What is the best anki setting?

[831929]

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Hey guys,

trying to figure out if my anki settings are most optimal for getting through material.

Steps (in minutes): 1 10
Order: new cards in order
New cards: 100 per day (usually bump this up to 200)
Graduating interval: 1 day
Easy interval: 1 day
Starting ease 250%

thanks for the help!

 

[Save a life]

What I do is just keep the original settings for graduating, easy interval, etc. (I trust the default algorithm). I put my reviews and new cards to 9999. I make decks for current material (next test) and deck for review (step 1). If I’m short on time I either let it build up or just press space bar a bunch and skim read the cards.

Another thing about time and Anki is that new cards take a long time, there’s no way around it. But mature cards should be fast. It should be either “I remember (easy)” or “oh yeah that’s what that was (again)”. Thus, mature cards should literally take like 5 seconds each. Anki works best if the cards ask a question that only has one answer, it should be unambiguous. Otherwise your trying to remember a series or a sentence and that’s a waste of time. Instead of trying to regurgitate a sentence or series turn it into 5 cards or even 10 cards with a mnemonic.

 

[Gurby]

If I’m short on time I either let it build up or just press space bar a bunch and skim read the cards.

 

[831929]

What I do is just keep the original settings for graduating, easy interval, etc. (I trust the default algorithm). I put my reviews and new cards to 9999. I make decks for current material (next test) and deck for review (step 1). If I’m short on time I either let it build up or just press space bar a bunch and skim read the cards.

Another thing about time and Anki is that new cards take a long time, there’s no way around it. But mature cards should be fast. It should be either “I remember (easy)” or “oh yeah that’s what that was (again)”. Thus, mature cards should literally take like 5 seconds each. Anki works best if the cards ask a question that only has one answer, it should be unambiguous. Otherwise your trying to remember a series or a sentence and that’s a waste of time. Instead of trying to regurgitate a sentence or series turn it into 5 cards or even 10 cards with a mnemonic.

I agree with trying best to limit the information on a card, but sometimes I think that is difficult to do with concepts. Currently in organ systems and some stuff you cannot just split up and make short individual questions since that takes away from the big picture.

 

[Save a life]

I agree with trying best to limit the information on a card, but sometimes I think that is difficult to do with concepts. Currently in organ systems and some stuff you cannot just split up and make short individual questions since that takes away from the big picture.

Yeah I often do a sentence with multiple cloze cards, maybe a nice picture. Then I remember the information from several cards and it keeps all together in my mind.

I agree though, it all depends on the specific material. Obviously an anatomy card would be different from an ethics card and even different from a pathology card.

 

[libertyyne]

Yeah I often do a sentence with multiple cloze cards, maybe a nice picture. Then I remember the information from several cards and it keeps all together in my mind.

I agree though, it all depends on the specific material. Obviously an anatomy card would be different from an ethics card and even different from a pathology card.

I agree with trying best to limit the information on a card, but sometimes I think that is difficult to do with concepts. Currently in organ systems and some stuff you cannot just split up and make short individual questions since that takes away from the big picture.

I think one of the shortcomings of anki is inability to link multiple cards together in a sequence to allow review in progression for large topics that dont fit on one card.

 

[Nucleophile1]

I think one of the shortcomings of anki is inability to link multiple cards together in a sequence to allow review in progression for large topics that dont fit on one card.

This. When I have to memorize pathways, I don't tend to use Anki.

 

[kb1900]

I think one of the shortcomings of anki is inability to link multiple cards together in a sequence to allow review in progression for large topics that dont fit on one card.

This so much. Sometimes I add cards to a topic subdeck (e.g mapk signing) and then constantly do a review in order added, then export the deck wo scheduling info, delete the old one and import, repeat. It's hilariously inefficient.

Someone go make this addon/card type! Easily would become one of the most popular Anki addons out there

 

[mehc012]

I think one of the shortcomings of anki is inability to link multiple cards together in a sequence to allow review in progression for large topics that dont fit on one card.

This. When I have to memorize pathways, I don't tend to use Anki.

This so much. Sometimes I add cards to a topic subdeck (e.g mapk signing) and then constantly do a review in order added, then export the deck wo scheduling info, delete the old one and import, repeat. It's hilariously inefficient.

Someone go make this addon/card type! Easily would become one of the most popular Anki addons out there

I legitimately cannot think of a situation where this would have been a good thing beyond what clozing and image occlusion can do for you. Do you guys have any examples so I could understand what you're looking to do? In my mind, pathway memorization has always been the go-to example of when Anki shines the most!

 

[Nucleophile1]

I legitimately cannot think of a situation where this would have been a good thing beyond what clozing and image occlusion can do for you. Do you guys have any examples so I could understand what you're looking to do? In my mind, pathway memorization has always been the go-to example of when Anki shines the most!

Anki will show you the pathway bits at a time. I prefer to learn the pathway as a whole. I've even tried image occlusion and it doesn't come close to trying reciting the pathway out-loud over and over until I know it.

 

[Save a life]

I legitimately cannot think of a situation where this would have been a good thing beyond what clozing and image occlusion can do for you. Do you guys have any examples so I could understand what you're looking to do? In my mind, pathway memorization has always been the go-to example of when Anki shines the most!

Agree. I think is what they’re getting at is they wish there was a way the cards of a certain pathway stayed in order without having a separate deck. For me, I’m fine having everything mixed up so long as I can see the whole pathway in the answer.

 

[mehc012]

Anki will show you the pathway bits at a time. I prefer to learn the pathway as a whole. I've even tried image occlusion and it doesn't come close to trying reciting the pathway out-loud over and over until I know it.

I mean, you can just cover the entire pathway and recite that for your answer if that works best for you. You'll have to mark yourself wrong each time you forget one part out of the whole thing, but you'll have fewer cards so maybe the extra reviews isn't an issue. The problem is, most people don't have the self-discipline to keep marking the card wrong when they get 18/20 parts right and 2 parts wrong, so they won't properly learn the 2 parts that didn't click.

That's basically how I end up answering the individual bits anyways. If one question covers up "---D?" and the next is "-----F?" I probably sat there singing "ABCDEFG" for each of them in order to correctly answer E and G, so even though each question only showed me a 'bit', how you remember it on the backend doesn't have to change.

 

[mehc012]

Agree. I think is what they’re getting at is they wish there was a way the cards of a certain pathway stayed in order without having a separate deck. For me, I’m fine having everything mixed up so long as I can see the whole pathway in the answer.

That literally goes against the purpose of spaced repetition in that if you can only remember it when it's presented in a very specific way, you have a lower chance of remembering it when it comes up in reality or on a test.

 

[vit-012]

Hey guys,

trying to figure out if my anki settings are most optimal for getting through material.

Steps (in minutes): 1 10
---------------
These Steps are not the "one shoe fits all" settings !!! In the Manual, u can read that after 3-5 weeks
of using the deck, one should change settings to suit your circumstances ( 5+ factors are involved) .
The goal, as stated in the Manual, to come up with Intervals which are hard enough to make your brain
work and improve the memory traces; ... but easy enough to be able to recall the card within a few seconds. Anki will tell you if your intervals are bad - look at the Answer_Buttons chart.
If you recall a card instantly -- that is a Wasted repetition; on the chart, if the "Easy" column
is half as high as GOOD column - it is inefficient.
PS. Feel free to ask for more details. This is my first post here; pls tell me what i did wrong.

 

[Save a life]

I mean, you can just cover the entire pathway and recite that for your answer if that works best for you. You'll have to mark yourself wrong each time you forget one part out of the whole thing, but you'll have fewer cards so maybe the extra reviews isn't an issue. The problem is, most people don't have the self-discipline to keep marking the card wrong when they get 18/20 parts right and 2 parts wrong, so they won't properly learn the 2 parts that didn't click.

That's basically how I end up answering the individual bits anyways. If one question covers up "---D?" and the next is "-----F?" I probably sat there singing "ABCDEFG" for each of them in order to correctly answer E and G, so even though each question only showed me a 'bit', how you remember it on the backend doesn't have to change.

That’s how I learn things with Anki also. Cloze deletions both text and image occlusion.

 

[libertyyne]

I legitimately cannot think of a situation where this would have been a good thing beyond what clozing and image occlusion can do for you. Do you guys have any examples so I could understand what you're looking to do? In my mind, pathway memorization has always been the go-to example of when Anki shines the most!

So lets say there is a topic X with subtopics (1,2,3,4,5)
Like Blocks to polyspermy and then function of IP3 Having invididual cards for each works or having a single card for each also works, The ideal state in my mind would be having the topic load and then go through the entirety of the subtopic. This reinforces the invidual aspects and the topic as a whole. The reason for why i would like this is
1. I dont trust myself to retain the organization of the topic without a seperate card(which adds to the card count)
2. I like to go over topics sequentially because they reinforce steps and context since IP3 can have other functionality listed on a card somwhere else.
3. I am lazy and would like to make the least amount of cards in the most efficacious manner. Sometimes I image occlude entire pages of information, and would like it link to the next page since the topic spills over and font / size start becoming an issue after a certain point.
4. I dont want to open up a book or my coursepack to get the sequence again.

That literally goes against the purpose of spaced repetition in that if you can only remember it when it's presented in a very specific way, you have a lower chance of remembering it when it comes up in reality or on a test.

I am not as familiar as I should be with the literature of spaced repetition but there is no place where I can find randomization as a key tenant for it, anki itself displays cards in order unless you change the setting.

 

[vit-012]

[QUOTE=" 1. (I trust the default algorithm)."
2. " If I’m short on time I either let it build up or press space bar ... and skim-read the cards." [/QUOTE]

Quote-1. You should not trust the alg because the Defaults were not made with You in mind; or me...
I've responded to the OP on this topic in post-14.
Quote-2: You make things worst; clicking the space-bar increases interval by 2.5 or more....
Clicking the Hard button (2) increases the next interval by 1.2. Better solution is to
'Bury Card' ( hit the ' - ' key.).

The BEST solution is to wait till u can use Laptop and "Review the cards in Ascending Interval order";
reason: these cards are in more 'danger to be forgotten than the High interval cards; the latter can 'wait' easily a week or two -- with no harm to the SRS. Ask for details if i convinced you 🙂

 

[vit-012]

Sometimes I add cards to a topic subdeck (e.g mapk signing) and then constantly do a review in order added, then export the deck wo scheduling , delete the old one and import.
Someone go make this addon!

Done ! User Glutanimate ( med student himself ), made an addon "Advanced Previewer".
A video is available.
The process will be:
* Tools--> Set Advanced Previewer options ---> tick all boxes but the top one.
* Sort cards in Browser by 'Created' column; or reorder cards' order manually ( addon).
* Click "Preview". You either Schedule the cards or view without scheduling. I'd use scheduling IF
the interval is about right.
* Without going into more details... , keep your eyes open -- if there is anything you need
during the Preview, most likely i have the answer in my toolchest .🙂
* Rinse and repeat.

 

[mehc012]

So lets say there is a topic X with subtopics (1,2,3,4,5)
Like Blocks to polyspermy and then function of IP3 Having invididual cards for each works or having a single card for each also works, The ideal state in my mind would be having the topic load and then go through the entirety of the subtopic. This reinforces the invidual aspects and the topic as a whole. The reason for why i would like this is
1. I dont trust myself to retain the organization of the topic without a seperate card(which adds to the card count)
2. I like to go over topics sequentially because they reinforce steps and context since IP3 can have other functionality listed on a card somwhere else.
3. I am lazy and would like to make the least amount of cards in the most efficacious manner. Sometimes I image occlude entire pages of information, and would like it link to the next page since the topic spills over and font / size start becoming an issue after a certain point.
4. I dont want to open up a book or my coursepack to get the sequence again.


I am not as familiar as I should be with the literature of spaced repetition but there is no place where I can find randomization as a key tenant for it, anki itself displays cards in order unless you change the setting.

Randomization is a big part of it; it's cited in the user manual specifically in reference to why they do NOT have the functionality you are asking for. It is an intentional design feature, not an oversight. If you only see things in a certain order and practice them that way, you are limiting the circumstances in which you can recall the key factoid in question.

My solution to the above would be to use the hell out of the 'Extras' field on the Cloze card. I generally put the entire explanation to a topic or sequence (screenshot of FA explanation, my own words, full pathway, etc) in the Extras tab, and then I can use each review of a small subpiece of the puzzle as a chance to revisit the pathway as a whole. If you need a separate card on the overall organization, do it...card count be damned!

If image occluding entire pages works for you, fine...but I'd rather have 50 cards with 1 fact on them, each of which I can do in 1s, than 1 card that takes me 30s to answer, I miss a piece here or there and so repeat it multiple times until I call it 'good enough' and write off the few details I forgot. Taking the extra time to make good, short-answer cards can save you boatloads of time in the long run and help with your retention of individual facts.

 

[Save a life]

Randomization is a big part of it; it's cited in the user manual specifically in reference to why they do NOT have the functionality you are asking for. It is an intentional design feature, not an oversight. If you only see things in a certain order and practice them that way, you are limiting the circumstances in which you can recall the key factoid in question.

My solution to the above would be to use the hell out of the 'Extras' field on the Cloze card. I generally put the entire explanation to a topic or sequence (screenshot of FA explanation, my own words, full pathway, etc) in the Extras tab, and then I can use each review of a small subpiece of the puzzle as a chance to revisit the pathway as a whole. If you need a separate card on the overall organization, do it...card count be damned!

If image occluding entire pages works for you, fine...but I'd rather have 50 cards with 1 fact on them, each of which I can do in 1s, than 1 card that takes me 30s to answer, I miss a piece here or there and so repeat it multiple times until I call it 'good enough' and write off the few details I forgot. Taking the extra time to make good, short-answer cards can save you boatloads of time in the long run and help with your retention of individual facts.

Could not agree more, this is exactly what I do. The extra box is perfect for putting the bigger picture in. If you are doing an image occlusion of say the whole purine salvage pathway, you’re going to see the bigger picture with every card so long as you pick “hide one” or “reveal all.”

For a disease like Down syndrome: put all the extra info in the extra box. For example, you make a card saying “what chromosome abnoramlity is the most common cause of Down syndrome?” You would then put a picture of a happy kid with down syndrome in the extra with all the signs symptoms etc. i usually just copy paste the extra box and put it in all my Down syndrome cards. Bam! You get the whole clinical presentation of Down syndrome in ever Down syndrome card.

As for those who are quoting me saying not to just rapidly press spacebar, and as one person suggested bury instead, you guys are right about that. It kills the whole point of the algorithm and I like the bury technique instead.

 

[Gurby]

Could not agree more, this is exactly what I do. The extra box is perfect for putting the bigger picture in. If you are doing an image occlusion of say the whole purine salvage pathway, you’re going to see the bigger picture with every card so long as you pick “hide one” or “reveal all.”

For a disease like Down syndrome: put all the extra info in the extra box. For example, you make a card saying “what chromosome abnoramlity is the most common cause of Down syndrome?” You would then put a picture of a happy kid with down syndrome in the extra with all the signs symptoms etc. i usually just copy paste the extra box and put it in all my Down syndrome cards. Bam! You get the whole clinical presentation of Down syndrome in ever Down syndrome card.

I made a card type called "same picture, different questions" that I use 95% of the time. It has a field for a picture and whatever extra information, and then a bunch of question/answer pairs. This way I can use the same picture/diagram for a whole bunch of cards, but it takes up less disk space than copy/pasting over and over.

 

[vit-012]

I made a card type called "same picture, different questions" that I use 95% of the time. It has a field for a picture and whatever extra information, and then a bunch of question/answer pairs. This way I can use the same picture/diagram for a whole bunch of cards, but it takes up less disk space than copy/pasting over and over.

How do u mark the answered ( or the answered ) questions so that you'd know which one to test next ?
Your post made me to review what i do and ... i came up with a better method 🙂
So - what is your concept - u dont have to type the whole procedure..

 

[Gurby]

How do u mark the answered ( or the answered ) questions so that you'd know which one to test next ?
Your post made me to review what i do and ... i came up with a better method 🙂
So - what is your concept - u dont have to type the whole procedure..

I'm not quite sure what you're asking... I should have specified that I make one "note", that is then turned into multiple cards. They should appear in random order, I don't mark anything. Looks like this. Whatever you put in the "pic" field shows up below the answer on every card.

 

[vit-012]

I'm not quite sure what you're asking...
Sorry, I thought you are using One Card ( i do - if there are 3 or less 'simple' facts to recall ).

 

[Save a life]

I'm not quite sure what you're asking... I should have specified that I make one "note", that is then turned into multiple cards. They should appear in random order, I don't mark anything. Looks like this. Whatever you put in the "pic" field shows up below the answer on every card.

View attachment 225761

That actually looks amazing! Did you read or watch a YouTube video to learn how to do that?

 

[Gurby]

That actually looks amazing! Did you read or watch a YouTube video to learn how to do that?

No, set it up myself. I won't have access to my computer for a couple days but I can post the code if you're interested. Not all that complicated really. The important thing is to put tags around each option so that if you only make 1 card, it doesn't then try to populate 10 more empty cards - I forget the exact syntax, it's something like [#field] ..... [/field], and it will only use the code inside those tags if something exists in the "field" field. Alternatively you could just download one of my decks and that will give you the templates I made.

 

[libertyyne]

No, set it up myself. I won't have access to my computer for a couple days but I can post the code if you're interested. Not all that complicated really. The important thing is to put tags around each option so that if you only make 1 card, it doesn't then try to populate 10 more empty cards - I forget the exact syntax, it's something like [#field] ..... [/field], and it will only use the code inside those tags if something exists in the "field" field. Alternatively you could just download one of my decks and that will give you the templates I made.

you should make a youtube vid or teach an anki class. I want in on this code.

 

[Gurby]

you should make a youtube vid or teach an anki class. I want in on this code.

It's basically just HTML - play around and see what you can come up with! You can also download one of my decks from here and poke around if you want to just steal my templates: Dropbox - M1 Fall

 

[libertyyne]

It's basically just HTML - play around and see what you can come up with! You can also download one of my decks from here and poke around if you want to just steal my templates: Dropbox - M1 Fall

Have you been augmenting lectures with anything ? Do you use books to make the cards or only the course packs?

 

[Gurby]

Have you been augmenting lectures with anything ? Do you use books to make the cards or only the course packs?

Depends on how good the course packs are. I used Costanzo for respiratory and Junqueira for endocrine.

 

[lagbydesign]

It's basically just HTML - play around and see what you can come up with! You can also download one of my decks from here and poke around if you want to just steal my templates: Dropbox - M1 Fall

This is sick! Thank you!! Such a timesaver!

 

[mehc012]

I'm not quite sure what you're asking... I should have specified that I make one "note", that is then turned into multiple cards. They should appear in random order, I don't mark anything. Looks like this. Whatever you put in the "pic" field shows up below the answer on every card.

View attachment 225761

Haha, I used to do the same, but it actually drove me nuts to have them all be siblings, and I couldn't Cloze, so I stopped doing that.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

I'm not quite sure what you're asking... I should have specified that I make one "note", that is then turned into multiple cards. They should appear in random order, I don't mark anything. Looks like this. Whatever you put in the "pic" field shows up below the answer on every card.

View attachment 225761

Wow I️ need this. No wonder I don’t like Anki, I’ve been doing it wrong

 

[vit-012]

Wow I️ need this. No wonder I don’t like Anki, I’ve been doing it wrong

Just in case you do not know about the Overlapping Cloze deletion add-on :

I did not see that the other user posted a similar post :-(
But the Video is different.

 

[fourandtwo]

It's basically just HTML - play around and see what you can come up with! You can also download one of my decks from here and poke around if you want to just steal my templates: Dropbox - M1 Fall

WOWOW thanks for sharing! I just downloaded your deck, then deleted the content to retain the note types. AMAZING!

 

[Gurby]

WOWOW thanks for sharing! I just downloaded your deck, then deleted the content to retain the note types. AMAZING!

Haven't seen anybody else do them this way. I feel like it helps conserve disk space and it's so nice to have a picture/diagram on every card to remind you of the big picture. I stopped making my own cards and moved to Zanki... I feel like the cards aren't as good and I don't learn as well, but it saves so much time so it's worth.

 

[RockMcat520]

Haven't seen anybody else do them this way. I feel like it helps conserve disk space and it's so nice to have a picture/diagram on every card to remind you of the big picture. I stopped making my own cards and moved to Zanki... I feel like the cards aren't as good and I don't learn as well, but it saves so much time so it's worth.

Do you have any specific Zanki setting that you are using?

 

[Gurby]

Do you have any specific Zanki setting that you are using?

Just copied settings from @mehc012 because she is a SRS goddess. Really just jump in, use it for a while, and then try tweaking settings if you feel like reviews aren't spaced out well. Load balancer app is nice too.

Anki Central

 

[mehc012]

I made a card type called "same picture, different questions" that I use 95% of the time. It has a field for a picture and whatever extra information, and then a bunch of question/answer pairs. This way I can use the same picture/diagram for a whole bunch of cards, but it takes up less disk space than copy/pasting over and over.

Haha, I used to have one of those, called it MultiQ Pic or something. I think I eventually got rid of it purely because I discovered that for me, typing the answers is an important part of cementing things in my memory (plus it keeps me honest), which is one reason why I don't actually Anki on mobile that often. Anyway, I could make optionally typable cards in that Note type, but it was a bit clunkier and I decided not worth it. Now I've shifted largely to Cloze anyway for the same reason.

Awesome that you make your own Note templates! I feel like that's one of Anki's strongest points and not enough people take advantage of it. I've never coded in HTML at all and still found it fairly straightforward - though I once had an error that ONLY showed up on Android, not the computer, that drove me nuts for the longest time before I realized it was a template issue and fixed it, haha!

 

[Gurby]

Haha, I used to have one of those, called it MultiQ Pic or something. I think I eventually got rid of it purely because I discovered that for me, typing the answers is an important part of cementing things in my memory (plus it keeps me honest), which is one reason why I don't actually Anki on mobile that often. Anyway, I could make optionally typable cards in that Note type, but it was a bit clunkier and I decided not worth it. Now I've shifted largely to Cloze anyway for the same reason.

Awesome that you make your own Note templates! I feel like that's one of Anki's strongest points and not enough people take advantage of it. I've never coded in HTML at all and still found it fairly straightforward - though I once had an error that ONLY showed up on Android, not the computer, that drove me nuts for the longest time before I realized it was a template issue and fixed it, haha!

Typing the answers Honesty I just press spacebar a lot

I feel like the note template programming is really powerful, seems like there is a lot of potential there that I only scratched the surface of. I'm pretty committed to the dark side though at this point (using pre-made decks hah).

 

[Treebeard]

Anki is perfect for memorizing pathways.

1) Find a nice diagram that you like and contains the level of detail you want.

2) Turn on image occlusion and block out every enzyme/protein/etc

3) ????

4) Profit.