Is AnKing too much with p/f step 1?

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

The problem with this is I start memorizing the card as it looks and know what word belongs there.... I'll be first to say that has happened to me on more than one occasion.

Yeah it can happen. Saying each card aloud or like under your breath helps with that.

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[fdgjfg]

It's not necessary to try to finish all of Anking - passing will likely be pretty easy as long as you give reasonable effort during preclinical time, and preclinical material won't likely impact grades later on to a large degree. How much you use anking depends on how much you like anki as your main study tool, and whether you prefer premade or homemade decks. You could then follow a graduated approach taking into consideration which decks work best with anki, your own priorities, and your own study strategies. This means you would only need to keep up with a much smaller proportion of the full deck, if any at all.

1) You do prefer anki as your main study tool, and like premade decks - in this case, you might as well go ahead and use anking since it's the most complete, well-tagged, and well-resourced deck. It works very well if you're on an accelerated curriculum, if your curriculum follows first aid/board prep material very closely, or if your assessments are mostly NBME/multiple choice based. As you receive lectures, just unsuspend relevant chunks of cards from the core zanki decks (pharm, pathoma, costanzo, maybe B&B) while ignoring some of the supplementary additions that don't really show up in classes (BG uworld adds, other random cards). You would just keep up with your cards as long as you are in the relevant block, and stop using them afterwards. Even though you'd likely forget a good bit, you'd certainly lay the scaffolding to do enough to pass step and set yourself up for clerkship year. While it's certainly not necessary to use anking for your classes, some people enjoy the workflow and focus compared to just staring at or annotating lecture slides, or the tedium of making anki cards yourself.

If you're neurotic about making dedicated extra chill/easy, or about setting yourself up for clerkship year with a slightly better foundation, there are a few decks that you might consider keeping up reviews even after the block is over, into dedicated. In order of importance:
A) sketchy micro deck
B) sketchy pharm deck
C) pixorize/sketchy biochem (mostly diseases; maybe the pathways)
D) Pathoma 1-3
E) Rest of pathoma
F) Biostats

All of these subjects work very well with anki style memorization, especially when used alongside visual resources like sketchy/pixorize. Subjects not mentioned (e.g. physio) or lower ranked don't work as well with anki, or can be more easily brushed up on during dedicated periods without having to brute force memorize. Depending on how worried you are and how much extra time you have, you could just do A) and B), or just A), or any number of selected resources. Again, this certainly wouldn't be essential, but might save you a little bit of time in dedicated and let the info really soak in so you don't forget it in the future.

2) You prefer anki as your main study tool, and like making your own cards - mostly ignore anking. If you're neurotic, you could try keeping up with a subset of of the deck in accordance with the rankings from 1).

3) You don't like anki - ignore anking. Again, you could consider using the ranking in 1) to keep up with a small subset of cards totaling <10k, but you could also likely do just fine without.

 

[jambro]

I recommend everyone try anki using the anking deck. I watch relevant BNB videos then unsuspend the tagged cards. This was my main way of studying the entire last year and it worked great. i didn't feel stressed out and I literally spent an average 30 mins/day on anki. And that was my main study method!!!

Its just so efficient than even if step is p/f I think its the best way to study. My school used boards questions and boards styled though, so make sure you dont go to a school that actively dissuades people from using it or something

 

[Redpancreas]

Right now there is no UFAPS equivalent for CK. It just wasn't an important enough test for all those resources to be developed and word to spread about how best to prep. If it was me, I'd just be doing a ton of Uworld Step 2 throughout MS3. It's how you study for shelves, and then it's also how you review for CK, which is just a giant mega-shelf.

Part of the appeal of a scored Step 1 was that it allowed anxious preclinical students to feel like they were doing something that would help them by constantly studying for boards. Now they're being told all they have to do is hit 5th percentile or better for a Pass? Surely there must be something to work at daily???

There really isn't guys. Nothing you can study in preclinical will give you any significant edge. You beat this test with your studying during rotations/for shelf exams. Don't let study guilt beat you up. Enjoy having way more free time.

I wouldn’t listen to this guy. It’s not like he’s taken Step 1 or 2. MS0-1s, nothing’s changed even with the Step 1 being P/F…I mean is it really truly P/F? Isn’t that what they said about medical school before we found out about internal rankings? I personally recommend marinating your AnKing and cheesy Dorian decks this summer. If you feel like ANKI is too time-consuming, you’re just doing it wrong because other people on here have been able to do it.

 

[Super_Med]

So the consensus here is that attempting to finish all of AnKing to prepare for P/F Step 1 is overkill?

If that's the case, which decks/resources would you recommend an incoming MS1 use for at least the first year? Should I stick to just our schools' in-house decks only? Is there any such thing as a high-yield deck, where doing ~50 cards per day will easily give you a passed Step 1? Or should I still go hard with Anki now since the info will be a solid foundation for Step 2 CK, which now will be the most important exam in our lives.

 

[jambro]

All of anking definitely seems like overkill. Using the bnb tags seem to be getting me through zanki at a reasonable pace though

 

[altblue]

All of anking definitely seems like overkill. Using the bnb tags seem to be getting me through zanki at a reasonable pace though

Yeah please don't bother with the random First Aid exclusive tags, unless you have a reason to learn them. They're harder and lower yield than the other tags

 

[Nugester]

I wouldn’t listen to this guy. It’s not like he’s taken Step 1 or 2. MS0-1s, nothing’s changed even with the Step 1 being P/F…I mean is it really truly P/F? Isn’t that what they said about medical school before we found out about internal rankings? I personally recommend marinating your AnKing and cheesy Dorian decks this summer. If you feel like ANKI is too time-consuming, you’re just doing it wrong because other people on here have been able to do it.

I'm listening to my wife who's done steps 1-3 and she said it's not a bad idea to do some light studying. In wifey we trust??

Also, no one is advocating Anking 8+ hours a day because I dunno, even at one 1 hour a day of flashcards, still leaves like I dunno maybe like 15 hours of fun time and I don't need that much fun!

 

[Nugester]

So the consensus here is that attempting to finish all of AnKing to prepare for P/F Step 1 is overkill?

If that's the case, which decks/resources would you recommend an incoming MS1 use for at least the first year? Should I stick to just our schools' in-house decks only? Is there any such thing as a high-yield deck, where doing ~50 cards per day will easily give you a passed Step 1? Or should I still go hard with Anki now since the info will be a solid foundation for Step 2 CK, which now will be the most important exam in our lives.

Depends on how they test you. But it will be a lot of experimenting to see what works for you, which is what you'll be doing the first block or so. Most of my m1 tests were in-house, and I mainly relied on a combination of Anking and in-house decks + practice questions. You can probably get away with a lighter bnb/light-year/cheesy deck or something.

 

[IMG69]

I'm UK and not doing any of the steps but I used Anking for my pre clin and clinical exams. Seems almost every year group now uses Anking. I just tend to weed anything out that seems irrelevant but for example on my step 2 anking deck i've only suspended 700 cards out of 16k.

As i've said before though, it's really nice to have basically a medical bible in your pocket at all times (anki)

Edit: As for any exam questions are always king.

 

[deleted872555]

still a little confused on the path to take. what would be the best course of action, when it comes to anki, to kill step 2? because we need a solid step 1 foundation for step 2, but not entirely sure which "1/3" portion of step 1 we should be focusing on when it comes to anki or AnKing (or any other deck).

should we only focus on a specific section of AnKing? should we use another smaller deck? should we only go through the BnB, Pathoma, and Sketchy cards within AnKing? etc.

basically, my main concerns are:
- killing step 2 by having a solid step 1 foundation
- not wasting time on useless & clinically irrelevant info in the AnKing deck
- not spending countless hours on anki every day. i'd say 1-2 hours MAX.

 

[IMG69]

still a little confused on the path to take. what would be the best course of action, when it comes to anki, to kill step 2? because we need a solid step 1 foundation for step 2, but not entirely sure which "1/3" portion of step 1 we should be focusing on when it comes to anki or AnKing (or any other deck).

should we only focus on a specific section of AnKing? should we use another smaller deck? should we only go through the BnB, Pathoma, and Sketchy cards within AnKing? etc.

basically, my main concerns are:
- killing step 2 by having a solid step 1 foundation
- not wasting time on useless & clinically irrelevant info in the AnKing deck
- not spending countless hours on anki every day. i'd say 1-2 hours MAX.

Keep in mind I haven't done the steps (however I do use the decks) but these are general trends i've noticed in med school:
-Studying step 2 will reinforce your step 1 knowledge so you don't need to worry about knowing the physiology 100% etc (obviously you want to for step 1) because step 2 basically asks you what is the deranged physiology and what do you do to normalize it causing you to think. E.g HOCM we want to keep the heart full of blood so we slow it down etc. Step 1 and 2 overlap in these regards.
- There is no such thing as irrelevant info in medical school, we have no ****ing clue what they're going to ask us.
- You're gonna spend a lot more than that, I spend about that much time and I only do 500-750 cards a day.

 

[catnip12]

I am a student on wards and while I have continuously tried but always failed to make the Anki grind work for me, I find that the cards do an extremely good job of summarizing pertinent information on any given topic. So while I am not smashing my spacebar every day, I will just browse the cards for information that I need, and I often times come out with a good feel for a topic. Still a good one stop shop for important information.

 

[wondervisions]

So the consensus here is that attempting to finish all of AnKing to prepare for P/F Step 1 is overkill?

If that's the case, which decks/resources would you recommend an incoming MS1 use for at least the first year? Should I stick to just our schools' in-house decks only? Is there any such thing as a high-yield deck, where doing ~50 cards per day will easily give you a passed Step 1? Or should I still go hard with Anki now since the info will be a solid foundation for Step 2 CK, which now will be the most important exam in our lives.

Sketchy + pepper micro and pharm and maybe some biochem will set you up very well to pass comfortably. Of course, that is on top of doing well in your preclinical classes.

 

[Chromium Surfer]

Yeah they’re doing it wrong. I’ve seen how some of the people spending 5,6+ hours do anki. They take literal minutes on a single card. You shouldn’t spend more than 10-15 seconds on a card. If you don’t know it in 10-15 seconds, you don’t know it well enough and should hit again. That’ll get you through the cards in 60-90 mins and you’ll see the cards you really need to see enough times to nail it.

So on average I only spend about 10 seconds per card, sometimes even less. So in terms of "Anki time" it says I do 800 cards in 2 hours or so. Yet I do a lot of editing and reading up on stuff on the side which probably doubles the time to more like 4 hours. So when youre saying spending 60-90 mins do you mean in terms of the tracked time in Anki or overall including the supplementary reading and and or card editing?

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

So on average I only spend about 10 seconds per card, sometimes even less. So in terms of "Anki time" it says I do 800 cards in 2 hours or so. Yet I do a lot of editing and reading up on stuff on the side which probably doubles the time to more like 4 hours. So when youre saying spending 60-90 mins do you mean in terms of the tracked time in Anki or overall including the supplementary reading and and or card editing?

I didn’t do any card editing or supplementary reading. I did all my anki for the morning in 60-90 mins straight, then would do BnB/sketchy/whatever for the day and then questions.

 

[Chromium Surfer]

I didn’t do any card editing or supplementary reading. I did all my anki for the morning in 60-90 mins straight, then would do BnB/sketchy/whatever for the day and then questions.

AH gotcha. So within 60-90 mins what was the range of cards you would you do per day?

 

[efle]

Bro, how long do you think it takes to do anking? It took me 90 mins a day on average. In some blocks, it was less than an hour. How is that in any way burdensome? You are overestimating the time required to do these cards. There’s a reason people say it’s an extremely efficient way to learn.

Lots of my classmates were doing hundreds of thousands of total cards across M1-M2. Like literally trying to memorize every word of First Aid. Even at 10 seconds each you're talking about hundreds and hundreds of hours of rote flashcarding at that point. Then they'd also do hundreds of hours of additional Qbank prep like Qmax, Kaplan, Amboss. That kind of prep level is great for getting a 250 on step 1 but doesn't translate well to covering shelf exams or CK enough to justify continuing to do it, just my .02

I know many people will convince themselves "step 1 is the basis for step 2" and study for step 1 just as hard as we did. I think they're way off but if they have the hours to spare and nothing better to do with their time, who am I to stop anyone

 

[efle]

I didn’t do any card editing or supplementary reading. I did all my anki for the morning in 60-90 mins straight, then would do BnB/sketchy/whatever for the day and then questions.

Ah there it is. "You underestimate the speed of anki...I just used that as my board material warmup before my board material lecture series followed by my board preparation question banks. You fool, see how reasonable the amount of time I devote to my board exam is! Nothing wrong here at all! Pass/fail? Everyone keep it going unchanged!"

 

[Chromium Surfer]

Lots of my classmates were doing hundreds of thousands of total cards across M1-M2. Like literally trying to memorize every word of First Aid. Even at 10 seconds each you're talking about hundreds and hundreds of hours of rote flashcarding at that point. Then they'd also do hundreds of hours of additional Qbank prep like Qmax, Kaplan, Amboss. That kind of prep level is great for getting a 250 on step 1 but doesn't translate well to covering shelf exams or CK enough to justify continuing to do it, just my .02

I know many people will convince themselves "step 1 is the basis for step 2" and study for step 1 just as hard as we did. I think they're way off but if they have the hours to spare and nothing better to do with their time, who am I to stop anyone

Yeah Idk I feel like I am pretty efficient and can consistently get 10 seconds or less and my retention rate is pretty high (95%).

But after doing Anki consistently for all of M1 till the summer ( RIP vacation) after a while the reviews stacked up to 1000 since I also did micro and that would take me a solid 6-8 hours. Plus even without micro I would still be at like 500 to 600 cards which takes like half the day 3-4 hours including supplementary reading and card editing. I don't think I could be more efficient without sacrificing learning by not encoding more with supplementary reading and addicting notes to the extra section etc.

only spending 1.5 hours on Anki sounds like an unachievable dream to me lmfao

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

AH gotcha. So within 60-90 mins what was the range of cards you would you do per day?

Like 400-500. Sometimes more.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Lots of my classmates were doing hundreds of thousands of total cards across M1-M2. Like literally trying to memorize every word of First Aid. Even at 10 seconds each you're talking about hundreds and hundreds of hours of rote flashcarding at that point. Then they'd also do hundreds of hours of additional Qbank prep like Qmax, Kaplan, Amboss. That kind of prep level is great for getting a 250 on step 1 but doesn't translate well to covering shelf exams or CK enough to justify continuing to do it, just my .02

I know many people will convince themselves "step 1 is the basis for step 2" and study for step 1 just as hard as we did. I think they're way off but if they have the hours to spare and nothing better to do with their time, who am I to stop anyone

Just because your friends were doing it wrong doesn’t mean anking is overkill. That’s literally the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Ah there it is. "You underestimate the speed of anki...I just used that as my board material warmup before my board material lecture series followed by my board preparation question banks. You fool, see how reasonable the amount of time I devote to my board exam is! Nothing wrong here at all! Pass/fail? Everyone keep it going unchanged!"

What are you even talking about? This was for my blocks. I haven’t even taken step 1 yet. We take it halfway through M3. I studied like 6-7 hours a day including breaks and all of that stuff and anything mandatory.

 

[Chromium Surfer]

Just because your friends were doing it wrong doesn’t mean anking is overkill. That’s literally the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

To be fair besides some egregious manners of lying to yourself when getting a card wrong or just blinding hitting again is there truly one "right" way to do Anki. Plus if I remember correctly don't you not keep up with reviews after a block? I feel like that saves a lot of time because the reviews are what take up the most time IMO.

 

[Lawpy]

Just because your friends were doing it wrong doesn’t mean anking is overkill. That’s literally the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

Its like several thousand cards. Idk, i'm a big videos and practice questions guy, but i just cannot defend doing premade decks for a P/F Step. It's completely insane

 

[efle]

Just because your friends were doing it wrong doesn’t mean anking is overkill. That’s literally the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

What are you even talking about? This was for my blocks. I haven’t even taken step 1 yet. We take it halfway through M3. I studied like 6-7 hours a day including breaks and all of that stuff and anything mandatory.

I mean yeah maybe all my classmates are too stupid to use the tool right. Or maybe an hour isn't a reasonable target to maintain on a full 30,000 card deck for most people. Congrats on being superhuman though I bet youll get a Pass while everyone around you only gets a Pass. Especially the idiots who didn't study three kinds of board resources every day. They'll just get a Pass

 

[Lawpy]

Dorian is a good recommendation though

 

[Thesimplelifeofamyloid]

Dorian is a good recommendation though

Dorian only works if you have a good foundation. Otherwise it's pretty crappy

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

To be fair besides some egregious manners of lying to yourself when getting a card wrong or just blinding hitting again is there truly one "right" way to do Anki. Plus if I remember correctly don't you not keep up with reviews after a block? I feel like that saves a lot of time because the reviews are what take up the most time IMO.

If you’re doing hundreds of thousands of cards, you’re doing it wrong lol.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Its like several thousand cards. Idk, i'm a big videos and practice questions guy, but i just cannot defend doing premade decks for a P/F Step. It's completely insane

It’s like 20k. It’s not hundreds of thousands.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I mean yeah maybe all my classmates are too stupid to use the tool right. Or maybe an hour isn't a reasonable target to maintain on a full 30,000 card deck for most people. Congrats on being superhuman though I bet youll get a Pass while everyone around you only gets a Pass. Especially the idiots who didn't study three kinds of board resources every day. They'll just get a Pass

Touched a nerve I see. Again, I was studying for school. Not boards. I suspended all my cards after each block and only did the cards for the block I was in. I have repeatedly said that maintaining all those reviews to keep it up for step is unnecessary, especially with it being p/f. So you can put that strawman away.

 

[Lawpy]

It’s like 20k. It’s not hundreds of thousands.

The reviews + adding cards from lecture, incorrect answers to questions all add up

 

[Lawpy]

Dorian only works if you have a good foundation. Otherwise it's pretty crappy

I mean isn't this true for anything. Can't really do well in clinicals without having a good foundation. I just disagree that premade decks are anywhere close to necessary for a good foundation and the benefit to overkill ratio is low.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

The reviews + adding cards from lecture, incorrect answers to questions all add up

So don’t add a lot of cards. If your curriculum is so different from boards resources that anking requires adding tons of cards, then anking probably isn’t worth it. Mine lined up with BnB and other sources very well with few exceptions. I hardly added any cards.

And again, I have said repeatedly that maintaining all those reviews after the block is over isn’t necessary.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

benefit to overkill ratio is low.

Again, this is only true if y’all continue to insist on this false dichotomy that you either aren’t using it or you are doing all the reviews all year and are doing hundreds of thousands of cards each day. If you use it reasonably to study within each block, the benefit and efficiency are substantially.

 

[efle]

@Matthew9Thirtyfive I see I misunderstood, you're constantly hitting boards resources all day but aren't maintaining past the end of each block. I can see why what "anki" means to each of us is wildly different. I know some very smart people who needed 200-400k total cards to earn their high step 1 scores, they were doing a hell of a lot more than an hour per day. If someone wants to learn Step 1 material for the block and then dump it afterwards, that's way less work. But at that point, why not just study the lecture and small group material? Aren't most school exams faculty written and based on those?

 

[Lawpy]

So don’t add a lot of cards. If your curriculum is so different from boards resources that anking requires adding tons of cards, then anking probably isn’t worth it. Mine lined up with BnB and other sources very well with few exceptions. I hardly added any cards.

And again, I have said repeatedly that maintaining all those reviews after the block is over isn’t necessary.

I'm getting confused here since there are several topics here.

Are you thinking anking for preclinical foundation, Step prep or both? Because for Step prep, it's unnecessary to go anywhere close to 20K cards when practice questions/B&B/pathoma alone more than guarantee a pass

For a good foundation, i still think it's not necessary but it's more subjective and personal preferences in the end.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

@Matthew9Thirtyfive I see I misunderstood, you're constantly hitting boards resources all day but aren't maintaining past the end of each block. I can see why what "anki" means to each of us is wildly different. I know some very smart people who needed 200-400k total cards to earn their high step 1 scores, they were doing a hell of a lot more than an hour per day. If someone wants to learn Step 1 material for the block and then dump it afterwards, that's way less work. But at that point, why not just study the lecture and small group material? Aren't most school exams faculty written and based on those?

Because BnB and anki give me the material in a way more concise and easy to understand format. The only block I used my school lectures for was neuro, because it’s known throughout the school as being better than even pathoma.

The preclinical exams at my school are both nbme and faculty, but the faculty exams had waaaaaay less weight and you could actually fail them and still pass the module as long as you passed the NBME. The faculty exams were mostly just to test the things more specific to a military population that nbme doesn’t cover.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I'm getting confused here since there are several topics here.

Are you thinking anking for preclinical foundation, Step prep or both? Because for Step prep, it's unnecessary to go anywhere close to 20K cards when practice questions/B&B/pathoma alone more than guarantee a pass

For a good foundation, i still think it's not necessary but it's more subjective and personal preferences in the end.

I used it for preclinical. I won’t be using it during dedicated.

 

[Nugester]

As Matthew has pointed out, if you use AnKing for the appropriate blocks it is really not that hard to get through the cards at a comfortable pace. I used it extensively for all my in-house block exams and a couple NBME finals for M1 and I found myself not having to study much before the final NBMEs.

As for reviews, I'm at the point where a lot are like 6+ months lol, so I'm not exactly too worried about falling behind.

 

[pBar]

Bottom line to the OP. Different strokes for different folks. Depending on your personal study techniques, preferences, and school's curriculum, you will find how much or little you want to use premade decks next year. I don't believe this a one-size fits all scenario and everyone learns differently.

 

[efle]

Using anki in lieu of faculty materials for faculty tests is a new one for me. I thought everyone was banging away on boards material to prep for boards, not because they felt it better prepared them for their in house exams. But my school also had a big divergence between what our professors taught and what Step 1 covered so maybe it works a lot better in other curriculum

 

[Chromium Surfer]

If you’re doing hundreds of thousands of cards, you’re doing it wrong lol.

This was already covered but I meant more in regards to the cumulative reviews if you keep up with everything until after taking step. Definitely not doing hundreds of thousands of news haha . I was always told that doing the reviews every day no matter what is where the true power of a Anki lies in terms of encoding long term information. But as we have all surmised different strokes for different folks!

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Using anki in lieu of faculty materials for faculty tests is a new one for me. I thought everyone was banging away on boards material to prep for boards, not because they felt it better prepared them for their in house exams. But my school also had a big divergence between what our professors taught and what Step 1 covered so maybe it works a lot better in other curriculum

Oh yeah, no. BnB covered my school’s curriculum almost perfectly. I just skimmed the lecture slides the day before the exam to see if anything was hammered on real hard.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

This was already covered but I meant more in regards to the cumulative reviews if you keep up with everything until after taking step. Definitely not doing hundreds of thousands of news haha . I was always told that doing the reviews every day no matter what is where the true power of a Anki lies in terms of encoding long term information. But as we have all surmised different strokes for different folks!

Oh yeah, I knew what you meant. I’m saying there’s no real need to keep up the reviews after each block because it is a huge time suck, and I’m not convinced it really is necessary for step—and it’s definitely not necessary now.

 

[deleted952648]

Seen some on Reddit musing about starting a Step 2 deck like Dorian in M2 (or as soon as feasible) along with keeping up Sketchy pharm and micro. Any thoughts on that?

 

[efle]

Seen some on Reddit musing about starting a Step 2 deck like Dorian in M2 (or as soon as feasible) along with keeping up Sketchy pharm and micro. Any thoughts on that?

so it begins

 

[NicMouse64]

I tried anki multiple times throughout m1+m2. It was miserable and I hated every second. I found other ways to study. I ended up doing average on step 1 (230). I would much rather have done what I did in m1+m2 to get a 230 than torture myself doing anki every day and get a 250. YMMV. Contrary to the SDN mantra, it is not the end all be all. I just hated it so god d*** much.

 

[Lawpy]

so it begins

How likely is skipping wards going to happen

 

[efle]

How likely is skipping wards going to happen

i think more likely preclinical students on Step 2 flashcards and qbanks