Once you get a flashcard right, should you drop it?

No — one correct recall doesn't lock in a memory; repeated retrieval over spaced intervals is what makes it durable.

Getting a card right once feels like "done," but that's the illusion of competence again. Durable memory comes from repeated successful retrievals separated in time, not a single win.

This is the bridge to the next technique, spaced repetition: the app deliberately brings a card back — at growing intervals — even after you've answered it correctly, because each later retrieval (when the memory has partly faded) does more work than an immediate repeat. Dropping a card on first success throws away most of its value.