For those who skipped lecture and just used Anki/Zanki, how?

[kkl2018]

I'm finding our class lectures really difficult to go through and I end up just learning it again for myself from the textbook or google. So I have been thinking of just skipping lecture and using Dope Anatomy/Zanki, but am unsure how to go about it.

What do you use to learn the primary material in those cards? or do you just learn from the cards themselves?

I was thinking of doing the following....

1) Read anatomy textbook based on what we're going over in class (or 3rd party material like B&B when we finish anatomy)
2) Unsuspend relevant cards as we go along
3) Briefly go over lectures before the exam
4) Profit?

What do you guys/gals do?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Steve_Zissou]

For first pass, I used Pathoma and Boards & Beyond. I made sure to finish the deck a week before exams, at least. I didn’t focus on class-specific material as much as I should have though, which left me well above passing (pass/fail classes) but not near the top, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[5yewy5r]

Like poster above, BnB and pathos were my first pass. If you want high in-house exam scores, you will have to go through your lecture slides. This should be really fast once you do BnB and all the associated Zanki cards. Or you could take advantage of P/F curriculum - at the very least, there is no way you’ll fail if you get through Zanki.

That said, I found anki to be not as helpful for anatomy if that’s what you’re doing right now.

 

[NecrotizingFasciitis]

I third the first post. I killed my pre-clinical classes first year; great class rank, but zero long-term retention. Switched to anki + 0 class lectures or reading for second year. Class rank dropped a bit but it made board season a breeze (for both step 1 & step 2.)

So it really depends on how much class rank matters to you I guess. I’m sure there are a rare few who have been able to Zanki + destroy pre-Clinical’s as well.. I think b&b would have brought me to that level but I didn’t really try it until I was in dedicated unfortunately. No regrets tho.

 

[kopftonmd]

Agree with the above. BnB+Pathoma+Sketchy then Zanki then UW/Rx/Kaplan and you're essentially set. The BIG caveat though is if your school only uses exams made by the faculty, this may not work. It works really well for NBME exams though.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Agree with the above. BnB+Pathoma+Sketchy then Zanki then UW/Rx/Kaplan and you're essentially set. The BIG caveat though is if your school only uses exams made by the faculty, this may not work. It works really well for NBME exams though.

We have nbme and faculty exams. It still works. You just have to go through the powerpoints and add any cards that cover stuff they cover that isn’t in Zanki/lightyear. It doesn’t end up being too much.

 

[Gilakend]

Same as above, just have to be okay with not doing as well on in house exams. I used Pathoma, Costanzo, Sketchy mainly BnB sometimes but honestly wasn't as big of a fan of it as I was the first 3, still a good resource though. Then used study guides classmates made for class stuff, never watched a lecture or opened a powerpoint for 90%+ of the year.

 

[altblue]

depends on where you're at. my school's in-house exams go wayyy more in-depth than board-prep materials do. basically we had a unit where the weakest assessment score would be dropped, and I was satisfied with my other ones prior to the last assessment, so I decided to just B&B/Sketchy it away and ignore lecture. on the final one I received a 40-50% lol. quickly jotting down the differences for a day generally isn't sufficient here.

for NBME exams though, that's a fine approach and you'll pass your exams comfortably and potentially do very well if you've mastered the board prep material

that said the vast majority of what is in the outside resources are still important for our in-house exams, just not all-inclusive, so it isn't a bad use of my time to watch and Zanki those for a foundation going into our oftentimes dense and confusing class material

 

[Detective SnowBucket]

Same as above, just have to be okay with not doing as well on in house exams. I used Pathoma, Costanzo, Sketchy mainly BnB sometimes but honestly wasn't as big of a fan of it as I was the first 3, still a good resource though. Then used study guides classmates made for class stuff, never watched a lecture or opened a powerpoint for 90%+ of the year.

I want to transition to this. I have my second exam for block 1 tomorrow. How do you figure out what is necessary to study? Do you just go off the lecture title and review anything relevant to that? So far, I'm just watching the lectures on super speed to put the concepts in short term memory just long enough to find the relevant cards to unsuspend. I think it'll screw me because I was reviewing the lecture study guide and it is waaay too detailed. How do you know how much/which details to study without lectures?

 

[Gilakend]

I want to transition to this. I have my second exam for block 1 tomorrow. How do you figure out what is necessary to study? Do you just go off the lecture title and review anything relevant to that? So far, I'm just watching the lectures on super speed to put the concepts in short term memory just long enough to find the relevant cards to unsuspend. I think it'll screw me because I was reviewing the lecture study guide and it is waaay too detailed. How do you know how much/which details to study without lectures?

I had a systems-based curriculum, normally I wouldn't follow along too closely. For example, I would read costanzo during the first week of each system, even though we usually didn't cover all the physio that week (it was normally a mix of physio, path, pharm, histo, etc). Then the second week (tests every 2 weeks) would ask classmates, look at the titles of lectures, or look at the study guides students made from this year or last year to see what to focus on.

I also go to an unranked P/F school, so for me even if I didn't cover something on the test, but knew enough to pass it, I didn't care or worry about it. I would get to it eventually. Over the course of the year I covered more material than was just in the class stuff, it just wasn't always at the same time (some might be 2 weeks after it was on the test other stuff I covered in the first block since it made sense with my method and we officially learned it in class 6 months later).

 

[Detective SnowBucket]

I had a systems-based curriculum, normally I wouldn't follow along too closely. For example, I would read costanzo during the first week of each system, even though we usually didn't cover all the physio that week (it was normally a mix of physio, path, pharm, histo, etc). Then the second week (tests every 2 weeks) would ask classmates, look at the titles of lectures, or look at the study guides students made from this year or last year to see what to focus on.

I also go to an unranked P/F school, so for me even if I didn't cover something on the test, but knew enough to pass it, I didn't care or worry about it. I would get to it eventually. Over the course of the year I covered more material than was just in the class stuff, it just wasn't always at the same time (some might be 2 weeks after it was on the test other stuff I covered in the first block since it made sense with my method and we officially learned it in class 6 months later).

I'm at a systems-based school but it's tiered P/F. These kids have regressed to high school comparing dick size grades

 

[deleted1005514]

I want to transition to this. I have my second exam for block 1 tomorrow. How do you figure out what is necessary to study? Do you just go off the lecture title and review anything relevant to that? So far, I'm just watching the lectures on super speed to put the concepts in short term memory just long enough to find the relevant cards to unsuspend. I think it'll screw me because I was reviewing the lecture study guide and it is waaay too detailed. How do you know how much/which details to study without lectures?

I look through the powerpoints at what they're covering, then try to match that with BnB videos. After I watch those, I unsuspend anki cards and try to get all of them done that day (I use lightyear instead of Anking/Zanki, but the same idea applies). Then I watch the lectures on 2x for professor specific miutiae, and let LY/anki handle my spaced repetition during the week. On the weekends I do practice questions.

I can't just do anki cards without some sort of learning first, but that's just me. I have to have a framework or picture in my head of how it all fits together before I can start doing flashcards. So far this method has gotten me in-house exam scores several points above the class average with much less stress, but I just started anatomy block so we'll see how I fare. Not much anatomy in BnB.