Spaced repetition means reviewing again after a gap, then after longer gaps, so you’re practicing retrieval when it’s still effortful but doable. Meta-analyses in cognitive psychology (e.g. Cepeda et al., 2006) generally favor spacing over massing for verbal recall—the size of the win depends on your material, gaps, and how you test yourself. Surge doesn’t replace that work; it gives you three modes so you can match the tool to the week you’re having.
My Pace walks your deck in order. There’s no spaced scheduler—good for a first read-through, a low-pressure pass, or when you want the deck to behave like a stack of cards, not a calendar.
Cram keeps a card in the same session until you’ve marked it Good or Easy enough times in a row; Easy needs fewer hits than Good by default, and Again/Hard resets the streak. If you use learning-profile coaching, those thresholds can nudge based on your self-rated active recall—nothing magical, just tuning. Built for intensity before a deadline, not for multi-week spacing.
Long-Term Memory is the SM-2-style path: after each card you choose Again, Hard, Good, or Easy, and the app schedules the next review in days (with a maximum interval cap in code). If you’ve taken the in-app assessment, intervals can scale slightly from your profile. Same family of idea as classic SM-2 implementations in open-source apps—personalized per card, not one fixed ladder for everyone.
The scheduler only schedules what you put in the deck—vague cards get vague reviews. Long-Term Memory also needs calendar time; it can’t fabricate spacing if you only open the app the night before a final. Many people use Long-Term Memory for the semester and Cram for the last mile; that’s a feature, not a failure.
Piotr Woźniak’s SuperMemo work popularized simple rating → interval → ease-factor loops. Surge follows that pattern with sensible caps and optional profile scaling. We say SM-2-style because software details differ slightly between apps; the goal is the same: more review when you’re shaky, less when you’re solid.
Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380. DOI
Try all three modes on your own decks. Manual creation is free; paid plans add AI generation, imports, and more.
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