For those of you who split notecards with classmates

[Yadster101]

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So I've spoken with quote a few ppl that split up lectures with 3-4 classmates and then everyone makes anti/quizlet/condensed notes etc. so one individual only has to make cards for a 1/4 of the lectures. The thing I don't get is what if your classmates have a different writing style or emphasize things differently? Isn't it difficult to learn things from notes someone else has taken?

Also the other issue is i would think that your classmates may skip certain topics while way overemphasizing others because of their own background, how they learned previous lectures, etc. So wouldn't you be in trouble if your classmate completely skipped making anki cards on vital info simply cuz they thought everyone remembered it from an old previous lecture?

 

[sholamd]

Since nobody else answered this, I'm going to paste in some text from one of my podcasts:

II. Shared Decks
Since making your own cards takes a serious time investment, I often hear people asking about using shared Anki decks or Firecracker. I dislike this for a few reasons.

You will waste time reading material you already know. For a deck to be useful for everyone, it has to ask about every fact. I mean, you’re not going to pay for Firecracker if it’s not thorough, right? So say that you find a shared Anki microbiology deck with 1,000 cards. And say 50 of those cards are about Staph. Well, maybe you worked in a lab in undergrad and understand gram staining perfectly, in fact, you are an expert in Staph. You still have to wade through those cards, wasting your precious study time. If it’s not staph for you, it will be something else: something else that you know very well that someone else didn’t know very well. You are looking at material that other people thought was hard, not material that is hard for you. It doesn’t get much more low-yield than that.

These lowest-common-denominator cards focus on buzz words and quick associations. This is not good enough for Step 1, and rewards superficial, short-term knowledge. Your own flash cards should focus on concepts in addition to associations, asking questions in new ways. If you are looking for a generic review, use practice questions to identify weak spots instead of these shared decks.

I don’t trust them. A fallible human being made them, and I find it impossible that there can be a 1,000 card deck without mistakes. If I had to sift through someone else’s mistakes, I would be completely distracted and irritated. My own mistakes don’t bother me – in fact those can be learning opportunities.

There is a shorthand mismatch. What I mean by that is, either the card doesn’t use shorthand and it takes way too long to read (and that’s not efficient), or it has shorthand you may or may not understand, which is frustrating and is going to waste your time when you’re trying to decode someone else’s shorthand.

Making your own flash cards is a way of transforming facts into long-term memory, so it’s actually a good time investment and a way of studying.

So in summary, I encourage making your own flash cards, with just the facts that are new or difficult to YOU, with lots of concepts, and your own shorthand.

 

[Yadster101]

Since nobody else answered this, I'm going to paste in some text from one of my podcasts:

II. Shared Decks
Since making your own cards takes a serious time investment, I often hear people asking about using shared Anki decks or Firecracker. I dislike this for a few reasons.

You will waste time reading material you already know. For a deck to be useful for everyone, it has to ask about every fact. I mean, you’re not going to pay for Firecracker if it’s not thorough, right? So say that you find a shared Anki microbiology deck with 1,000 cards. And say 50 of those cards are about Staph. Well, maybe you worked in a lab in undergrad and understand gram staining perfectly, in fact, you are an expert in Staph. You still have to wade through those cards, wasting your precious study time. If it’s not staph for you, it will be something else: something else that you know very well that someone else didn’t know very well. You are looking at material that other people thought was hard, not material that is hard for you. It doesn’t get much more low-yield than that.

These lowest-common-denominator cards focus on buzz words and quick associations. This is not good enough for Step 1, and rewards superficial, short-term knowledge. Your own flash cards should focus on concepts in addition to associations, asking questions in new ways. If you are looking for a generic review, use practice questions to identify weak spots instead of these shared decks.

I don’t trust them. A fallible human being made them, and I find it impossible that there can be a 1,000 card deck without mistakes. If I had to sift through someone else’s mistakes, I would be completely distracted and irritated. My own mistakes don’t bother me – in fact those can be learning opportunities.

There is a shorthand mismatch. What I mean by that is, either the card doesn’t use shorthand and it takes way too long to read (and that’s not efficient), or it has shorthand you may or may not understand, which is frustrating and is going to waste your time when you’re trying to decode someone else’s shorthand.

Making your own flash cards is a way of transforming facts into long-term memory, so it’s actually a good time investment and a way of studying.

So in summary, I encourage making your own flash cards, with just the facts that are new or difficult to YOU, with lots of concepts, and your own shorthand.

Ya that's what I was thinking