Anki Help

[Jr MD]

Hey guys,

So I'm an MS1 and I've been sold on using anki. The only drawback is that I don't really know how to effectively organize my decks. I'm in anatomy and biochemistry right now so I wanted to get this going before things got very real. I saw on YouTube a video about one but he used several decks and I was advised now to use many decks. I even read about a person using only 2 decks separated into pharmacology and non pharm lol Ultimately I want to use the decks to study for step 1. I know there's a way to do this effectively so if you have any insight on how you organized your decks please please please let me know I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!!

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[Pacna]

1) You won't use the decks to study for step 1. You just won't. You'll get the Brocephalon deck for that.
2) Organize by exam. Have 2 parent decks, anatomy and biochem. In each of those, have "exam 1" "exam 2" etc decks. In those, have a deck per lecture. When you're finished with an exam, consolidate the lecture decks into the "exam #" deck and delete the (now empty) lecture decks.

That's how I did it. Worked well for me.

 

[achamess]

I suggest having few decks, and instead using tags. You can tag by exam, by subject, w/e. Then, you can use the tags to do selective study. You might want to have one deck for "class" and another for "step 1". That might be a useful segregation. Or you could just have one big deck called "med school" and tag everything. It's just a question of whether you want to mix class stuff with other things. If you think the class stuff is worthwhile to study in the future, mix. If you want to just cram and not see again, separate. Or even better, don't waste your time making Anki cards for class stuff. Just cram that like everyone else does. Make cards for Step 1 stuff, or use other good decks, and study those long term.

 

[Brahventus]

Any tips on how to make anki cards if it's my sole source of notes. I use only anki for everything and the rest are qbanks but I started to see that my exam scores have been decreasing ever since I've been using anki. Maybe I've been too dependent on it or just not seeing the big picture.

 

[lp430]

Any tips on how to make anki cards if it's my sole source of notes. I use only anki for everything and the rest are qbanks but I started to see that my exam scores have been decreasing ever since I've been using anki. Maybe I've been too dependent on it or just not seeing the big picture.

I would not use Anki alone. You definitely lose the forest for the trees with this method. I am a huge advocate of Anki, but I would never use it alone. The best thing to do is make a 1 page summary for each topic/lecture and use that to help see the "big picture". Anki is best used for details/factoids. That's what worked best for me.

 

[TwinsFan]

Anyone have experience with syncing brosencephalons decks on mobile devices; what kind of upload and sync times are you getting with such big/numerous decks?

 

[Pacna]

Anyone have experience with syncing brosencephalons decks on mobile devices; what kind of upload and sync times are you getting with such big/numerous decks?

Long. Fine.

 

[Brahventus]

I would not use Anki alone. You definitely lose the forest for the trees with this method. I am a huge advocate of Anki, but I would never use it alone. The best thing to do is make a 1 page summary for each topic/lecture and use that to help see the "big picture". Anki is best used for details/factoids. That's what worked best for me.

What if I made the cards similar to Yousmle's presentation to pathogenesis concept? I just feel like anki makes reviewing less stressful and more efficient.

 

[TwinsFan]

Long anki cards are generally not helpful, once you see 200 due to review and each one has a paragraph on the back they are crap. Also it's tough to rate a card you know 6 of the 8 key points on vs breaking it into more cards with 1-3 pieces of info each.

 

[lp430]

I agree with @TwinsFan. Be able to explain a topic, not regurgitate it. This is especially true for physiology concepts. Don't try and make anki something it's not. The shorter your cards, the better.

 

[sg166411]

when I make a custom deck in anki, the filter comes up with all of the tags from ALL of my 5 decks. how do I make it so the filter only shows the tags belonging to the deck I am currently filtering? Thanks.