When should I start zanki?

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sargon2123

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If I want a high step 1 score? My guess is January of M1, when I actually have some sort of foundation to remember anything.
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Depends on your curriculum. If it's systems based, I say start right away. Granted I am only a rising M2 so I haven't taken Step 1 or even done any serious prep work but I started Zanki alongside my courses at the start of M1 by unsuspending the cards related to what I was currently learning (ex. unsuspending all the renal cards during my renal block). That way I was also using them to study for my classes, and it was super helpful. NOw this summer I am just planning to keep up with reviews of all the material I covered in M1. If your curriculum is more traditional, it might be harder to do it this way since the organization of Zanki lends itself more to the systems based style.
 
Day 1 of medical school. Start from the very top and just go through it. If you do 40 new cards a day first thing and all reviews your reviews will cap at about 200 and you should be able to do all of your cards for the day in an hour. Then just spend the rest of the time on class. I know at first it's going to feel like you are simply memorizing random facts, and that's ok. Just keep at it and do your cards every single day.
 
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AnatomyGrey12 said:
Day 1 of medical school. Start from the very top and just go through it. If you do 40 new cards a day first thing and all reviews your reviews will cap at about 200 and you should be able to do all of your cards for the day in an hour. Then just spend the rest of the time on class. I know at first it's going to feel like you are simply memorizing random facts, and that's ok. Just keep at it and do your cards every single day.
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Can I dm you? I currently have your study tips from other threads on my notes of how to study I just need some clarification in general and the one thing that bugs me is the whole 40 random cards/day thing..
 
Vladimir7 said:
Can I dm you? I currently have your study tips from other threads on my notes of how to study I just need some clarification in general and the one thing that bugs me is the whole 40 random cards/day thing..
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Yeah sure
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
Day 1 of medical school. Start from the very top and just go through it. If you do 40 new cards a day first thing and all reviews your reviews will cap at about 200 and you should be able to do all of your cards for the day in an hour. Then just spend the rest of the time on class. I know at first it's going to feel like you are simply memorizing random facts, and that's ok. Just keep at it and do your cards every single day.
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This x100000
if anki even remotely works for you after a few weeks of trying it out, stick to this and you will at the very least have memorized more of first aid and pathoma and sketchy than any non-anki student (I.e. 50-75%+ of students) by the time dedicated comes around.

Easier said than done but I personally cruise controlled through preclinicals outside of zanki and ended dedicated with my last 3 practice exams in 255-265.


Another route would be to complete Rx and Kaplan thoroughly before dedicated which imo is far harder but possibly more suited to certain students. Still gotta make the details stick at theend of the day with your own cards in anki or systematic spaced repetition and re owe of notes.


Some of the absolute beasts in our step 1 thread on these forums completed zanki, uworld, rx, Kaplan all before dedicated. They pretty much destroyed the test across the board (>265)


I recommend reading/following this guide and never looking back:

forums.studentdoctor.net

An excessively exhaustive guide to Step 1 preparation from a 268 scorer

Introduction: About me: M.D. student at top 20 school. Around top 1/3 of class, though definitely not a tip top student. My MCAT was decent but not remarkable. Scores: Rx – 84% Kaplan – 89% UWorld 1stpass – 91% NBME 15 – 257, 9 weeks out NBME 18 – 255, 6 weeks out NBME 20 – 252, 5 weeks out...
forums.studentdoctor.net forums.studentdoctor.net
 
I am curious about this as well. I have set up the anKing zanki plus lolnotacop overhaul setup that is found on medicalschoolanki subreddit, and don’t know how to go about studying that bit.
 
Would love to hear someone's thoughts on when to start utilizing zanki based on this first year curriculum:

The emphasis is on normal structure and function (anatomy and physiology). The majority of the first-year curriculum is delivered as an integrated Principles Integrating Sciences and Medicine (PrISM) curriculum, including the following modules:
  • Molecular Foundations of Medicine
  • Cellular Foundations of Medicine
  • Body Structure
  • Neuroscience
  • Genomic Medicine & Immunology
  • Cardiovascular System
  • Respiratory System
  • Renal System
  • Gastrointestinal System & Nutrition
  • Endocrine & Reproductive Systems
 
I downloaded the AnKing deck which seemed to combine the best of Zanki and Sketchy. I think the easiest way to use the deck during pre-dedicated is to isolate cards based on topics you're learning in class and move them to a separate master deck. Or if the material you're learning goes along well with a board resource you're using (Sketchy videos, B&B, Pathoma), that deck is organized by each resource and even tagged to each specific video. For example, pathoma chapter 1.1 has its own set of cards so you could watch that video, move those cards to a separate deck and study them. At least that's my plan but that might change because my school's curriculum is 18 months instead of the traditional 24.
 
georgia_boy1 said:
I downloaded the AnKing deck which seemed to combine the best of Zanki and Sketchy. I think the easiest way to use the deck during pre-dedicated is to isolate cards based on topics you're learning in class and move them to a separate master deck. Or if the material you're learning goes along well with a board resource you're using (Sketchy videos, B&B, Pathoma), that deck is organized by each resource and even tagged to each specific video. For example, pathoma chapter 1.1 has its own set of cards so you could watch that video, move those cards to a separate deck and study them. At least that's my plan but that might change because my school's curriculum is 18 months instead of the traditional 24.
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I would probably wait until you've at least done your plan for a couple months before giving it out as advice. Your plan is actually what I did, and it largely worked, but my advice about simply starting at the top from day 1 and chipping away at it over the course of all of pre-clinical comes from post-Step 1 analysis on what I would do if I were starting all over again to maximize efficiency and effectiveness. Your plan is good, but it has some unexpected problems that can come up and throw off your entire schedule.
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
I would probably wait until you've at least done your plan for a couple months before giving it out as advice. Your plan is actually what I did, and it largely worked, but my advice about simply starting at the top from day 1 and chipping away at it over the course of all of pre-clinical comes from post-Step 1 analysis on what I would do if I were starting all over again to maximize efficiency and effectiveness. Your plan is good, but it has some unexpected problems that can come up and throw off your entire schedule.
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How did you do on Step? And what problems would I run into?
 
georgia_boy1 said:
How did you do on Step? And what problems would I run into?
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No idea yet, scores don't come out for another few weeks. Based on my practice scores I should do well. The main problems is that some of the decks are larger than others (looking at you biochem), and if you are doing the section at the same time as things are discussed in class then you will have to do a large amount of new cards to try and finish it in time, and that will lead to a huge review burden at the end of the block when you are starting a new section. This cycle perpetuates itself and the burden eventually will get to be so large you can't keep up. There is also the problem that some stuff won't really be talked about in class and you'll have to cram that deck in somewhere furthering the burden I mention above.
 
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AnatomyGrey12 said:
No idea yet, scores don't come out for another few weeks. Based on my practice scores I should do well. The main problems is that some of the decks are larger than others (looking at you biochem), and if you are doing the section at the same time as things are discussed in class then you will have to do a large amount of new cards to try and finish it in time, and that will lead to a huge review burden at the end of the block when you are starting a new section. This cycle perpetuates itself and the burden eventually will get to be so large you can't keep up. There is also the problem that some stuff won't really be talked about in class and you'll have to cram that deck in somewhere furthering the burden I mention above.
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How much new cards did you do a day ?? Reviews daily and reviews perhour ?
 
Chelsea FC said:
How much new cards did you do a day ?? Reviews daily and reviews perhour ?
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Depended on the system. Sometimes as low as 80 news and some blocks it was 200. I tried to do all reviews but it got too difficult when I was having to do 2000 reviews a day, which is why I suggest starting from the beginning and just doing it from the top more spread out.
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
Depended on the system. Sometimes as low as 80 news and some blocks it was 200. I tried to do all reviews but it got too difficult when I was having to do 2000 reviews a day, which is why I suggest starting from the beginning and just doing it from the top more spread out.
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Did you just stop when you had to do 2000 reviews or did you just tackled them and stop doing new cards.
 
Very silly question ( from Pre-M1 here trying to get an early jump on step prep because I'm only an avg test taker). What does it mean to 'Do a card'? Does this just mean bring it up on the computer screen/phone app and try to answer it correctly in your head? And then just move on to the next?
 
BOAO523 said:
Very silly question ( from Pre-M1 here trying to get an early jump on step prep because I'm only an avg test taker). What does it mean to 'Do a card'? Does this just mean bring it up on the computer screen/phone app and try to answer it correctly in your head? And then just move on to the next?
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Doing 40 new cards per day means bringing up 40 cards that you have not seen yet and going thru each of them individually. After you do your set of new cards per day, then you do all your previous reviews that are due.

Look up AnKing on Youtube for clarification on how to use Anki in Medical School.
 
Noob question here but what does it mean to "finish" Zanki? Surely not just one or a few run throughs is finishing them? Does this mean that you suspend the cards you know like the back of your hand and then once you've suspended them all, you're done? And even once you've "finished" Zanki before dedicated, wouldn't you still wanna review them during dedicated?
 
BOAO523 said:
Very silly question ( from Pre-M1 here trying to get an early jump on step prep because I'm only an avg test taker). What does it mean to 'Do a card'? Does this just mean bring it up on the computer screen/phone app and try to answer it correctly in your head? And then just move on to the next?
Click to expand...
LebronManning said:
Noob question here but what does it mean to "finish" Zanki? Surely not just one or a few run throughs is finishing them? Does this mean that you suspend the cards you know like the back of your hand and then once you've suspended them all, you're done? And even once you've "finished" Zanki before dedicated, wouldn't you still wanna review them during dedicated?
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Sounds like neither of you even know what Anki or spaced repetition software is.

I recommend Anking YouTube or reading r/medschoolanki
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
I cut the number of reviews.
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Sorry to keep pestering with Anki-related questions, but its super helpful to get someone’s perspective who just went through step 1.
If you were to start Anki from day 1 of med school, as you suggested above, do you think the original Zanki decks would suffice? Are there other decks you would recommend?

kb1900 said:
Sounds like neither of you even know what Anki or spaced repetition software is.

I recommend Anking YouTube or reading r/medschoolanki
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All over it lol.
 
CJhooper123 said:
do you think the original Zanki decks would suffice? Are there other decks you would recommend?
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I don't know if there is a Zanki Micro deck but I would use lolonotacop for micro, and honestly some of the pharm in Zanki is a tad much. Sketchy pharm is all I needed and covered everything on my test so I might consider swapping out the Zanki pharm for simply the Pepper pharm deck. Now that is probably controversial and there is a ton of overlap but I liked the pepper pharm cards better. Zanki literally will have a cloze deletion card for every single little factoid from the Sketchy vids and the pepper cards consolidate them into one card when they are very interrelated. Personally I thought it was an even better memory hook to force myself to remember entire sections of the sketch from memory rather than every factoid individually.
 
Hi, incoming MS1 here with a question about Zanki. I downloaded the Anking Overhaul setup and now I am wondering how I should plan daily studying once I start school in a couple weeks. Is Shamim's method of separating decks into "Class" "Combined Current" and "Combined Review" the staple for most med students? All input welcome, thanks!
 
Quantity << Quality. Zanki is a tool to reinforce concepts and material that you've learned. If you just memorize without understanding, that is not sufficient to do well on the boards. I would suspend all the cards and then un-suspend topics as you learn them. Calculate how many new cards you'd have to do a day in order to have seen every card by the start of dedicated period. I wouldn't do more than 100 new cards a day, as the reviews build up and can get quite lengthy.
 
Ko8e24 said:
Hi, incoming MS1 here with a question about Zanki. I downloaded the Anking Overhaul setup and now I am wondering how I should plan daily studying once I start school in a couple weeks. Is Shamim's method of separating decks into "Class" "Combined Current" and "Combined Review" the staple for most med students? All input welcome, thanks!
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I just have Class and Combined Review. All my cards (whether from Zanki or ones I personally made) from the block I am currently in are in the Class deck. Once I finish that block and move onto the next block I move all the cards into combined review. Eventually the combined review just keeps getting bigger and bigger as you finish more blocks
 
georgia_boy1 said:
I downloaded the AnKing deck which seemed to combine the best of Zanki and Sketchy. I think the easiest way to use the deck during pre-dedicated is to isolate cards based on topics you're learning in class and move them to a separate master deck. Or if the material you're learning goes along well with a board resource you're using (Sketchy videos, B&B, Pathoma), that deck is organized by each resource and even tagged to each specific video. For example, pathoma chapter 1.1 has its own set of cards so you could watch that video, move those cards to a separate deck and study them. At least that's my plan but that might change because my school's curriculum is 18 months instead of the traditional 24.
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So AnKing vs Zanki?

Pros and Cons?
 
hungrydoc710 said:
So AnKing vs Zanki?

Pros and Cons?
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+1... would like to know. Just posted a similar question in the other thread. To my knowledge, they are very similar though... the AnKing overhaul is more organized, has add-ons from Galaxy, and a new "AnKing card type"? Anyone else willing to chip in?
 
What are everyone's thoughts on study resources for people who find flashcards in general to not be an effective study resource? In undergrad my learning/studying strategies were to attend every lecture because I learn best through listening to someone teach and explain concepts directly to me while I take handwritten notes. I would usually study for exams with my notes as my main resource, reviewing lecture powerpoints to study topics that I know I will be tested on but the professor didn't spend much time on and thus I don't have much written in my notes, and always jumping to my textbook as a reference for topics/concepts I need more help mastering. I found this to be really effective for both courses that required a deep understanding of concepts, and for courses where memorization of lots of information was essential to do well on exams. I understand the the beast of med school is the shear volume of information that you have to learn and know for STEP, and that flashcards has been proven to be an effective way to memorize all of this information. Does anyone have input on whether they think doing well the first two years including STEP are possible without using anki/zanki and with a study strategy more similar to what has worked for me in the past?
 
DrDrgimmethenews said:
What are everyone's thoughts on study resources for people who find flashcards in general to not be an effective study resource? In undergrad my learning/studying strategies were to attend every lecture because I learn best through listening to someone teach and explain concepts directly to me while I take handwritten notes. I would usually study for exams with my notes as my main resource, reviewing lecture powerpoints to study topics that I know I will be tested on but the professor didn't spend much time on and thus I don't have much written in my notes, and always jumping to my textbook as a reference for topics/concepts I need more help mastering. I found this to be really effective for both courses that required a deep understanding of concepts, and for courses where memorization of lots of information was essential to do well on exams. I understand the the beast of med school is the shear volume of information that you have to learn and know for STEP, and that flashcards has been proven to be an effective way to memorize all of this information. Does anyone have input on whether they think doing well the first two years including STEP are possible without using anki/zanki and with a study strategy more similar to what has worked for me in the past?
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I basically re-write all the powerpoints and re-listen to lecs at the same time in this first year.
For boards, I think using resources (FA, Sketchy, Pathoma) + something to recall info like Anki, and obviously questions (most importantly).
 
hungrydoc710 said:
I basically re-write all the powerpoints and re-listen to lecs at the same time in this first year.
For boards, I think using resources (FA, Sketchy, Pathoma) + something to recall info like Anki, and obviously questions (most importantly).
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Thanks. Yeah I'm hoping to get away with only utilizing Anki later in MS2 for boards studying.
 
The other deck I would recommend would be lightyear- it is based off of FA and Boards and beyond so if you are using BnB it may tie it all together a little earlier for you, but honestly the point of zanki is to memorize all these facts and then you reinforce/integrate them when you do Qbanks (I.e UWorld)
 
Cranjis McBasketball said:
I just have Class and Combined Review. All my cards (whether from Zanki or ones I personally made) from the block I am currently in are in the Class deck. Once I finish that block and move onto the next block I move all the cards into combined review. Eventually the combined review just keeps getting bigger and bigger as you finish more blocks
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So are you suspending all cards in your Class deck and unsuspending relevant ones as you approach a new system, and then moving those unsuspended cards into Combined Review?
 
Ko8e24 said:
So are you suspending all cards in your Class deck and unsuspending relevant ones as you approach a new system, and then moving those unsuspended cards into Combined Review?
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I think you could search relevant cards for class in the AnKing or Zanki deck then move those to the class deck. Then once you finish a block, move those to the combined review. At least that’s my plan. I also plan to just use board resources to study for classes since my curriculum is P/F so I’m just going to move cards from the relevant video sub decks to my class deck and eventually combined deck. But if you’re using lecture material, searching topics wouldn’t be difficult.
 
georgia_boy1 said:
Well they’re pretty much the same. AnKing is just Zanki with Lolnotacop and pepper for sketchy micro and pharm but REALLY organized. I would do AnKing so that you cover all your bases.
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Hi! Just to make sure I'm reading this correctly, are you saying that AnKing is the same as Zanki only with the addition of cards from other decks and also more organized?
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
Day 1 of medical school. Start from the very top and just go through it. If you do 40 new cards a day first thing and all reviews your reviews will cap at about 200 and you should be able to do all of your cards for the day in an hour. Then just spend the rest of the time on class. I know at first it's going to feel like you are simply memorizing random facts, and that's ok. Just keep at it and do your cards every single day.
Click to expand...
Hey, what deck do you suggest?
 
I tried Anki with both the old Bros deck and Zanki, never really got into it for more than a week at a time. Basically I didn't use it, and scored >265 so unlike most people, I don't think it is necessary. If it works for you then great, but if not then I wouldn't force it. I just used Uworld+FA and then did targeted reviews of pathoma and sketchy micro/pharm on 2x speed as needed during dedicated (I had already watched them all the way through at normal speed during the first 2 years). I also didn't attend lectures and mostly relied on boards and beyond, but my school has no grades so I was able to do this.
 
BOAO523 said:
Hi! Just to make sure I'm reading this correctly, are you saying that AnKing is the same as Zanki only with the addition of cards from other decks and also more organized?
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Yes. He just combined those decks into one large file and reorganized/retagged everything so it's very organized. If you search Anking on youtube, there's a whole channel about what he did and how to get it set up yourself.
 
Thank you!! Here's to hoping these resources get us to where we want to be for Step 1!
 
I thought that was just a false rumor! That sounds like an awful idea that would ensure students from mid-tier or low-tier schools can't reasonably compete with T20/top-tier school students for the top specialties/residencies.
 
BOAO523 said:
I thought that was just a false rumor! That sounds like an awful idea that would ensure students from mid-tier or low-tier schools can't reasonably compete with T20/top-tier school students for the top specialties/residencies.
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It's far from decided, but it's on the table now.
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
the anKing deck. It's just Zanki/Lolnotacop/Pepper Pharm, Micro which is what everyone uses anyway except with better tagging.
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So for those of us who have already started Zanki and are not using anKing ( cause I didn't know about it) do you recommend we supplement the studying with other decks while keeping up with Zanki?
 
PTPuser said:
So for those of us who have already started Zanki and are not using anKing ( cause I didn't know about it) do you recommend we supplement the studying with other decks while keeping up with Zanki?
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I did the same thing, but AnKing has a video on how to overhaul the deck even if you've already downloaded original zanki
 
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