Yousmle Anki deck

Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine
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Anki decks are pretty easy to share with a few people. I'd definitely consider $20 a good investment IF the deck was solid.
 
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bump.
I'm a first year and I am also considering it... apparently the decks are more integrating concepts rather than small facts.
 
There are many USMLE step1 decks out there. I am currently working on one, myself. I'm not even halfway into making cards, and I have ~8,000. 1,200 cards is like 2-3 anatomy exams.
 
I tried out the free viral deck. I wasn't particularly impressed. I didn't notice an "integrative" approach to the cards. They were mostly well written, following the original super memo list of rules for creating spaced repetition cards, but they were nothing special. Not worthy of $100 IMHO.

I'm also pretty sure there's some copyright infringement going on considering there was at least one question with a straight from first aid paste job.
 
Ha, I've seen this posted on certain subreddits for free, and didn't even realize it was a product for sale. $119 = yikes.

There are a lot of First Aid and other Step 1 Anki decks people have shared with highly positive feedback. Maybe look into those instead?
 
Ebola4Breakfast said:
I tried out the free viral deck. I wasn't particularly impressed. I didn't notice an "integrative" approach to the cards. They were mostly well written, following the original super memo list of rules for creating spaced repetition cards, but they were nothing special. Not worthy of $100 IMHO.

I'm also pretty sure there's some copyright infringement going on considering there was at least one question with a straight from first aid paste job.
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QFT. I was expecting more.
 
buttfrogs said:
Ha, I've seen this posted on certain subreddits for free, and didn't even realize it was a product for sale. $119 = yikes.

There are a lot of First Aid and other Step 1 Anki decks people have shared with highly positive feedback. Maybe look into those instead?
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Any recommendations for an anki deck with the UWorld educational objectives?
 
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Jabbed said:
Anyone heard of this before or know if it's worth it?

http://www.yousmle.com/step1anki
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Dr. Willbe's Pathology deck is ~6000 cards made from content sourced from Goljan Path, Pathoma, First Aid. Cards present discrete bits of information--not paragraphs, lists or copy pasted explanations from a QBANK--which is the ONLY sort of card worth studying.
 
Jabbed said:
Anyone heard of this before or know if it's worth it?

http://www.yousmle.com/step1anki
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I bought it and have been using it for 3 weeks.

DO NOT BUY IT! It is definitely not worth $119.

He is arrogant in how he describes how awesome the cards are. They are mediocre at best and are essentially based off difficult UWorld questions.

You are going to be much better off going through UWorld questions and making your own cards. It takes more time but helps you synthesize the information on your own in your own way.

Anyways, Alec is really going against the whole ethos of the Anki community, which is sharing things for free. The software is free and so are enormous decks like the brosencephalon deck, which is outstanding!

All in all, I strongly recommend against paying any amount of money for the the yousmle cards.
 
Get firecracker if you are going to throw any money into a card system.
 
Actually -- it's extremely useful at the right stage in your learning proccess. It's intended for once you've studied the material, and are doing USMLE question blocks leading up to Step 1.
 
Grateful_Person said:
Actually -- it's extremely useful at the right stage in your learning proccess. It's intended for once you've studied the material, and are doing USMLE question blocks leading up to Step 1.
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Completely and utterly disagree. I've seen the entire deck now. Despite its claims, the deck is not "integrated". Its not even mediocre. I'd be hard pressed to classify it as anything other than over hyped, over priced crap. Do not buy this deck. Agree with the above user about just sucking it up and making your own deck.
 
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While it's great to recommend making your own deck, the majority of people A) don't know how to make an effective deck B) get bogged down making the deck. One of the main purposes clearly stated upfront with Yousmle is that the deck is intended to show students how to make a good card, and to save some time by integrating it with their own Anki cards. Obviously, if you can find a free copy of the deck floating around -- you can achieve A & B. If you want to support your opinion, I highly recommend reading the supporting materials for Yousmle more carefully so that come armed with facts - not conjecture.
 
Anyone that has experience with brosencephalon's deck care to share what they think of it? I recently started using Anki but don't want to waste time on a deck with thousands of cards if it's not solid.
 
Stagg737 said:
Anyone that has experience with brosencephalon's deck care to share what they think of it? I recently started using Anki but don't want to waste time on a deck with thousands of cards if it's not solid.
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It's a solid deck. Several cards are redundant but not duplicates, it helps if you need to see the same material from a couple separate angles - a quality anki deck of FA.
 
Grateful_Person said:
While it's great to recommend making your own deck, the majority of people A) don't know how to make an effective deck B) get bogged down making the deck. One of the main purposes clearly stated upfront with Yousmle is that the deck is intended to show students how to make a good card, and to save some time by integrating it with their own Anki cards. Obviously, if you can find a free copy of the deck floating around -- you can achieve A & B. If you want to support your opinion, I highly recommend reading the supporting materials for Yousmle more carefully so that come armed with facts - not conjecture.
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U mad bruh? I'm sorry no one is buying your crappy $100 anki deck that straight up plagiarizes first aid.
 
Ebola4Breakfast said:
U mad bruh? I'm sorry no one is buying your crappy $100 anki deck that straight up plagiarizes first aid.
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I think the problem here is that people expect some sort of magic pill to score well on Step 1, but the reality is, you need to put in hard work and not expect an Anki deck to solve all your problems for you. What this means is, you need to do Qbank questions, and you need to study the material, and you need to pay attention during your first two years of medical school. I personally have not bought Yousmle's anki deck so I can't comment on its effectiveness, but I do know friends who have used it and they liked it a lot.
 
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I only know who "Yousmle" is from a link off the blog of the creepy "DoctorPremed" MS2 who was trying to charge people 300-600 bucks for him to review their application essays. (and who was banned last week from SDN)

sounds like they're cut from the same cloth. Be smarter with your money, people.
 
neuronal said:
There is no need to be disrespectful. If you disagree, just plainly list reasons why you think so. I think the problem here is that people expect some sort of magic pill to score well on Step 1, but the reality is, you need to put in hard work and not expect an Anki deck to solve all your problems for you. What this means is, you need to do Qbank questions, and you need to study the material, and you need to pay attention during your first two years of medical school. I personally have not bought Yousmle's anki deck so I can't comment on its effectiveness, but I do know friends who have used it and they liked it a lot. What this tells me is that this anki deck can help in the right context and for the right people. Studying styles vary between people, and to call something "crappy" because it doesn't fit your specific studying style or because it's not working for you is being a bit narrow minded.
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First post since 2010? Yep, I can't imagine who this could be either.

Listen, dude, I'm sorry you're butt hurt over all the criticism that your deck as received. I get it. You spent a lot of time putting this thing together. You had high hopes for the amount of cash you could drag out of broke medical students. The problem is that it doesn't live up to all of it's self-proclaimed hype and it most certainly is not worth $100. The content isn't original. At times it is image captured straight from a PDF of First Aid for Step 1. That's called plagiarism, plain and simple. Your questions are poorly worded and confusing at times. You've confused the simplicity promoted by the original SuperMemo rules for spaced repetition with throwing up cards with as few words as possible instead of an actual sentence that clearly describes the question. You're so into attempting to make these cards work both backwards and forwards (which they don't) that you lost sight of making quality cards. It has nothing to do with my studying style. It has everything to do with it being an overpriced, bad quality resource.

If this deck were priced at $10, I wouldn't take exception with it. But it's not. It's a rip off of already broke medical students. Am I going to temper my opinion just so it doesn't hurt your feelings? No. Not when you're charging +$100 for it.
 
Ebola4Breakfast said:
First post since 2010? Yep, I can't imagine who this could be either.

Listen, dude, I'm sorry you're butt hurt over all the criticism that your deck as received. I get it. You spent a lot of time putting this thing together. You had high hopes for the amount of cash you could drag out of broke medical students. The problem is that it doesn't live up to all of it's self-proclaimed hype and it most certainly is not worth $100. The content isn't original. At times it is image captured straight from a PDF of First Aid for Step 1. That's called plagiarism, plain and simple. Your questions are poorly worded and confusing at times. You've confused the simplicity promoted by the original SuperMemo rules for spaced repetition with throwing up cards with as few words as possible instead of an actual sentence that clearly describes the question. You're so into attempting to make these cards work both backwards and forwards (which they don't) that you lost sight of making quality cards. It has nothing to do with my studying style. It has everything to do with it being an overpriced, bad quality resource.

If this deck were priced at $10, I wouldn't take exception with it. But it's not. It's a rip off of already broke medical students. Am I going to temper my opinion just so it doesn't hurt your feelings? No. Not when you're charging +$100 for it.
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haha, if you think I'm the creator of yousmle, I am not. I am a browser, but once in a while I come across silly posts like yours and just feel compelled to post. I really do have friends who have benefited from it so that is why I decided to post. Anyway, I have no vested interest in yousmle, and like I said before I have never used it.
 
Ebola4Breakfast said:
First post since 2010? Yep, I can't imagine who this could be either.

Listen, dude, I'm sorry you're butt hurt over all the criticism that your deck as received. I get it. You spent a lot of time putting this thing together. You had high hopes for the amount of cash you could drag out of broke medical students. The problem is that it doesn't live up to all of it's self-proclaimed hype and it most certainly is not worth $100. The content isn't original. At times it is image captured straight from a PDF of First Aid for Step 1. That's called plagiarism, plain and simple. Your questions are poorly worded and confusing at times. You've confused the simplicity promoted by the original SuperMemo rules for spaced repetition with throwing up cards with as few words as possible instead of an actual sentence that clearly describes the question. You're so into attempting to make these cards work both backwards and forwards (which they don't) that you lost sight of making quality cards. It has nothing to do with my studying style. It has everything to do with it being an overpriced, bad quality resource.

If this deck were priced at $10, I wouldn't take exception with it. But it's not. It's a rip off of already broke medical students. Am I going to temper my opinion just so it doesn't hurt your feelings? No. Not when you're charging +$100 for it.
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There is a huge cottage industry build up around USMLE prep, especially if you look at the stuff out there aimed at IMGs. People trying to bleed more money out of medical students is a huge pet peeve of mine. Some of the more expensive services actually do provide a product in line with the expense. You look at things like Kaplan and UWorld that are fairly pricey, but then you figure out what it costs them to produce and the price doesn't seem so out of line. Then there are things like Pathoma -- no clickbait, no hype, just an incredible resource priced at what I would argue is under market for the quality.

I have to agree with the above -- at a lower price point I would be more understanding, but his whole website appears focused on producing income for him rather than providing a service for others. The concept is decent, but anki seems like it was chosen because it was the easiest medium for him to monetize rather than being an ideal medium for his content.

You ever seen www.smartpassiveincome.com ? My guess is Alec at yousmle found it because everything on his site is built verbatim around services recommended on SPI: from Bluehost for his hosting to ejunkie for his hands-off-cart to MailChimp for his listserv. This is why he had to use anki: he needed some kind of file he could upload to ejunkie so they could serve it to others and send him the passive income. Shoot, even the verbiage sounds like it was ripped straight from SPI! It's the same over-hyped clickbait-ish style that internet marketers have found to work so well. Contrast this with things like Pathoma and World which have never resorted to such tactics, relying instead of producing a top quality product and letting word-of-mouth do the rest.

I don't begrudge anyone wanting to make a profit, but I hope we are all ethical enough to focus on providing a truly quality product for what is charged. Don't forget that students are entrusting their future career in part to these resources, and yes they should do their due diligence, but we should also police ourselves and demand better from each other.
 
It's floating around on google for free. Not that I know.. because I don't pirate or do anything illegal. Just a random guess since, you know, google.
 
neuronal said:
haha, if you think I'm the creator of yousmle, I am not. I am a browser, but once in a while I come across silly posts like yours and just feel compelled to post. I really do have friends who have benefited from it so that is why I decided to post. Anyway, I have no vested interest in yousmle, and like I said before I have never used it.
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EDIT: after learning that neuronal is definitely NOT affiliated with yousmle, I have removed the content of my original post.
 
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operaman said:
I'm sorry my friend, but it takes 2 seconds to look at your post history and see that you attended the same medical school as the creator of yousmle and matriculated in the same year. And it's a school with a pretty small class size.

I'm all for anonymity on a forum like this, but I have a real problem with a business owner creating/using multiple logins to shill for his product. Not only is it a violation of the TOS, but it's downright deceptive and unethical and casts serious doubts on your entire business.

This thread is already ranking highly on google, so I hope your potential customers will come here and see what kind of person they are dealing with.
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When you point a finger at someone else, remember there are four fingers pointing right back at you...
 
Grateful_Person said:
When you point a finger at someone else, remember there are four fingers pointing right back at you...
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And it's hardly pointing to fingers to ask that members of this forum follow the rules of this forum and adhere to some semblance of an ethical code.

If you want to come and defend your business, you should make an account that fully identifies yourself as the owner of your business and then post accordingly. The lies and blatant sock puppetry are beneath someone with your pedigree -- some of the finest institutions in the world I might add. Please, for the sake of your business and in honor of the places you trained whose names you freely invoke on your site, show a little more class.
 
operaman said:
And it's hardly pointing to fingers to ask that members of this forum follow the rules of this forum and adhere to some semblance of an ethical code.

If you want to come and defend your business, you should make an account that fully identifies yourself as the owner of your business and then post accordingly. The lies and blatant sock puppetry are beneath someone with your pedigree -- some of the finest institutions in the world I might add. Please, for the sake of your business and in honor of the places you trained whose names you freely invoke on your site, show a little more class.
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I'm shaking my head. I am an MS2 in a (currently) sunny place. Loosing your cool when someone disagrees with you about the utility of a product is a red flag. Your posts could easily be interpreted as bullying.
 
Guys, I have to eat a little bit of crow here.

I can 100% without a shadow of a doubt say that @neuronal is NOT the creator/owner of yousmle -- apparently we know one another in real life. I'd like to apologize to him publicly for coming down so hard on him without knowing the facts.

Now, there's another poster in this thread who I'm pretty sure IS shilling for his business, but neuronal is not that one.
 
Grateful_Person said:
I'm shaking my head. I am an MS2 in a (currently) sunny place. Loosing your cool when someone disagrees with you about the utility of a product is a red flag. Your posts could easily be interpreted as bullying.
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Definition of losing your cool and bullying: requesting in calm, professional words that a business owner respect the rules of the forum on which he is posting and adhere to some semblance of an ethical code.
 
operaman said:
Guys, I have to eat a little bit of crow here.

I can 100% without a shadow of a doubt say that @neuronal is NOT the creator/owner of yousmle -- apparently we know one another in real life. I'd like to apologize to him publicly for coming down so hard on him without knowing the facts.

Now, there's another poster in this thread who I'm pretty sure IS shilling for his business, but neuronal is not that one.
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I'm waiting for my apology too. To test if I'm Alec (I'm not) -- ask me something in Hebrew. That may give you another hint as to where I am in med school.
 
Stagg737 said:
Anyone that has experience with brosencephalon's deck care to share what they think of it? I recently started using Anki but don't want to waste time on a deck with thousands of cards if it's not solid.
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I was a little disappointed, to be honest. It could use pictures (which I'm adding). Also, much of the material reads like this... "The most common cause of X disease is ?"

It's just very rote, which I suppose is what Anki is for. I'm going to complete it within the year and I'll post back here when I'm done.
 
@Pacna, do you have any updated opinions? From what I've seen doing the deck for a few weeks, it is true that it reads like a very rote, first order question deck.
 
wjs010 said:
@Pacna, do you have any updated opinions? From what I've seen doing the deck for a few weeks, it is true that it reads like a very rote, first order question deck.
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Same as before. Hope it pays off.
 
Pacna said:
I was a little disappointed, to be honest. It could use pictures (which I'm adding). Also, much of the material reads like this... "The most common cause of X disease is ?"

It's just very rote, which I suppose is what Anki is for. I'm going to complete it within the year and I'll post back here when I'm done.
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I'm fine with that. I just want something to give me quick reminders to keep stuff fresh and find the gaps I need to fill in. Definitely not looking for decks to actually teach me the material.
 
I just wanted to throw it in there that apparently he has a step 1 deck..a step 2 deck and A new PHARMACOLOGY deck.
I bought step 1 and then was bombarded by mails from him and was foolish enough to buy the new PHARMACOLOGY deck before using the step 1 deck.

Its terrible...just terrible.. I had not seen this thread before or I may have saved $200.. There are errors...irrelevant details like brand names and to top it all it has an Idiotic AUTO-PLAY thing in it which pronounces the names of drugs out aloud.. wth man ... I dont want you to teach me to pronounce Paracetamol.

I should have read this thread and not bought it..
Damn..could have bought a carton of Jack Daniel's with the amount of time and money i wasted on this ****..

P.S.: To be fair there were a few concepts he got down well.. maybe 40 or 50. But that just ain't worth the time to go over 2200 cards and the 200 bucks.
 
I've tried looking for a free version online but couldn't find any I wanna see the whole deck before I dish out the full 120 thats a little much
 
spartansmsu said:
I've tried looking for a free version online but couldn't find any I wanna see the whole deck before I dish out the full 120 thats a little much
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Does anybody have a dropbox/google drive link for the youmsle pharm deck? I have the Step1/Step 2 decks if anyone wants to trade, PM me.
 
Almost through the Bro deck, and I gotta say: if you like Anki and you'd like to have FA in your head when taking step, it is hands down the best deck out there. I added AwesomeTTS, and that's made it much more bearable. Keep soldiering on, brobros.
 
Pacna said:
Almost through the Bro deck, and I gotta say: if you like Anki and you'd like to have FA in your head when taking step, it is hands down the best deck out there. I added AwesomeTTS, and that's made it much more bearable. Keep soldiering on, brobros.
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What do you use the AwesomeTTS for?
 
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