Anki Advice for Incoming Student

[drducky.]

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Hello,

I’ve seen Anki suggested a lot so I want to incorporate it into my studying routine. Do people generally use it on conjunction with a premade deck like Zanki or should I be making my own decks to study material that will be tested in my own courses.

Thank you for any help in advance.

 

[libertyyne]

I did both, made decks for class material, and also did premade decks later in the year closer to boards. Making decks is the best way to learn, just making the card makes you think. But using pre-made decks is not terrible either. You should experiment and see what works for you.

 

[wanderingorion]

I made decks from class material for first year, then used pre-made second year.
Making my own decks took soooo long, I feel that using the pre-made and adding a few cards here and there was the best way. Allowed me to spend more time to actually learn/study the information each day, so I learned it better in the long term.

 

[deleted600623]

Not an MS1 yet but my plan is to use the AnKing deck for my blocks (adding cards from lecture as needed) and then making my own cards from other miscellaneous classes that I have. If you're interested, there's a youtube channel called the MDJourney that I follow that is really good. He's a first year IM resident who matched into a very good IM program, like 240s step 1 etc. He talks about how to study efficiently and how to do well by only studying 4-5 hours max a day.

 

[Terps1011]

Premade decks did not help as much with my exams since they were based on what the lecture content specifically was so I onoy used my decks. For step 1 prep I made anki decks based on the questions I got wrong or any content I did not know.

 

[TakotsuboOkazaki]

If I could do it over again (organ systems curriculum):

- Learn from your class material. This will set you up for in-house exams and teach you relevant material at the same time.
- Finish the relevant Zanki Pharm/Step decks for a given block by the time you take the exam
- Rinse & repeat throughout M1 & M2 until dedicated

Other good ideas:
- Download Sketchy Micro & lolnotacops' micro ANKI deck
- Watch micro casually while you eat lunch, do the handful of cards for the video you watched over dinner
- Rinse repeat. One video per day should only take like a hundred or so days. So that is enough time to start this system at the beginning of M2 and finish by dedicated in the spring/summer.

This sets you up nicely with a solid knowledge base come dedicated.

Don't be like me and put off supplementing your curriculum until after M1. I was able to catch up on Zanki and Micro this summer, but it was not a good time (0/10 would not recommend).

Also, keep up with those reviews!