Zanki Deck

[PurpleButterfly123]

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I am in my summer before second year and I have started using the Zanki deck to review daily. I was wondering if anyone has advice on how many new cards/reviews I should be doing per day and when to increase this number.

Thank you!!

 

[USMLE_Pro]

I really don't recommend Zanki--you are going to be spending tons of time memorizing low yield facts. It's far better to make your own cards (I did this all within my 7-week dedicated period and scored a 262, never touched Zanki and don't recommend it for my students).

 

[psd242]

I would divide the card count by the number of days you want to be done in. It depends on which zanki deck you got, and whether or not you got the expansions. As an example: 22000 cards in Deck X, and I want to be done before dedicated, I should probably be done in 300 days. 22000/300 = 73.33 new cards per day. Reviews should be maxed out.

If you like making your own cards, do it. If not, check out Bros, Zanki, or Lightyear. All comprehensive decks that will take most of the year to get through.

 

[Furan]

I really don't recommend Zanki--you are going to be spending tons of time memorizing low yield facts. It's far better to make your own cards (I did this all within my 7-week dedicated period and scored a 262, never touched Zanki and don't recommend it for my students).

I don't think anyone is suggesting utilizing Anki cards made by someone else is better for learning than making your own, but the issue with making your own cards is that it's significantly more time consuming and the cards tend to not be comprehensive. When you have a premade deck like Zanki, that has been edited for errata and missing information by hundreds of people, you can be more confident all the information is there and accurate.

 

[USMLE_Pro]

I would divide the card count by the number of days you want to be done in. It depends on which zanki deck you got, and whether or not you got the expansions. As an example: 22000 cards in Deck X, and I want to be done before dedicated, I should probably be done in 300 days. 22000/300 = 73.33 new cards per day. Reviews should be maxed out.

If you like making your own cards, do it. If not, check out Bros, Zanki, or Lightyear. All comprehensive decks that will take most of the year to get through.

Part of the issue is that the process of making cards is one of the best methods available to retain information long-term, based on a few different principles of educational science.

 

[USMLE_Pro]

I don't think anyone is suggesting utilizing Anki cards made by someone else is better for learning than making your own, but the issue with making your own cards is that it's significantly more time consuming and the cards tend to not be comprehensive. When you have a premade deck like Zanki, that has been edited for errata and missing information by hundreds of people, you can be more confident all the information is there and accurate.

I had a 6 week dedicated period, and made a little over 1,000 cards. It was not that time consuming compared to having to do multiple passes of UW or FA, which I was able to avoid by making my own cards. This is also coming from my experience with >100 students as a tutor/supervisor of other tutors, and finding out what works best for students. The info from your cards should be coming from UW explanations and FA, so you know that info is accurate as well. The cards do not have to be comprehensive and that is actually a major weakness of Zanki: far too much info. All the cards have to cover is the info YOU do not need to know and need to memorize in order to get more questions correct, and this will be very different for each student.

 

[FindersFee5]

I had a 6 week dedicated period, and made a little over 1,000 cards. It was not that time consuming compared to having to do multiple passes of UW or FA, which I was able to avoid by making my own cards. This is also coming from my experience with >100 students as a tutor/supervisor of other tutors, and finding out what works best for students. The info from your cards should be coming from UW explanations and FA, so you know that info is accurate as well. The cards do not have to be comprehensive and that is actually a major weakness of Zanki: far too much info. All the cards have to cover is the info YOU do not need to know and need to memorize in order to get more questions correct, and this will be very different for each student.

Heres the point though: you made 1000 cards. The newest Zanki + Micro/pharm has ~27 THOUSAND.

I'm not saying more is necessarily better, and I can definitely see Zanki becoming a crutch that doesn't help you learn when you just start regurgitating answers (and have slipped into this habit myself at times). But it's an amazing tool for making sure you've seen everything, and if you think about the concepts on cards, how they connect to each other, and how they could potentially be tested, it's a really good active learning tool as well.

 

[Atom612]

I haven't started any pre-made anki deck yet (Bros, Zanki, etc) and I'm about 1 week out from M2. Is it too late to start Zanki and the like, or should I try something else?

 

[USMLE_Pro]

Heres the point though: you made 1000 cards. The newest Zanki + Micro/pharm has ~27 THOUSAND.

I'm not saying more is necessarily better, and I can definitely see Zanki becoming a crutch that doesn't help you learn when you just start regurgitating answers (and have slipped into this habit myself at times). But it's an amazing tool for making sure you've seen everything, and if you think about the concepts on cards, how they connect to each other, and how they could potentially be tested, it's a really good active learning tool as well.

Why would you memorize 27,000 cards when you only have to memorize 1,000 to 2,000 to score 260+? Sure you can maybe get the same result by spending far more time studying, but why would you prefer to do that? I've also worked with many students (for Step 2 CK) who have been unsuccessful on Step 1 even after using Zanki. It might be sufficient (in addition to UFAP) for success for some people (not everyone), but it's clearly not necessary (I work with >30 other tutors who have scored in the 250s to 270s, and only a very small minority of them ever used Zanki).

 

[popopopop]

I haven't started any pre-made anki deck yet (Bros, Zanki, etc) and I'm about 1 week out from M2. Is it too late to start Zanki and the like, or should I try something else?

Start if you like flashcards, don't force yourself to do anki/zanki. You can just learn what you like from it (like I am) and ignore a lot of it.