# Basic

> The workhorse question-and-answer card.

## What & why

A **Basic** card is a question on the front and its answer on the back. It's the
plainest type Deckberry has, and it's the one most good decks are mostly made of —
vocabulary, definitions, dates, formulas, facts. When you're unsure which type to
use, this is the answer.

Two fields, nothing to configure: **front** (the question) and **back** (the answer).
Both accept light Markdown, so you can **bold** the key part or add an _example
sentence_ in italics.

## The rule

> One question on the front, one answer on the back. Keep the back short enough to
> grade in a glance.

## Bad → good

A real entry from the **English Irregular Verbs** catalog deck. Tap a card to reveal
the answer.

**Before — A paragraph on the back — too much to grade as pass or fail.**

> **Q:** go
> **A:** The verb “go” is irregular. Its simple past is “went”, and its past participle is “gone”. Note that “gone” needs an auxiliary, e.g. “has gone”, while “went” stands alone…

**After — The forms, plus one short example. Answerable in a breath.**

> **Q:** go — past tense and past participle?
> **A:** went · gone (She went to Rome; she has gone abroad.)

## When it applies

Use Basic whenever the material is a straight question and answer — which is most of
the time. Reach for another type only when the shape demands it: **Cloze** when the
sentence around a blank teaches the meaning, **Rich media** when an image _is_ the
question.

Keep each card to [one fact](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/deck-craft/one-fact/) and phrase the
front as a real [question, not a heading](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/deck-craft/ask-dont-display/).
Those two habits do more for a Basic deck than any other type ever will.

## Related

- [Which card type to use when](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/card-types/which-to-use/)
- [Cloze](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/card-types/cloze/)
- [One card, one fact](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/deck-craft/one-fact/)
- [Answers you can self-grade](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/deck-craft/self-gradable/)

---

[Read this guide on Deckberry](https://www.deckberry.com/creators/guide/card-types/basic/)