I have never used flash cards while in school, but I'm considering making some for Biology. With that said, I have no idea how to really structure the cards. So I guess my question is...how do you actually organize the material on your cards? Do you just put like one definition per card? Or do you put an entire explanation of a topic on a card?
Flash card help
- Thread starter jmcunnin
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That comes down to personal taste - how small do you prefer your chunks of information to be?
Personally, I wouldn't do one definition per card. You'll just end up memorizing the answers and not actively absorbing the material. Make broad questions & long answers so it makes you think instead of memorizing one word answers.
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That's certainly one way to do it, it does depend mostly on the person and what their goals are. To me, I think flashcards are most useful for memorizing pieces of information and straight recall, so I only have one piece of information to memorize per card. That way you can ask yourself exactly what you were supposed to know and test if you knew it or not, if you have too much info you may only end up remembering 4 out of 5 pieces of information and tell yourself "thats OK, I knew most of it", when in reality you still don't know 20% of the information on the card, which adds up quick. Try both and see what you feel more comfortable with.
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There are several companies that allow you to create online flashcards. There are several that are free. You can easily google what is best for you. My students have found it them very helpful.
Good luck in your studies...
Nancy
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I like Quizlet. It is free. 🙂
Yeah I'm using Quizlet and they are great; they also have an app that syncs with your account so you can use them on your phone as well. I have a mix of some cards with a single concept, and cards with the concept and some other important details (But as Ari said, you don't want to put too much info in a single card). I would also make cards with a specific question on one side and the answer on the other. It definitely depends on the person, but I find flashcards VERY helpful. I won't have time to make flashcards on all the bio chapters, so I'm doing them on anatomy, which is my weakest one. I think the mere fact that I am typing the information/concepts, helps me tremendously to solidify the info in my brain (it would be best to write them down, but again I don't have much time). For some reason, reading only something that I have never taken a class on before like anatomy, does gives me a general understanding of the subject, but does not help me remember all the small details/weird names.
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My man, tell me.. what are you making flash cards on? Bio destroyer? Cliffs? Feralis? Bootcamp?
I have 600+ bio flashcards made. If I only had 1 piece of info per card, I'd have probably 2000+ cards. Definitely if you're making a lot of flashcards include multiple questions on 1 card.
I have 600+ bio flashcards made. If I only had 1 piece of info per card, I'd have probably 2000+ cards. Definitely if you're making a lot of flashcards include multiple questions on 1 card.
Thanks. Yeah I've never really used flashcards, but with the amount of info I need to retain..I'm willing to try it. I don't find I'm retaining everything by just reading so I'll see how this works.
I haven't started making the cards yet, but was planning on making the cards from Cliffs to start. I guess I'll see how it works then maybe make cards from the other resources as well...
I'm doing flashcards on Feralis and Bootcamp. I know, it's a lot of work and a lot of flashcards, that's why I'm doing them on anatomy only. That being said, if doing the flashcards will help improve my scores (and so far it has), I'm willing to put on the effort. I also don't see the difference between 2000 cards with one concept/question per card and 600 cards with the same concepts/questions but more compacted.
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Just write in quizlet stuff life:
Cliff dat chapter 2
or Dat bio
Or biology dat
Barron's dat bio
or kaplan dat bio
Many awesome people have made many flash cards for themselves, you can utilized some of them if not most for your own benefits.
It's funny how I see some of these people ended up in Dental schools and then they uploaded flash cards related to that new schools.
Also, needless to say, it's better to register in quizlet, that is how you can do something like combine everything in one folder,
also download the app, so you can use it on the go.
Cliff dat chapter 2
or Dat bio
Or biology dat
Barron's dat bio
or kaplan dat bio
Many awesome people have made many flash cards for themselves, you can utilized some of them if not most for your own benefits.
It's funny how I see some of these people ended up in Dental schools and then they uploaded flash cards related to that new schools.
Also, needless to say, it's better to register in quizlet, that is how you can do something like combine everything in one folder,
also download the app, so you can use it on the go.
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I used to use Quizlet for Spanish vocab, but it's a little overly simple for science, where there are multiple things I'm trying to memorize about a term. Now I use Memorang, which is also free to make and study your own cards. The platform was created with science subjects in mind, so you can tag/categorize different kinds of info, for example definition, function, etc, plus you can use images pretty effectively. Here's someone's set I found that gives a decent example: Urinary: Structure and function of systems Flashcards
I'm using DAT flashcards on Memorang that are sold by ASDA (~$10/month), but there's a 1 week free trial, so you could just do the free trial, see how they write their cards, and then cancel and make your own pro-level flashcards 😀
I'm using DAT flashcards on Memorang that are sold by ASDA (~$10/month), but there's a 1 week free trial, so you could just do the free trial, see how they write their cards, and then cancel and make your own pro-level flashcards 😀
