First year medical student: I find it hard to stick to my Anking cards due to being thrown into new classes every few weeks. Advice?

[CuriousMDStudent]

My school throws us into a new class every 2-4 weeks and I'm finding it really hard to keep up with my anking cards. It's hard to take an hour to two to do old cards about genetics or biochem when I'm literally thrown into a 3 week course about microbiology and need to focus on microbiology.

This happens a lot where I'm thrown into a new course that last 2-3 weeks and we have a final at the end of the 2-3 weeks but we have quizzes each week so it's like I need to focus on the current material in front of me cuz I literally always have an assessment every few days to at most a week so I don't have time for old cards. Advice?

Should I try to limit reviews to like 50 a day to make it manageable?

tldr: I am thrown into a new course every 2-3 weeks in my school and I have to figure out how to study for that new course so I find it difficult to have time to review old ank cards.

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[thatchemguy]

Honestly, there is no real solution to this. You just have to suck it up and do it - this is the whole magic of Anki, to be able to do your reviews every single day and the reward is the payoff later on for Step 1 and long term retention. Will it affect your current class? Maybe. That's ultimately up to you and how efficient you are. The more you do anki, the more efficient and faster you'll likely become. Absolutely NEVER limit your reviews.

 

[drducky.]

Im literally spending 5-6hrs doing cards everyday.

You study for new class material with anki. There’s your answer.

 

[Redpancreas]

My school throws us into a new class every 2-4 weeks and I'm finding it really hard to keep up with my anking cards. It's hard to take an hour to two to do old cards about genetics or biochem when I'm literally thrown into a 3 week course about microbiology and need to focus on microbiology.

This happens a lot where I'm thrown into a new course that last 2-3 weeks and we have a final at the end of the 2-3 weeks but we have quizzes each week so it's like I need to focus on the current material in front of me cuz I literally always have an assessment every few days to at most a week so I don't have time for old cards. Advice?

Should I try to limit reviews to like 50 a day to make it manageable?

tldr: I am thrown into a new course every 2-3 weeks in my school and I have to figure out how to study for that new course so I find it difficult to have time to review old ank cards.

ANKI was never my strength. That said, some people really did well with it. First, I'm not 100% clear on your situation. Are you saying there is an major exam q3 weeks (approx), but then there are weekly assessments/quizzes too? If that's the case, I think ANKI would be the ideal way to juggle all this and spatially repeat the material. It sounds that this is more of your own timing issue. That can either be because you're ANKI'ing wrong or you're not focusing on the right things. Check all these links out (below) and make sure you're doing utilizing whatever best practices these ANKI ppl can agree on. I can't vouch for any of it but see what others here recommend. If it's still not working, maybe examine whether you're focusing on the right things for the tests. Personally ANKI was a big time commitment for me and I abandoned it. You don't have much time for a learning curve in medical school and you need to do well. You don't have a long time to craft a good system. Thing that worked for me overall were just reading/listening to the material. Any time there was an opportunity to make an advanced organizer/table, I made one. I also used flash cards (old fashioned ones) if a unit had drugs I had to remember (MOA, Indication, etc.)

r/medicalschoolanki

r/medicalschoolanki: Reddit for Anki in medical school and beyond

www.reddit.com

MedSchool + Anki

 

[slowthai]

If your course is just going way too fast for you to keep up with the cards, you could just decrease your new card count by say, 50-100 cards, and just study the current block material the traditional way (3-5 passes of the powerpoints).

You could even hold off on new cards for a bit until your reviews calm down and then pick it back up when you feel comfortable, doing enough cards/day such that you'll finish before dedicated.

The idea here is that you'll still get to cover everything for the boards, finishing before dedicated, while still staying on top of your school stuff.

 

[eaglebaseball4]

I concur with above. Currently doing about 700 review cards a day, probably 400 are not even the current system we are on. Just have to study 10 hours a day instead of 8, but it will pay off in the end

 

[M&L]

how much time do you spend on each card?

 

[2020NonTrad]

Also a first year. I stopped doing Anki after the first block because I realized that it wasn't for me. Works great for a lot of people, but I absolutely detested spending hours hitting the spacebar. I learn and retain information better by using the extra time to cook, exercise, and relax. Maybe it'll hurt come Step 1 time, but I know of and personally know many people that have done great on Step 1 that don't use Anki.

My personal opinion is do what's best for you, and if that's not Anki then you're not alone.

 

[bGMx]

I had 1000 cards to do today, trust the process.

 

[drducky.]

Also a first year. I stopped doing Anki after the first block because I realized that it wasn't for me. Works great for a lot of people, but I absolutely detested spending hours hitting the spacebar. I learn and retain information better by using the extra time to cook, exercise, and relax. Maybe it'll hurt come Step 1 time, but I know of and personally know many people that have done great on Step 1 that don't use Anki.

My personal opinion is do what's best for you, and if that's not Anki then you're not alone.

We all hate it but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work lol

Also sure there are people can get amazing scores without anki, but there are also people that can get 520+ on the mcat studying for 2 weeks. Some really flawed logics here.

 

[stickgirl390]

I did limit my news to 50-100 a day, during the year I had periods where I would limit my reviews to around 300, but most of the time I did all my reviews. Definitely paid off in the long run: not just step 1, but for shelf exams during clinicals as well as i carried all that knowledge forward into M3 and Step 2. I agree with the above: trust the process, and know that the first two years are the worst. You just have to pay the piper and get through it.

 

[wondervisions]

Won't step 1 be pass fail for you? I don't think you need to do Anki religiously to pass.

 

[CuriousMDStudent]

how much time do you spend on each card?

15-20 seconds. Any advice on how to speed this up? Sometimes I just don't know a card and stare at it.

Won't step 1 be pass fail for you? I don't think you need to do Anki religiously to pass.

True but I isn't STEP 1 correlated with STEP 2. I'm afraid I won't do well on STEP 2 if I slack on STEP 1

 

[slowthai]

15-20 seconds. Any advice on how to speed this up? Sometimes I just don't know a card and stare at it.

Yeah, that's too long. Means you don't know it well enough. 8-10 seconds per card should be your hard limit. Some people like to use the speed focus add on to speed things up. I don't use it because it distracts me and actually slows me down, lol.

 

[Redpancreas]

We all hate it but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work lol

Also sure there are people can get amazing scores without anki, but there are also people that can get 520+ on the mcat studying for 2 weeks. Some really flawed logics here.

I mean I don't know what the right answer is either. I just give ANKI the benefit of the doubt because of how popular it appears to be online, but before you call someone else's anecdotal evidence flawed/cherry-picked, where is the evidence for ANKI as a superior method (i.e. a large number of average people scoring 250+ on Step 1 due to ANKI when they would otherwise have scored in the 230s?). I doubt anyone has such evidence. I suppose someone could set up a retrospective study looking at odds and I guess that would be the only way to say there's an association. Otherwise, all we have for now is that spatial-repetition has been a validated memory tool, but that doesn't automatically make ANKI the gold standard for the typical medical student.

 

[M&L]

Yeah, that's too long. Means you don't know it well enough. 8-10 seconds per card should be your hard limit. Some people like to use the speed focus add on to speed things up. I don't use it because it distracts me and actually slows me down, lol.

yeah i average 5.42-8 seconds a card.

 

[Ole_Toe]

Try the Speed Focus Mode add on. Complete game changer for me. There's a youtube video explaining how to use it but it's very simple - it gives you an alert after X seconds and then shows you the answer after Y seconds. I used to get through ~200 cards an hour and would easily get distracted.. with the add on i can reliably get 450+ cards an hour and find that I get distracted far less because it's just a faster pace.

 

[CuriousMDStudent]

@slowthai @M&L I'll try speed focus. Do you think I should review relevant BnB videos or pathoma videos. Like I haven't done genetics in months. Should I review or just power through?

 

[slowthai]

@slowthai @M&L I'll try speed focus. Do you think I should review relevant BnB videos or pathoma videos. Like I haven't done genetics in months. Should I review or just power through?

Are you saying that you think that you're taking too long on them because you haven't watched those videos or reviewed the source content? Personally, I don't think it's necessary. I think you just need to get used to going faster.

Another thing you can do is use the built-in TTS feature. It increased my retention dramatically. If it works for you, it will automatically make you faster because you're not sitting around hoping for the answer to come to you. Something about hearing the words read out loud while reading them just triggers my memory and helps me focus more intensely.

 

[drducky.]

I mean I don't know what the right answer is either. I just give ANKI the benefit of the doubt because of how popular it appears to be online, but before you call someone else's anecdotal evidence flawed/cherry-picked, where is the evidence for ANKI as a superior method (i.e. a large number of average people scoring 250+ on Step 1 due to ANKI when they would otherwise have scored in the 230s?). I doubt anyone has such evidence. I suppose someone could set up a retrospective study looking at odds and I guess that would be the only way to say there's an association. Otherwise, all we have for now is that spatial-repetition has been a validated memory tool, but that doesn't automatically make ANKI the gold standard for the typical medical student.

I doubt an experiment like that will take place. Like you said however, we do have evidence that spaced repetition works and that’s all anki is. Sure you can make your own quizlet or flashcards but those are nowhere as efficient for the typical medical student. So unless there’s a better method than spaced repetition to recall something you learned 2 years ago, then yes, anki is the gold standard.

 

[CuriousMDStudent]

Are you saying that you think that you're taking too long on them because you haven't watched those videos or reviewed the source content? Personally, I don't think it's necessary. I think you just need to get used to going faster.

Another thing you can do is use the built-in TTS feature. It increased my retention dramatically. If it works for you, it will automatically make you faster because you're not sitting around hoping for the answer to come to you. Something about hearing the words read out loud while reading them just triggers my memory and helps me focus more intensely.

I watched those videos. But these are old cards and I wonder if I should rewatch them/review them. I'll try these features and add ons people mention though

 

[M&L]

@slowthai @M&L I'll try speed focus. Do you think I should review relevant BnB videos or pathoma videos. Like I haven't done genetics in months. Should I review or just power through?

there are different ways to approach anki - i personally use it as REVIEW of stuff i watched and remember from videos. This way it is enough for me to see a card 1-2 times to remember it. i find it more efficient. some people do first pass of information on anki. So i say try both, and see what works. The reason i like my version better is because when i see the videos first i establish the content structure in my mind. Prior to that, when i tried doing first pass on anki, i felt like everything was mixed up in my mind without any structure.

so there is no right or wrong answer, try both and see what works for you.

 

[Dr. Anonymouss]

You just have to find a solution that works for you. I wake up at 8 and do my anki until about 10. After that I’ll do research for an hour until 11. Next, I do USMLE-RX until 12. Once I have finished all that I officially start with my day. I realized this approach works the best because if I start with the lecture material early I will always find a reason to say “I am too busy to do anki/research right now”. Just establish your priorities and get those done first, then work on the material you have to get through with your day.

 

[bGMx]

I do first pass with anki and aside from today, usually I spend about 3-4 hours a day on anki

 

[M&L]

I do anki when I walk my dog or when I am in a bathtub . (Seriously). Totally 2 hours a day. Finish about 400 new cards and 800-1000 review

 

[Dr. Anonymouss]

I do anki when I walk my dog or when I am in a bathtub . (Seriously). Totally 2 hours a day. Finish about 400 new cards and 800-1000 review

I genuinely think if you are averaging 6 seconds a card you are doing it wrong. That doesn’t involve critical thinking, it involves route memorization and noticing buzz words.

 

[Lawpy]

I genuinely think if you are averaging 6 seconds a card you are doing it wrong. That doesn’t involve critical thinking, it involves route memorization and noticing buzz words.

Honestly i thought the point of Anki is to memorize stuff. Practice questions are the way to go for critical thinking

 

[drducky.]

I do anki when I walk my dog or when I am in a bathtub . (Seriously). Totally 2 hours a day. Finish about 400 new cards and 800-1000 review

That's crazy. Takes me like 5hours to get thru that many. Don't know how you do it.

Any advice? Or just try to learn the cards better? lol

 

[M&L]

I genuinely think if you are averaging 6 seconds a card you are doing it wrong. That doesn’t involve critical thinking, it involves route memorization and noticing buzz words.

I DONT do it wrong . I average 80% on first pass uworld at this point on stuff I covered .
I just do it differently . I don’t critically think through anki . I critically think through B&B and sketchy, where I stop videos, summarize them . Even with anki, for example, I have a card pop up on a certain genetic condition . Instead of answering the card I do “ok, what do I remember about this ?” And I quickly list everything with clinical correlates. Also - what do I need to differentiate it from ?THAT takes 20-30 sec. but it also means that a bunch of other cards that relate to that will take only 4-5 seconds because I already worked through them . Does it make sense ? This optimizes anki, because it engages free recall and structures the factoids into a system while applying Basics of critical thinking .

 

[M&L]

Also - a few useful tips . Consider installing a cell phone app instead of using computer . Way faster with touch screen . Second - I always split anki into 5-6 small 20 min or so increments . Prevents brain fatigue . For example , I wake up, before even rolling off my bed I do 20 min. Then walk my dog - another 30. Etc .

 

[eaglebaseball4]

I second the anki phone app. They have it for free on android and you pay $25 on iPhone, but it’s the best $25 I’ve ever spent! Helps me go faster also.

 

[stickgirl390]

I mean I don't know what the right answer is either. I just give ANKI the benefit of the doubt because of how popular it appears to be online, but before you call someone else's anecdotal evidence flawed/cherry-picked, where is the evidence for ANKI as a superior method (i.e. a large number of average people scoring 250+ on Step 1 due to ANKI when they would otherwise have scored in the 230s?). I doubt anyone has such evidence. I suppose someone could set up a retrospective study looking at odds and I guess that would be the only way to say there's an association. Otherwise, all we have for now is that spatial-repetition has been a validated memory tool, but that doesn't automatically make ANKI the gold standard for the typical medical student.

I doubt an experiment like that will take place. Like you said however, we do have evidence that spaced repetition works and that’s all anki is. Sure you can make your own quizlet or flashcards but those are nowhere as efficient for the typical medical student. So unless there’s a better method than spaced repetition to recall something you learned 2 years ago, then yes, anki is the gold standard.

Ohhhh I wish I still had the YouTube link so I could cite my sources here. A university did do a study in which methods correlated to increased step 1 scores. They found practice questions the most reliable way to increase score. I think the data they presented was every 10 practice question raised your score by 1 point? The Anki comparison was something like 1000 card reviews raised it one point, which seems like a lot but it is a more efficient review method.

 

[Kardio]

I use ‘filtered decks’ to arrange my cards in a ‘random’ order. It takes slightly longer per card because I’m constantly mentally switching gears (MSK card followed by a neuro card followed by a micro) but it keeps reviews interesting, I don’t get cues from the preceding card, and the newer cards predominate. With this method, I’ve never felt like I was wasting time reviewing old material; it just feels like studying medicine.

I also don’t have every card from prior blocks unsuspended.

 

[Ho0v-man]

Yeah it’s just hard. That’s why every med student tried it and very few keep up with it. It’s easy when you’re a premed and read on here “just do anki and ufaps lol” and think “oh this won’t be so bad.” If everyone could sustain this torture then the average step 1 would be >250.

 

[slowthai]

Honestly i thought the point of Anki is to memorize stuff. Practice questions are the way to go for critical thinking

I totally agree. Also, everyone has their own way of doing things. As long you're getting results, that's all that matters.

 

[slowthai]

Ohhhh I wish I still had the YouTube link so I could cite my sources here. A university did do a study in which methods correlated to increased step 1 scores. They found practice questions the most reliable way to increase score. I think the data they presented was every 10 practice question raised your score by 1 point? The Anki comparison was something like 1000 card reviews raised it one point, which seems like a lot but it is a more efficient review method.

This is correct. I think one of them was the Washu study. Not sure about the exact number for practice questions though.

 

[jambro]

I'm a little confused seeing people having 500-1000 reviews per day if you're an M1. anki is my main study method, have 20% of zanki unsupsended as an M1. I almost never have more than 300 reviews and it doesn't take me too long although I probably go too quick (roughly 10 card/min).

That said, if your "blocks" are only 3 weeks long and you have quizzes every week that would probably stress me a lot. If it's p/f it probably doesn't matter but having to worry about in class that much might make me focus on anki less.

 

[M&L]

I'm a little confused seeing people having 500-1000 reviews per day if you're an M1. anki is my main study method, have 20% of zanki unsupsended as an M1. I almost never have more than 300 reviews and it doesn't take me too long although I probably go too quick (roughly 10 card/min).

That said, if your "blocks" are only 3 weeks long and you have quizzes every week that would probably stress me a lot. If it's p/f it probably doesn't matter but having to worry about in class that much might make me focus on anki less.

Personally I am an M2 and use a very big deck with 27000 total cards . So this is why so much

 

[wondervisions]

15-20 seconds. Any advice on how to speed this up? Sometimes I just don't know a card and stare at it.


True but I isn't STEP 1 correlated with STEP 2. I'm afraid I won't do well on STEP 2 if I slack on STEP 1

Step 1 scores are correlated with step 2 scores because studious people are studious.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I genuinely think if you are averaging 6 seconds a card you are doing it wrong. That doesn’t involve critical thinking, it involves route memorization and noticing buzz words.

That’s literally the point of anki. Your get your critical thinking practice from questions. If you’re taking more than 10 seconds per anki card, you’re doing it wrong. The point is to memorize all the facts so when you see a buzz word or a pattern in a question you immediately associate it with a set of facts. That way you can focus on the critical thinking and not have to waste time trying to remember what they’re trying to get you to think of.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

That's crazy. Takes me like 5hours to get thru that many. Don't know how you do it.

Any advice? Or just try to learn the cards better? lol

Do them faster. It shouldn’t take you more than a couple hours to get through 800-1,000 cards. You can set anki to automatically flip the card at 10 seconds until you get used to it. Or you can just do what I do. If I basically don’t immediately know the answer, I give myself a couple seconds and then I just hit again. I average less than 6 seconds per card.