Someone tell me if this is a bad idea- Miledown ANKI

[highlander11]

Someone please tell me if this is a bad idea,

I am gladly taking recommendations for Anki decks, but I just downloaded Miledown's 2900 card set. Up until this point, I had been making my own as I read through the Kaplan books. I basically would just retype the important content into Anki cards. This may just me being lazy, but I felt as if reading the Kaplan books and making the cards was a waste of time as the only real learning I was doing was by working through the decks afterwards. So . . . .

Would it be a bad idea to ditch the Kaplan books and solely use the Miledown Anki for content? Keep in mind, the decks are being supplemented by UWorld QBank and multiple Practice FL's. Approximate test date is January 16th.

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[Philly145]

Would it be a bad idea to ditch the Kaplan books and solely use the Miledown Anki for content? Keep in mind, the decks are being supplemented by UWorld QBank and multiple Practice FL's. Approximate test date is January 16th.

This is exactly what I did. Pulled a 515 on the real deal.

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

Worked for me for PS (130) but Id still be cautious. Consider supplementing with JackSparrow decks for things you feel less comfortable with.

 

[highlander11]

This is exactly what I did. Pulled a 515 on the real deal.

This is assuring! Did you use Miledown? If not, do you have an anki deck you would recommend?

 

[GreenDuck12]

The mcat is a reasoning test, not a fact recall test. Anki is great for hammering details once you have a clear conceptual understanding. Anki is not great for higher order thinking questions. Make sure you supplement with other resources.

 

[FrameshiftAndrew]

Would it be a bad idea to ditch the Kaplan books and solely use the Miledown Anki for content? Keep in mind, the decks are being supplemented by UWorld QBank and multiple Practice FL's. Approximate test date is January 16th.

If something (like making your own cards from Kaplan books) genuinely isn't working, then by all means do something else. On one hand, I'm tempted to say that using other flashcard decks poses the danger of approaching content too passively, but I mean, that's also a danger with books. Whatever sources you use for content review, watch out whether you find yourself in the mode of just rehearsing familiarity/pattern-matching -- instead, try to find ways to check your understanding of the concepts. Even something as simple as seeing if you can explain concepts to someone else can help, as can cross-referencing other sources like self-rating your confidence in the material listed in the AAMC content outline. Practice materials (including FL tests) are also helpful for both ensuring that your knowledge is really solid, not just superficial, and for practicing the reasoning skills that are a core component of the test (as others have mentioned).

 

[deleted555445]

Someone please tell me if this is a bad idea,

I am gladly taking recommendations for Anki decks, but I just downloaded Miledown's 2900 card set. Up until this point, I had been making my own as I read through the Kaplan books. I basically would just retype the important content into Anki cards. This may just me being lazy, but I felt as if reading the Kaplan books and making the cards was a waste of time as the only real learning I was doing was by working through the decks afterwards. So . . . .

Would it be a bad idea to ditch the Kaplan books and solely use the Miledown Anki for content? Keep in mind, the decks are being supplemented by UWorld QBank and multiple Practice FL's. Approximate test date is January 16th.

i used Anki for content review (miledown for P/S and B/B, jacksparrow for C/P), but anything i didn't know i used other sources to learn. other sources i used included khan academy, AKLectures, and just googling (usually finding people on reddit who were confused about the same topic)

 

[Philly145]

This is assuring! Did you use Miledown? If not, do you have an anki deck you would recommend?

I used Miledown to get my base content review. My test date got pushed back 6 weeks, so I added in another deck ("528" I think?). I'm not sure how much of a difference it made.

 

[course90]

This is exactly what I did. Pulled a 515 on the real deal.

How did you go about it? As in how many cards per day/how long it took

 

[Philly145]

How did you go about it? As in how many cards per day/how long it took

50-75 new cards a day, every day for 6 weeks, and kept up on reviews right up until test day. After that I went through UWorld and added cards into the deck on topics I was shaky on. I think I missed a total of 4 days in 5 months.

 

[course90]

50-75 new cards a day, every day for 6 weeks, and kept up on reviews right up until test day. After that I went through UWorld and added cards into the deck on topics I was shaky on. I think I missed a total of 4 days in 5 months.

That's really helpful. Thanks!