flash cards?

[marakah2]

throughout my undergraduate career i used flash cards to study for just about every class. as you can imagine this lead to a huge collection of index cards each semester. i'm wondering if due to the large amount of material covered in med school, flash cards will not really be the best study method of choice.

anyone here make their own flash cards? if not and you used to what method did you switch to?

just curious about study methods.

 

[Kalel]

A lot of people in my class made their own flash cards towards the beginning of first year, but their enthusiasm for making them tapered off as the year progressed. These days, you can buy pre-made flash cards in almost any subject if you want them. I know that Netter's anatomy now has it's own flash card set, and BRS Pathology recently put out a set of their own flash cards too. And then there are pharm cards, which can be useful for class but most versions they have out there are too detailed for the boards. So basically, if you like studying from flash cards, I would reccomend purchasing a pre-made set during med school in order to save you the time of having to make them.

 

[DrMom]

I still use flash cards pretty regularly, although they definitely don't work for everything. Mostly the ones I make myself, although I had a set of Netter cards, and have pharm and path cards.

At this point, I mostly use "cards" on my computer and palm. There are some programs that take excel files or comma-delimited files and turn them into flash cards.


If you're making flash cards, be sure that they end up being a good time investment. If you take too much time making them, or can't learn while you're making them, then you're probably better off studying another way.

 

[Bevo]

gotta disagree

I think you lose a part of whats useful about making flash cards if you buy premade flash cards. Making them is a process of learning the material as well and condensing it to what is relevant.

The premade flash cards have soooo much stuff on it, and part of it might not be relevant for you anyways.

If thats how you learn, I say stick with it and look for a way to make it to continue working.

Myself I like writing out notes, but its a very time consuming process. Im trying to write out questions(left side) and answers(right side) now on a sheet of paper instead of writing these huge paragraphs and what not.

 

[DrMom]

cue card works decently on my laptop, but I don't use it much.

I use miniflash on my palm and like it.

 

[DrMom]

Originally posted by lmbebo

I think you lose a part of whats useful about making flash cards if you buy premade flash cards. Making them is a process of learning the material as well and condensing it to what is relevant.

The premade flash cards have soooo much stuff on it, and part of it might not be relevant for you anyways.

I agree. Whenever I've used premade cards, I've had to highlight the parts that were mentioned in my class and then add other things left off the card that were mentioned in class. Basically, I end up with a card full of info...at least 50% of which I don't have to know.

I definitely learn from making my own cards, whether I handwrite them or type them.

 

[DrMom]

Here are the websites with the programs:

Mini flash for palm


cue card

 

[Su4n2]

Dr. Mom,
are the path cards that u are talking about BRS? how are they? they got a terrible review on amazon.

 

[DrMom]

both my pharm and path cards are Lippincott's. I don't use either of them very much.

My path professor is Dr Goljan (the Kaplan board review guru) and he teaches in a manner that doesn't lead me to use cards at all. (He uses his notes sets and practice question sets...more than enough to be ready for the exams).

 

[nuclearrabbit77]

Originally posted by Su4n2
Dr. Mom,
are the path cards that u are talking about BRS? how are they? they got a terrible review on amazon.

The BRS path cards are horrible. do not get them.
the better cards i've come across are MicroCards and Pharmcards.

 

[Blade28]

I just used PharmCards and MicroCards.

 

[Tranquility]

hey DrMom...thanks for the Cue Card link....I just DLed it...how great...=) any other good studying tools??

 

[stwei]

I've tried flash cards before, then switched to writing out questions and answers on paper, and have finally arrived at taping myself via Q and A. This has the additional motor and auditory benefits associated with learning and my hand doesn't get cramped up as easily, in addition to preparing me psychologically for pimping. Does anyone else do that? I'm hoping to buy a speech to text software in the future when the technology gets better.

 

[yeti00]

Must say... I was a flash-card addict in undergrad, and I have found that I love, love, love SuperMemo on my Palm.

It is just awesome. I have ~1500 flashcards on there, most of which I made from excel spreadsheets and then converted. (And I'm just in my first year). You memorize the flashcards in a systematic way that takes into account how well you know the material. You can check out www.mapletop.com.

I tried to use the Netter's flashcards, but found them only marginally helpful for memorizing anatomy. Probably have only gone through them a few times right before tests...

 

[madtowngirl]

I'm a flashcard junkie; I have a shoebox full already and I'm still an M1. I make all of my own the old-fashioned way, so I guess making them is a study process. I don't have large time blocks during the day to study, and flashcard making and going thru is really fast and non-intense studying, so I can do it whenever I get a spare 5 minutes. So far they've been useful for everything to some degree . . . for the rest of my studying I make posters. My house is quite the work of art around exam time. I was into art classes in undergrad, so that's prolly where that comes from.

But yeah, flashcards rock. But I agree about the premade points; my Netter flashcards were barely opened.

 

[mfred]

I use flashcards exclusively for some subjects. Mainly anatomy written exams, histology written exams, and clin med written exams. I tried using them for physiology, and I ended up ditching them towards the test and just typing up my own review. It seems that physio is not very conducive for notecard learning, because you lose the big picture sometimes with notecards, and physio is all big picture. Notecards are helpful, but don't feel tied to them or feel like you are not studying well if you use some other method. I know some people that have used notecards for so long that they don't feel like they are studying well if they don't have notecards made, even if there is a much more effective method.

 

[alphaholic06]

Does anyone know how to print your cards out with the cue card program?

 

[Anath]

Damn oh Damn I wish you'd posted earlier! This MiniFlash is absolutely wonderful!!!!

I had bought and used Super Memo, but just couldn't stand it's well, it's archaic look and found it too much work to use with all the formatting and stuff you'd have to do. Felt like I was using a 1990 Apple computer in teh year 2003. It just wasn't goin over well.

But this ... <sigh> Just as 2nd year is coming to a close to. Maybe I'll buy it and use it for 3rd year as a way ta self pimp myself.

lol. I take that completely back -- this post dates back to 2002. ::frowns:: Wonder why it didn't come up when I did a search on flash programs for PDA's during early first semester.