with the real note. A controlled example can reveal whether you misunderstand the note type, the selected deck options, or the state of a particular card. Preserve the collection before any broader maintenance step.

Separation is useful when distinct retrieval directions are worth keeping but one reveals the other. Redesign is more appropriate when several cards are interchangeable fragments that all depend on the same familiar wording. A cloze sentence with many deletions can create repeated exposure to the full sentence without testing the explanation behind it. Add or replace prompts only when they support a clear objective, rather than manufacturing more cards to make the deck feel comprehensive.

Keep Anki if generated card relationships and native note types are central to your study. A source-based workspace can help you draft a different explanation or application question without replacing the existing collection. If you test Elly, use a permitted source and check the questions against it. Account access and current AI allowances apply. A text transfer will not preserve Anki sibling relationships, card templates, media, or review scheduling.

End by checking three things in your own deck: you know which cards share a note, you understand the active burying controls, and you can explain any temporarily unavailable example. Then assess the learning task. A shorter queue can be intentional and helpful when it reduces obvious answer cues. It is not automatically better, and it is not evidence that all similar concepts have been separated. Keep the distinction between a software relationship and a conceptual relationship clear.