Flashcard Draw Session

What this generator does

Deals your own cards in a random order, once each, until the pile is empty. The revision schedule planner already here decides which topics to review on which day; this is what you do inside one of those sessions. Unlike a random question picker, it guarantees coverage: a pile of forty cards takes exactly forty draws to exhaust, so 'I have been through them all' is a fact rather than a feeling.

How to use this tool

1. Type your cards, one per line — prompt and answer together works well.
2. Set how many to face at a time.
3. Press Start the pile, then Next card.
4. Press Undo if you turned one over too soon.

Understanding the controls

Your cards

One per line. A prompt and its answer on the same line works well — you read the prompt, recall, then check. Repeats are kept, which is a legitimate way of weighting a card you keep getting wrong.

Cards per turn

How many to face at once. One is the usual self-test; a few at a time suits comparing related items or running a group round.

Seed

A word gives the same order again. Useful for repeating an identical drill later, or for two people testing themselves on the same sequence.

Worked examples

A 30-card pile

Thirty draws to get through it, with no card twice and none missed.

A card entered three times

Comes up three times across the session — a simple way to weight one you keep forgetting.

Same seed, next week

The identical order, for a repeat of exactly the same drill.

What is never shown

The same card twice while others are still unseen.

Common use cases

• Self-testing before an exam without re-reading the same three cards
• Working through a vocabulary list so nothing is skipped
• Running a quick recall drill at the start of a lesson
• Turning a set of notes into a randomised but complete test
• Checking you can still recall a whole topic, card by card

How this generator works

Your lines become a deck, which is shuffled once and then walked in order. Because the shuffle happens once rather than per draw, 'every card before any repeat' is a guarantee rather than a probability — the same property that makes dealing a hand of cards fair. The counter shows how many are left, and the tool says plainly when the pile is empty rather than quietly starting again. Nothing is graded and nothing is remembered between visits: this randomises and tracks coverage, and the recall is yours.

Randomness and fairness

The order is set by a single cryptographically random shuffle at the start, not by an independent draw per card — which is precisely what makes complete coverage guaranteed rather than likely. A seed switches to a documented reproducible generator for repeating a drill; that is for repeatability and is not cryptographic.

For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.

Assumptions this tool makes

• One line is one card, and you would rather see everything once than see the same few often.

Limitations and good to know

• It does not know whether you got a card right. There is no grading, no scoring and no adaptive repetition — those need a stored record of every review, which this deliberately does not keep.
• Nothing is saved between visits. Closing the page loses the pile and the position.
• Both sides of a card are visible at once, so it relies on you reading the prompt before the answer.
• It randomises order; it does not decide what should be on a card, which is where most of the learning actually is.

Common mistakes

Treating it as spaced repetition

It is not. Spaced repetition adapts intervals to how well you recalled each item, which needs a stored history. This randomises one session's order. Use the revision schedule planner to decide when sessions happen, and this inside them.

Re-shuffling when a hard card comes up

That is the habit the tool exists to break — it is how the cards you know get practised and the ones you do not get avoided. Work the pile to the end.

Practical tips

• Put the prompt and answer on one line separated by a dash or equals sign; it reads cleanly and stays one card.
• Enter a card you keep failing two or three times. It will come up that often, without you deciding when.

Privacy and your data

Your cards never leave your browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored between visits, and nothing goes into the page address — which matters because a revision pile can say a great deal about what you are studying and how well. Analytics records that the tool ran and how many cards were in the pile, never their contents.

Frequently asked questions

Why not just press a random picker repeatedly?

Because independent draws do not cover a set. With thirty cards drawn independently, it takes about 120 draws before you have probably seen all thirty, and you have no way of knowing when that happened. Dealing without replacement takes exactly thirty and tells you where you are.

Is this the same as Anki?

No. Anki and similar tools schedule each card based on how well you recalled it, which requires storing your history. This stores nothing and adapts to nothing — it shuffles a pile and deals it out. For genuine spaced repetition, use software built for it; imitating it here would be pretending to a personalisation this does not have.

Can two people use the same pile?

Yes — set the same seed and you both get the identical order, which makes comparing answers straightforward.