Abstract: A method and apparatus for encouraging a student to continue practicing skills until mastery of the skills is achieved. The method and apparatus present assigned exercises sequentially to a student, and evaluates the student's response. An assignment comprising a finite number of questions, a maximum number of attempts to answer each of the finite number of questions, and a required minimum number of correct answers to the finite number of questions is designed for a user. A learning device presents the user with a question from the finite number of questions that has not been attempted by the user. If the user supplies an incorrect answer to the question, the user chooses to either accept the incorrect answer, or to repeat an attempt to answer the question with new parameters.