Anki users: What do you do with your deck after taking the exam?

[typicalindian]

Do you keep reviewing your decks whenever they are due? Or do you make new decks for the next exams material? I imagine it would get quite time consuming to do it every day.

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[Etorphine]

Pour some alcohol, call some friends over. Delete/archive Anki for later.

Medical school is too time demanding to keep reviewing. See how long that lasts when you're in a new unit and getting inundated with 6+ new hours of lecture per day.

 

[typicalindian]

Pour some alcohol, call some friends over. Delete/archive Anki for later.

Medical school is too time demanding to keep reviewing. See how long that lasts when you're in a new unit and getting inundated with 6+ new hours of lecture per day.

You can archive a deck?

 

[Etorphine]

You can archive a deck?

"archive" as in stick on a USB and don't look at it until boards

 

[typicalindian]

"archive" as in stick on a USB and don't look at it until boards

oh haha I wasn't even aware you could do that. I'll probably do that then because there is no way I'd be able to review cards for old material + new material daily.

 

[eefen]

I'm only a few exams in, but so far I've just been reviewing all my cards as they come due, even stuff from the previous exams. That, for me anyway, was kind of the point of anki - long term retention. You can, however, delete/suspend cards with any random details that you might have literally just needed for the test (but if you're doing it right, there shouldn't be too many of those types of cards).

The beauty of anki is that, over time, reviews for an old deck or whatever get shorter and shorter as they get more spaced out - it doesn't just cumulatively build up. That would be crazy.

 

[typicalindian]

I'm only a few exams in, but so far I've just been reviewing all my cards as they come due, even stuff from the previous exams. That, for me anyway, was kind of the point of anki - long term retention. You can, however, delete/suspend cards with any random details that you might have literally just needed for the test (but if you're doing it right, there shouldn't be too many of those types of cards).

The beauty of anki is that, over time, reviews for an old deck or whatever get shorter and shorter as they get more spaced out - it doesn't just cumulatively build up. That would be crazy.

What do you have for your review settings?

 

[eefen]

What do you have for your review settings?

Default, except I maxed out the limit on reviews/day. I have almost 1100 cards so far, but only am prompted to review about 120 or so of those each day. After a weekend of not adding cards, that decreases a good bit.

I think a big part of it comes down to only putting information into Anki that really needs to be remembered long-term - something I'm still fine-tuning. The maximum number of cards I'll let myself add in a day is 100, but I've never actually reached that max. Usually it's around 20-50 cards.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I haven't touched my first block deck for a month...

 

[operaman]

I started M1 with the thought of trying to keep up with anki for all of preclinical years. Made it through 2 blocks converting almost every word in our course materials into q&a cards (4-5000 cards per exam) and decided sanity was worth more than a few extra points I didn't need anyhow. Anki was relegated to pharm and any subject I absolutely needed to get a 100 on the exam for whatever reason.

Had I kept up with my insane original plan, I would have had >50,000 cards after MS2 and if I'd kept up, I'd be in the nuthouse but probably also with a 280+ on Step 1. As it was, I'm still sane and boards were still great.

I did use my anki deck from first block of MS1 during boards prep time, just one quick pass to recap cell bio and the like. Not sure if it got me any points but it made me feel better. I think the most important thing is truly learning the material the first time and getting as many passes at it as possible. Anki is great because it streamlines the multiple pass thing and makes sure you're working hardest on your weakest material.

 

[chiddler]

What i've been planning to do forever is to review 20-50 old cards/day, in addition to new stuff.

If I ever get completely caught up anyway...

But I think it gets better after the first week or two. After everything is no longer "review in 10 minutes", but "10 days"

 

[Renaissance Man]

At my school I use Anki to memorize a lot of random crap that my professors are emphasizing for my block tests...not necessarily always the most useful things for Step 1. I have never looked at my past Anki decks after finishing an exam. Perhaps I will go through each of them once at the beginning of dedicated study, but I for now, I like my sanity.

 

[lp430]

I never review old Anki decks, most of what I put in there isn't high yield stuff for boards anyway. If anything, you could import one of the First Aid Anki decks and constantly review them, but that's still a s*** ton of cards to be reviewing. I'd rather use the time to make sure I have the new material done really well.

 

[chronicidal]

Everyone here except eefen is using Anki in the way that it's not intended to / incorrectly / suboptimally / not harnessing its power. Anki is meant to produce long-term retention. When you dump it after your exam is over, you're using it like any other study card app. Go for studyblue or something. The point of spaced repetition is to make efficient and easy the process of retrieval practice over the long term. It's not to cram for exams. When you use flashcards to cram for exams (say less than 2 weeks away), most of the memories never get encoded into your long-term memory.

I do not use Anki to do well on exams. I use it to retain information that I've decided is high-yield, i.e. it'll come up on boards or the wards and it would be useful to be able to recall it on demand at that time. Practically, this means the upper limit of what is Anki-worthy is what's in First Aid. That's hard enough, amounting to like 1.5 hours of review a day when adding cards at a rate of like 50 per day. Trying to use Anki for long-term retention of every fact taught in your courses would be impossible.

I would recommend tweaking the review settings from default (in the direction of less frequent review in both the learning and the review modes) such that your % correct is <93%. Supermemo aims for a loss rate of 8-13%. Anything less than that gives you greatly diminished marginal utility for your time. Bump the intervals up and reassess in a month or two (it takes a while for your average stats to go down given how infrequent reviews of mature cards occur). My first learning interval is 2 days with easy interval of 7 days. I bumped up my review interval modifier to 150%.

 

[Renaissance Man]

Everyone here except eefen is using Anki in the way that it's not intended to / incorrectly / suboptimally / not harnessing its power. Anki is meant to produce long-term retention. When you dump it after your exam is over, you're using it like any other study card app. Go for studyblue or something. The point of spaced repetition is to make efficient and easy the process of retrieval practice over the long term. It's not to cram for exams. When you use flashcards to cram for exams (say less than 2 weeks away), most of the memories never get encoded into your long-term memory.

I do not use Anki to do well on exams. I use it to retain information that I've decided is high-yield, i.e. it'll come up on boards or the wards and it would be useful to be able to recall it on demand at that time. Practically, this means the upper limit of what is Anki-worthy is what's in First Aid. That's hard enough, amounting to like 1.5 hours of review a day when adding cards at a rate of like 50 per day. Trying to use Anki for long-term retention of every fact taught in your courses would be impossible.

First off, I apologize for not using Anki (a free program, that is easy to use, and has a great desk-top app) correctly. 🙄

Unlike you, I use Anki to do well on exams. My blocks are 5-6 weeks long and I constantly am adding vocabulary and some of the minutia that my professors expect to be memorized. After honoring half of my first year courses (and never ever looking at my old decks again) , I can honestly say that it has been much more than "suboptimal" for me. It is a great way to see concepts I am weak on over and over again.

 

[GangaMaster]

Just buy Firecracker when its on discount and save yourself headache and time

 

[chronicidal]

First off, I apologize for not using Anki (a free program, that is easy to use, and has a great desk-top app) correctly. 🙄

Unlike you, I use Anki to do well on exams. My blocks are 5-6 weeks long and I constantly am adding vocabulary and some of the minutia that my professors expect to be memorized. After honoring half of my first year courses (and never ever looking at my old decks again) , I can honestly say that it has been much more than "suboptimal" for me. It is a great way to see concepts I am weak on over and over again.

That's certainly better than NOT using any type of retrieval practice method for studying. And it certainly allows you to achieve your goal of getting a high grade in your class. However, the question remains whether that style is best for long-term retention of useful information.

 

[Leonidis I]

i think it is possible to have the best of both worlds - use anki to do well on school exams AND retain the important info for the long term.

the day or two before an exam go over all the cards for that particular exam (make sure you tag for each exam) in your browser. then scrutinize each card and suspend all the cards that you feel aren't worthwhile to remember for the long term. i also tag cards by their source and at this point i've already gone through first aid, uworld, and pathoma for that block so i would never suspend a card from those sources for that block exam. these high yield cards would be retained for the long term.

the cards i would suspend would be minute details from lectures that aren't found in uworld, pathoma, or first aid. but i would also leave some cards from lecture that aren't in the high yield resources but that i feel are worth remembering for the long term. these usually have to do with diagnosis, management, newer therapies, etc. just stuff i find interesting or worthwhile to remember for the long term that isn't in first aid or uworld.

this way you can still use anki for school exams but not get dragged down by it afterwards and also keep the highest yield stuff for the long term like its intended.

Just buy Firecracker when its on discount and save yourself headache and time

lol yeah right. that program breaks pretty much all of supermemo's 20 rules for formulating knowledge. and throwing in random multiple choice questions isn't helpful for spaced repetition learning either. anki has a high overhead in terms of time investment but it's definitely worth it over firecracker for true long term learning.

 

[chronicidal]

i think it is possible to have the best of both worlds - use anki to do well on school exams AND retain the important info for the long term.

the day or two before an exam go over all the cards for that particular exam (make sure you tag for each exam) in your browser. then scrutinize each card and suspend all the cards that you feel aren't worthwhile to remember for the long term. i also tag cards by their source and at this point i've already gone through first aid, uworld, and pathoma for that block so i would never suspend a card from those sources for that block exam. these high yield cards would be retained for the long term.

the cards i would suspend would be minute details from lectures that aren't found in uworld, pathoma, or first aid. but i would also leave some cards from lecture that aren't in the high yield resources but that i feel are worth remembering for the long term. these usually have to do with diagnosis, management, newer therapies, etc. just stuff i find interesting or worthwhile to remember for the long term that isn't in first aid or uworld.

this way you can still use anki for school exams but not get dragged down by it afterwards and also keep the highest yield stuff for the long term like its intended.







lol yeah right. that program breaks pretty much all of supermemo's 20 rules for formulating knowledge. and throwing in random multiple choice questions isn't helpful for spaced repetition learning either. anki has a high overhead in terms of time investment but it's definitely worth it over firecracker for true long term learning.

I like everything you said. This is a good idea.

 

[maseface]

I don't plan on reviewing too many of my anki cards after tests. For long term I use pictures and facts from pathoma, picmonic, First Aid and question bank facts that I may want to remember (I throw them all in the same deck...no point in organizing as Step 1 is not organized and anki basically "tells me" when its time to review a concept anyway). The majority of cards I make from block tests will most likely be suspended because they are either too detailed or cover a concept not important for Step 1. The rest I will review but only like once every 2 months anyway.

 

[Brain Bucket]

Default, except I maxed out the limit on reviews/day. I have almost 1100 cards so far, but only am prompted to review about 120 or so of those each day. After a weekend of not adding cards, that decreases a good bit.

I think a big part of it comes down to only putting information into Anki that really needs to be remembered long-term - something I'm still fine-tuning. The maximum number of cards I'll let myself add in a day is 100, but I've never actually reached that max. Usually it's around 20-50 cards.

+1.

Once you get past a certain number of reviews, you see the same material pretty infrequently. If you keep up with it, it's completely doable. If, however, you go a week without touchign it, you're ****ed.