Anyone else feel like Anki is overhyped?

[Mad Jack]

Meh, I'd just start with Bro's deck myself, then make your own decks in second year to brush up on all the stuff that you can't remember all that well. But I'm not the best at anki, so I'd listen to the pros.

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[67552931811]

For those that didn't find Anki or FC useful, what did you end up doing instead? Did you like the results?

I've tried FC I think 4 different times this year. I have reminded myself each time that it completely sucks. I have no idea how anyone finds it useful. My grades correlate with how many practice questions I can do before an exam. Sadly, my school has in-house exams and they don't give practice questions soooo......

 

[mehc012]

Think about if you want to use tags and how (topic, lecture title, etc.). I used Anki some in undergrad for my denser courses and had a big leg up compared to my med school classmates using it for the first time simply because I was comfortable with the interface.

Don't even make it an 'if'...tag. If you're not sure how to tag, do it both ways until you figure it out. It is WAY easier to fix things if you overtag than if you've been undertagging the whole time. Even if you never use them, it's probably all of 10s lost at the beginning of each batch of card making.

 

[gregoryhouse]

What I was getting at is that you haven't had to deal with the shear load of information - which is one of the biggest wrenches in trying to use Anki as a primary study source. Fwiw, I had a similar background to the info in you mentioned in the quoted post.

Bro just cuz anki didn't work for you doesn't mean it doesn't work well for others, you shouldn't try and dissuade people.

I've used anki for step 1, all the shelf exams, and now preparing for step 2. Its gotten me in the >90% on all my exams so far and I spend less than 1 hour a day reviewing my cards. In the beginning it is a little bit of a time sink, especially if you are making your own cards like I did for the shelves and Step 2 but I wouldn't say it took me any longer to study than it does anyone else and once your cards are done it is way easier to manage than people who constantly have to reread their notes etc. If you use a premade deck like Brosencephalon then you are in for an even easier time as you don't have any of the time sink making cards.

Is anki going to enable everyone to get 1 260+ probably not and it might not work for everyone, but for the people is does work for it is a great tool. I always encourage everyone to try anki out. Most of the people who end up not liking it use it wrong or try to cram the cards in at the very end. I made 2000 cards for my step 2 deck and I reviewed 5 new cards per day, which gives me about 30 cards to review total each day and that takes me maybe 30 minutes and now I don't have to waste hours a day rereading old material I normally would have forgot months ago.

 

[Dr Tony T. Chopper]

Bro just cuz anki didn't work for you doesn't mean it doesn't work well for others, you shouldn't try and dissuade people.

I've used anki for step 1, all the shelf exams, and now preparing for step 2. Its gotten me in the >90% on all my exams so far and I spend less than 1 hour a day reviewing my cards. In the beginning it is a little bit of a time sink, especially if you are making your own cards like I did for the shelves and Step 2 but I wouldn't say it took me any longer to study than it does anyone else and once your cards are done it is way easier to manage than people who constantly have to reread their notes etc. If you use a premade deck like Brosencephalon then you are in for an even easier time as you don't have any of the time sink making cards.

Is anki going to enable everyone to get 1 260+ probably not and it might not work for everyone, but for the people is does work for it is a great tool. I always encourage everyone to try anki out. Most of the people who end up not liking it use it wrong or try to cram the cards in at the very end. I made 2000 cards for my step 2 deck and I reviewed 5 new cards per day, which gives me about 30 cards to review total each day and that takes me maybe 30 minutes and now I don't have to waste hours a day rereading old material I normally would have forgot months ago.

Do you think using only bro'd deck is enough if started from m1 for class performance? Would custom Anki decks be needed to supplement bro's deck?

 

[laughingfrog]

yea good question, i'd prefer to use the premade deck

 

[gregoryhouse]

Do you think using only bro'd deck is enough if started from m1 for class performance? Would custom Anki decks be needed to supplement bro's deck?

It depends. If you're school teaches you stuff that is not in the review books u will probably have to supplement with something else. My suggestion would be to start using bros deck in conjunction with your studies and just make your own cards for the other stuff outside of his anki deck. If your school uses NBME style questions or even better uses actual NBME questions than the bros deck should be more than enough.

 

[NYCdude]

I tried using it once to memorize all the random stuff for neuroanatomy but it took me literally 8 hours to make cards for just one chapter. Never touched it again.

I'm sure it's great for memorizing things really well but you have to have a lot of time and willpower on your hands lol.

 

[gregoryhouse]

I tried using it once to memorize all the random stuff for neuroanatomy but it took me literally 8 hours to make cards for just one chapter. Never touched it again.

I'm sure it's great for memorizing things really well but you have to have a lot of time and willpower on your hands lol.

Once you get used to making anki cards it will go a lot faster. The hardest part of anki is the learning curve for how to turn reading materials into anki cards. It gets a lot faster later on especially because you begin to realize that not everything needs to be an anki card, and a lot of extra material can go in the extra portion of the card to be read if needed. For me now if I want to make anki cards for reading material it would take me no longer or even faster than it would if I was just typing notes to review later anyways. And considering that after the initial effort, I only have to spend 30 minutes a day reviewing material it makes it so worth it. There was nothing better than the weekend before an exam reviewing my anki cards for an hour or so and enjoying the rest of my time doing whatever else I want because I was confident that I had all the material memorized.

I mean for step 1 it was even more amazing because all I did was anki and uworld. 1 hour of anki and 6-8 hours of uworld meant I usually got to enjoy playing video games, watching tv, or going out after 5pm.

 

[Brorthopedic]

I crushed Gross Anatomy thanks to Anki, it has its place. However, if you use it for Physiology, you're gonna have a bad time.

 

[DoctorLacrosse]

Once you get used to making anki cards it will go a lot faster. The hardest part of anki is the learning curve for how to turn reading materials into anki cards. It gets a lot faster later on especially because you begin to realize that not everything needs to be an anki card, and a lot of extra material can go in the extra portion of the card to be read if needed. For me now if I want to make anki cards for reading material it would take me no longer or even faster than it would if I was just typing notes to review later anyways. And considering that after the initial effort, I only have to spend 30 minutes a day reviewing material it makes it so worth it. There was nothing better than the weekend before an exam reviewing my anki cards for an hour or so and enjoying the rest of my time doing whatever else I want because I was confident that I had all the material memorized.

I mean for step 1 it was even more amazing because all I did was anki and uworld. 1 hour of anki and 6-8 hours of uworld meant I usually got to enjoy playing video games, watching tv, or going out after 5pm.

for step 1, did you use cards you had made throughout the pre-clinical years for class, or had you made your own cards from board review materials?

 

[laughingfrog]

Once you get used to making anki cards it will go a lot faster. The hardest part of anki is the learning curve for how to turn reading materials into anki cards. It gets a lot faster later on especially because you begin to realize that not everything needs to be an anki card, and a lot of extra material can go in the extra portion of the card to be read if needed. For me now if I want to make anki cards for reading material it would take me no longer or even faster than it would if I was just typing notes to review later anyways. And considering that after the initial effort, I only have to spend 30 minutes a day reviewing material it makes it so worth it. There was nothing better than the weekend before an exam reviewing my anki cards for an hour or so and enjoying the rest of my time doing whatever else I want because I was confident that I had all the material memorized.

I mean for step 1 it was even more amazing because all I did was anki and uworld. 1 hour of anki and 6-8 hours of uworld meant I usually got to enjoy playing video games, watching tv, or going out after 5pm.

how do i learn to the skill of making good cards form the material and do u have any links for this thanks

 

[kmp0410]

for step 1, did you use cards you had made throughout the pre-clinical years for class, or had you made your own cards from board review materials?

I'm in this situation now but I think I am going to use Bro's deck. Alot of random things in class cards that you don't really find in first aid. Just not that efficient. Also alot of times my class cards don't make that much sense without context. I was going to make corresponding First Aid cards for everything, but then Bro's deck does a better job than I ever would have so I'm just going with that.

Going to do a low count of cards daily over the summer for M1 topics.

 

[gregoryhouse]

for step 1, did you use cards you had made throughout the pre-clinical years for class, or had you made your own cards from board review materials?

I dunno if there is an updated brosencephalon deck but i would use that one. That is what I used and it covered all the high yield material perfectly. If its not updated then I would just go through and add in whatever new material is in the new first aid book.

I also made anki cards for all the questions I missed in uworld or that i needed better understanding on.

Most pre-clinical class material is not going to be very high yield but its up to you if you want to keep using it.

 

[gregoryhouse]

how do i learn to the skill of making good cards form the material and do u have any links for this thanks

I would download the bros deck and try and copy that format as I think that is the best way to do anki. As far as how to synthesize the material into good anki cards it will just take practice. If you skim through the bros deck though you will probably get a good idea.

I also think this a pretty good starting guide, http://drwillbe.blogspot.com/2011/08/anki-guide-for-medical-students.html.

As time goes on you will get better at it, just get started and eventually it will be easier.

 

[njtrimed]

So I don't know how Anki works?

Sure, I have tons to learn going forward. But I've used Anki for multiple physiology classes, for anatomy, for med micro, for hematology, for neuro, etc. I feel like that gives me a decent basis to say that it works for me and that I'm familiar with using it 'for physiology concepts', etc. as the discussion had been referencing. I haven't tried to speak for anyone else, or describe what med school is like or what med students ought to do. This is an Anki post and I am very familiar with Anki. The strongest assertion that I made in the post you're dismissing is that different people use different study techniques...or does that also require 4yrs of med school to say?

I personally am really happy I learned Anki before starting med school, because there's an enormous learning curve. I finished undergrad so long ago that I really needed a few grad classes to prove I'm still capable of excelling in school, and I learned about Anki from current med students and a few friends in grad school who convinced me to try it halfway through the fall semester. My cards for last semester (and even the beginning of this semester) seem useless to me now; they contain far too much information and too many cloze deletions. But the process of figuring it out was invaluable, because now I can get through a recorded lecture and make cards in about a 3:1 ratio of making cards to real time, and if I actually attend lecture, I can now actually make a decent deck during class in lieu of note-taking, and add whatever is missing when I watch the lecture later. Again, not a med student, but I'm a parent working 50 hours a week while finishing a graduate degree in one year, so I had to be extremely efficient while maintaining a 4.0 GPA. While it was important for me to maintain good grades now and learning Anki was a bit risky (I spent hours watching YouTube videos and reading @mehc012's thread, so HUGE thank you to her!), I think it's going to be an enormous help to me this fall.

As everyone else has said, Anki isn't for everything, or for everyone. Writing out pathways on a whiteboard works best for biochem and physiology, and watching animations helps clarify concepts that are hard to visualize. But unless I'm struggling and finding I can't make cards efficiently enough to keep up, I'm planning to rely on it as a primary study method. I also introduced a few practicing physicians at work to Anki, and one of them has actually started using it to study for board re-certification, and thanked me for helping make studying manageable- even more specifically, to be able to review cards during halftime instead of missing his kid's soccer games.

 

[reapplicanthelpme2014]

I'm in this situation now but I think I am going to use Bro's deck. Alot of random things in class cards that you don't really find in first aid. Just not that efficient. Also alot of times my class cards don't make that much sense without context. I was going to make corresponding First Aid cards for everything, but then Bro's deck does a better job than I ever would have so I'm just going with that.

Going to do a low count of cards daily over the summer for M1 topics.

What's Bro's deck? I haven't scrolled, sorry if it was already mentioned!


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[Biofilm]

What's Bro's deck? I haven't scrolled, sorry if it was already mentioned!


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It's an anki deck for step 1 made by Brosencaphelon. I believe it has almost all of FA as well as Pathoma (and Robbins I think). According to most people, it's a great deck for step. Here is the link: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2140532937.

 

[kmp0410]

What's Bro's deck? I haven't scrolled, sorry if it was already mentioned!


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A massive deck someone made a couple years ago on Reddit. I think it's basically all First Aid and Pathoma in flash card form. Well done though with images and extra info. I think it's like 10k+ cards? Could be wrong there. Brosencephalon is the guy's name. But it's very well known on the Internet. Also, free.


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[Ven0m]

Treat Anki as an automated schedule for what you need to review and what you don't.

Learn the concepts first. I use textbooks, lectures, online references if I don't completely understand a single detail, videos, etc. Then my front side of an Anki card, for example, is this:

Front: What is the extrinsic receptor ligand pathway?
Back: FasL or TNFL binds to FasR or TNFR expressing cells, induces signaling pathway, leading to activation of caspases -> endonuclease and protease activation -> general pathway of apoptosis starts

The key is not to just memorize what you wrote down on the card, but to use it as a trigger to remember everything that your other resources have taught you.
It's like when a smell from your childhood (your Anki card) brings you back to a certain time and you can remember everything that happened in that flashback.

 

[mavric1298]

I'm sure I'll get flamed since I'm not a med student yet so I don't know anything apparently, but...anki isn't very helpful unless you are really following the 20 rules, and know WHAT to put into it. Using cloze deletes, screen shots of figures, etc, card creation can actually be super fast, and for me - the act of making the card is MUCH more engaging then just rereading lecture material/notes, and takes no more time then outlining or writing notes from lecture material. If your class gives out pdf/doc summary etc, it's even faster....copy paste cloze delete and done. My cards are rarely front/back question answer, it's always testing something within context.

A bunch of people in this thread that have said anki wasn't working for them also were stating they weren't following along with how it is supposed to be used. To each their own though, it either works for you or it doesn't.

https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules

 

[spudgun7]

Anki is strangely a hotly debated subject, as this thread shows. Those who use it love it. Those who do not either have no opinion, or are vehemently and aggressively against it.

I think the best descriptions above are those who note that Anki is a tool and nothing more than that. If you think of Anki as a scheduling tool for reviewing material you will otherwise forget it will probably serve you well. If you are someone who has a good idea of when they need to be reviewing concepts, ideas and facts without Anki you are likely doing very well. The forgetting curve has shown that unless you are reviewing information in some context (flashcards, notes, highlights, practice questions, or a new application/context) you will forget it. For some people they seem to do this just fine over time on their own, for others they find Anki easier to manage.

As far as the cards themselves go. Try not to think of them as facts to be memorized but as concepts and ideas to be thought through. Some cards will be just memorization, however the majority should be tied to greater understanding through notes in the 'extra' section, a diagram or a picture. If your curriculum is NBME based tests then the Bros deck is a great start and huge time saver. If your curriculum is teacher generated exams, trying to balance their info plus board relevant material may be near impossible in Anki.

Any how, forgetting curve is simply a fact of neuroscience. You brain is constantly pushing out information which is no longer useful (or being actively used). Reviewing it in some capacity will strengthen, reinforce and help you better understand for the long term. How you review in the long term doesn't matter (anki vs lecture review vs highlighted notes vs etc etc) as long as you do it.

 

[Redpancreas]

Don't stone me please - just asking.

The only good use for ANKI IMO is to "memorize" FA.
Bro's deck is decent, but you need to use it early (like a year in advance) and stick to it. That being said, part of the hype is due to the super-gunners who google how to score 270 on step and see YouSMLE raving about it. That's how I found out about ANKI through a friend. It's not something that's going to magically make you memorize FA.
Alternative options are Flash Facts (makers of RX), Memorang (haven't tried), and DIT (if you like videos)

 

[Ioannes Paulus]

Second year students at my school said that outside of memorizing pharm, anki is useless in first year.

 

[mehc012]

Second year students at my school said that outside of memorizing pharm, anki is useless in first year.

Depends on how you use Anki, just like anything else.
Also on your school's curriculum. Some don't break it down in the standard '1st year normal, 2nd year disease' setup anymore.

 

[Styrene]

what would anki users suggest to someone who doesnt have any experience with the program and wants to hit the ground running.. i saw the mega thread but it just goes so in depth into settings and tweaks. i know the basics of good flash cards but i dont know how to start med school.. i think id like to do anki + make several passes of the lectures

You need to just start using it. Imaging you are the sort of person who makes the outlines, such as the Anki hater on here earlier in the thread. Now imagine how you test yourself when studying that outline. Now make that outline in Anki in a way that lets you test yourself on it. So that that half of the sentence you cover up with your finger on the outline? That goes on the back of the card (or the front). That's the sort of thinking that goes in to mine. All info on the cards from the study materials provided--the lectures, the related BRS book, etc. Then do all the other additional stuff like any normal person does (Google, YouTube videos, journal articles, etc.).

Here is an example of the power of Anki: The average on the final for my undergraduate cellular and molecular biology course--THE weed out course after the weed out courses--was a 39. I scored 105. I didn't even have to study the last 2 days before the test. The depth with which I knew the material was beyond the understanding of the graduate student TAs. As I went along through the card reviews and came across stuff that still seemed off, or if I didn't like the explanation, I just look up lots of other stuff, and these slowly work their way into my answers and understandings to the questions I posed on the cards.

*To the people who say that Anki doesn't promote conceptual understanding, it does for me. Everything conceptual is intuitive if you understanding the FACTS. I know it's not the same for everyone.*

 

[Bea5T]

Anki feels like cheating. Can't imagine life without it

 

[3characterslong]

Here is an example of the power of Anki: The average on the final for my undergraduate cellular and molecular biology course--THE weed out course after the weed out courses--was a 39. I scored 105. I didn't even have to study the last 2 days before the test. The depth with which I knew the material was beyond the understanding of the graduate student TAs. As I went along through the card reviews and came across stuff that still seemed off, or if I didn't like the explanation, I just look up lots of other stuff, and these slowly work their way into my answers and understandings to the questions I posed on the cards.

I've had similar experiences with Anki. In weedout courses (especially Cell Bio), where the professor is trying to be kind of a scumbag for minutia, its been just absurd how well you can do. The dividing line was never on the scale you're describing, but still pretty noteworthy.

 

[Styrene]

I've had similar experiences with Anki. In weedout courses (especially Cell Bio), where the professor is trying to be kind of a scumbag for minutia, its been just absurd how well you can do. The dividing line was never on the scale you're describing, but still pretty noteworthy.

I went to a large public university in a big city with relatively low admissions requirements compared to other productive and noteworthy research institutions. A lot of the other students didn't seem to have any real interest in biology either.

It is good to know yet another person had good experience with Anki. I think calling it time-consuming isn't accurate; I think any form of studying that will help a person earn the highest grades will take just as much time. Perhaps there is less of a middleground with Anki--it's really an all-or-nothing proposition.