Spaced repetition is misunderstood. The original idea was to decrease the amount of time needed for long term memorization, over a different approach, like sequential or purely random repetition. However, many people now compare SRS over no repetition at all.
One big problem of SRS is that it gets unwieldy with larger chunks of information. SRS is good for vocabulary, bad for medical texts. The much bigger problem is that it takes an unpractical amount of calendar time. If you have three months, yes you can SRS a few hundred words. If you have a week and want full recollection at the end, you'll still repeat the list of words a couple dozen times and SRS makes no difference.
Another problem is the time it takes to prepare a database or a set of paper cards. By the time I prepare a database from a book I could probably read the thing twice or more times.
For exams that require recital of information (for example medical or law exams) mnemonic techniques like the Loci method (also called memory palace) are much more reliable and more practical.
One big problem of SRS is that it gets unwieldy with larger chunks of information. SRS is good for vocabulary, bad for medical texts. The much bigger problem is that it takes an unpractical amount of calendar time. If you have three months, yes you can SRS a few hundred words. If you have a week and want full recollection at the end, you'll still repeat the list of words a couple dozen times and SRS makes no difference.
Another problem is the time it takes to prepare a database or a set of paper cards. By the time I prepare a database from a book I could probably read the thing twice or more times.
For exams that require recital of information (for example medical or law exams) mnemonic techniques like the Loci method (also called memory palace) are much more reliable and more practical.