Should I review recently learned concepts before concepts learned a while ago?

Question

Duolingo simulates the deterioration of your vocabulary over time by unstrengthening previously learned skills over time, as shown below.

As you can see, the skills that are not golden are not fully strengthened.. I always tend to strengthen all of my existing skills before moving on to newer ones, but I'm never sure whether to start with the most recent skill (in this case, Negatives, or the earliest learned but unstrengthened skill (in this case Clothing).

Does it make a difference which one I choose to review first? I always tend to review my earlier skills first, as I can more easily remember the later learned skills. Note that I only ask this in general, with Duolingo as an example.

Answer 1

It depends really what you assume to be your weaker subject and your own way of studying.

For example, I may learn Present 1 first and Negatives last but if I feel I have more trouble with the earlier subject than the last subject, I would do the earlier one first. People do say that you should relearn the recent ones first though as they are newer and might a little shove back into your longer term memory and are usually the weaker subject.

Of course, you could argue that you could just finish the more recent one as a refresh than focus yourself on the earlier subject and that the longer you don't study it, the more you will forget, which is also true. This argument is practically the reverse of the above so you could do Negatives first them Clothing.

If you prefer studying in a way that you do your weakest subject first then go to your stronger subjects than do that. If you don't really care, then there is still no difference. Both arguments in the middle two paragraphs are rather sound so it really comes to your preference and your perception of which argument is the winner. If you do the earlier one first (third paragraph) or do the more recent one first (second paragraph), it really doesn't matter as long you study the way you want to.