Zanki Question / Advice

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Rogue42

Rogue42

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MS1 here. I am currently using Board Vitals' (bought by our school as a resource) to study block relevant board questions and materials. For example, I just went through around 400 board practice questions on just the MSK system in which is the block that we are in.

I recently read that people use Zanki before dedicated board studies. I was just wondering how does Zanki work? Is MS1 to early to start? Do I have to make the questions or are there pre-made cards? Is it just a bunch of facts or practice questions? Someone that understands all of this a little better, please walk me through it.

Obviously, I want to make a good board score, and I just want to be doing the right things to do that.
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Zanki is a pre-made flash card deck for a software / app called Anki. MS1 is not too early to start; in fact, start as early as you can. The Zanki cards are tried and true pre-made cards that cover the majority of First Aid, Pathoma, and Boards and Beyond. The flash cards are worded in a way to be both bunch of facts and mini practice questions. That being said, Zanki is not a substitute for true practice questions like UWorld.

I took the time to answer your question, but next time please use the search function.
 
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Yea it's definitely hard to walk someone through zanki on a single comment. Even just in the last year there have been so many videos that will help you guide through how to use anki, and then specifically zanki. But definitely start as early as you can and stay consistent every day. It's a grind and it's difficult at times to finish all your reviews, but if it were easy everyone would be doing it.
 
iforget2 said:
Yea it's definitely hard to walk someone through zanki on a single comment. Even just in the last year there have been so many videos that will help you guide through how to use anki, and then specifically zanki. But definitely start as early as you can and stay consistent every day. It's a grind and it's difficult at times to finish all your reviews, but if it were easy everyone would be doing it.
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I appreciate it. Didn't know there was a bunch of videos or subreddits about this topic. I appreciate your helpful response.
 
iforget2 said:
Yea it's definitely hard to walk someone through zanki on a single comment. Even just in the last year there have been so many videos that will help you guide through how to use anki, and then specifically zanki. But definitely start as early as you can and stay consistent every day. It's a grind and it's difficult at times to finish all your reviews, but if it were easy everyone would be doing it.
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Can confirm. Doing over 1000 cards today.
 
Zanki is all about long-term retention. I wished I started earlier.

Because of it I am able to recall very specific virulence factors and drug mechanisms of action taught months ago. You will forget this stuff. Its power is in retention, not in "learning", if that makes sense.
 
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Osteosaur said:
Zanki is all about long-term retention. I wished I started earlier.

Because of it I am able to recall very specific virulence factors and drug mechanisms of action taught months ago. You will forget this stuff. Its power is in retention, not in "learning", if that makes sense.
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Know alot of people that drop most primary resource and learn mostly from anki and then google stuff that dont make sense. U can learn from it as well in my opinion because its basically a book broken up into cards.
 
Chelsea FC said:
Know alot of people that drop most primary resource and learn mostly from anki and then google stuff that dont make sense. U can learn from it as well in my opinion because its basically a book broken up into cards.
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Oh I didn't mean you can't. I've definitely learned from it!

I just mean that the spaced repetition is what makes Anki special.
 
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ExplodingUlcers said:
Is that just Zanki or are you doing an anatomy/histo deck too?

Sent from my SM-G955U using SDN mobile
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I did about a hundred anatomy cards. We’re also at the end of a module so I’m doing every msk card and the biochem cards from our foundations block. So it’s not like I did that many new cards lol. Mostly reviews.

Totally worth it though. Whoever put this thing together needs a medal.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
I did about a hundred anatomy cards. We’re also at the end of a module so I’m doing every msk card and the biochem cards from our foundations block. So it’s not like I did that many new cards lol. Mostly reviews.

Totally worth it though. Whoever put this thing together needs a medal.
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How long does it usually take you to get through all your cards, I really want to start Zanki but I'm just afraid I won't keep up or be intimidated if i have 500+ cards.
 
4thtimeretaker said:
How long does it usually take you to get through all your cards, I really want to start Zanki but I'm just afraid I won't keep up or be intimidated if i have 500+ cards.
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It usually takes me about 3 hours to do 1000+ cards as well. I've found that breaking up going through my reviews in chunks of time throughout the day helps with getting through all the cards!
 
pramsotingz said:
It usually takes me about 3 hours to do 1000+ cards as well. I've found that breaking up going through my reviews in chunks of time throughout the day helps with getting through all the cards!
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This is what I try to do too. I’ll break them up with BnB videos, questions, sketchy, or just some exercise or food.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
This is what I try to do too. I’ll break them up with BnB videos, questions, sketchy, or just some exercise or food.
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In the same boat. Averaging around 1000 cards/day. Pain is temporary... STEP is forever.

Yo, when you do 1000 cards/day, does that ONLY include Zanki (if that's what your using) or do you make cards for lecture also? I'd say 70% of my cards are Zanki and the other 30% are lecture ones I created or anatomy IO.
 
CJhooper123 said:
In the same boat. Averaging around 1000 cards/day. Pain is temporary... STEP is forever.

Yo, when you do 1000 cards/day, does that ONLY include Zanki (if that's what your using) or do you make cards for lecture also? I'd say 70% of my cards are Zanki and the other 30% are lecture ones I created or anatomy IO.
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Mostly zanki. I make cards on super minutiae that I think the profs want us to know but mostly I just review that stuff right before the exam. I also do anatomy stuff. It’s not stuff I made but it isn’t zanki. I’d say probably 80-90% is zanki.

It’s funny because I wasn’t even going to use it. It’s just so good though.
 
CJhooper123 said:
In the same boat. Averaging around 1000 cards/day. Pain is temporary... STEP is forever.

Yo, when you do 1000 cards/day, does that ONLY include Zanki (if that's what your using) or do you make cards for lecture also? I'd say 70% of my cards are Zanki and the other 30% are lecture ones I created or anatomy IO.
Click to expand...
Dis truth rite here. The last 6 months are the craziest grind but sooo worth it!
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Mostly zanki. I make cards on super minutiae that I think the profs want us to know but mostly I just review that stuff right before the exam. I also do anatomy stuff. It’s not stuff I made but it isn’t zanki. I’d say probably 80-90% is zanki.

It’s funny because I wasn’t even going to use it. It’s just so good though.
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I've got this problem, man... despite being in a P/F curriculum... I just can't get myself to stop making tons of class cards. I am doing decent... but I feel like it would make more sense to allocate my time more towards Step prep.

On avg, how many new cards/day are you shooting for with Zanki? I hit 50/day pretty consistently.
 
CJhooper123 said:
I've got this problem, man... despite being in a P/F curriculum... I just can't get myself to stop making tons of class cards. I am doing decent... but I feel like it would make more sense to allocate my time more towards Step prep.

On avg, how many new cards/day are you shooting for with Zanki? I hit 50/day pretty consistently.
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Well I was doing around 75-100 a day but I think I’m going to switch to doing all of the cards for a module over the course of a week so that I can crank them reviews out as fast as possible and solidify it all well before the end of the module or even the midterm.

We are P/F and anything above a 90% is honors, but honors really doesn’t matter unless you want AOA which also doesn’t super matter (military match). Step, research, and how you do in clerkship (especially for the specialty you want) are way more important so that’s what I’m focusing on. Which right now means step and research.

Basically what that means is that I don’t go to or watch lecture and just review the PowerPoints before quizzes and exams.
 
7331poas said:
Our school would murder you for uttering the word "anki" in their presence.
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Seriously? Ours doesn’t expressly endorse it because they don’t endorse any particular resource, but they definitely suggest looking into it because it works for so many people.

In fact the anatomy faculty just sent a new approved deck to our class.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Seriously? Ours doesn’t expressly endorse it because they don’t endorse any particular resource, but they definitely suggest looking into it because it works for so many people.

In fact the anatomy faculty just sent a new approved deck to our class.
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Do you recommend any good decks for cadaver anatomy?
 
hopefulDOcter4321 said:
Try out this anki deck, it has plenty of cadaver images. Really helpful for MSK. I think it is a pre-made deck edited by a student at USUHS so it may have some stuff that isn't board relevant.

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That’s the deck I was talking about (I’m a USUHS student). It has cards covering Fa, bros, and a lot of stuff just from lecture that probably isn’t relevant to anyone else lol. The cadaver deck is great but I feel obligated to mention that the faculty approved the deck for use by us and I don’t think it was supposed to be posted on ankiweb. But it is, so...
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
That’s the deck I was talking about (I’m a USUHS student). It has cards covering Fa, bros, and a lot of stuff just from lecture that probably isn’t relevant to anyone else lol. The cadaver deck is great but I feel obligated to mention that the faculty approved the deck for use by us and I don’t think it was supposed to be posted on ankiweb. But it is, so...
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Oh wow, that's awesome that the school/faculty approved the deck and made the relevant cards for the lectures. I'm sure it definitely streamlines the studying part for you with everything is consolidated into one place. Do most students basically just use this deck to study?
 
4thtimeretaker said:
Oh wow, that's awesome that the school/faculty approved the deck and made the relevant cards for the lectures. I'm sure it definitely streamlines the studying part for you with everything is consolidated into one place. Do most students basically just use this deck to study?
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It varies. A lot of people at least use the anatomy portion, but some of us still use zanki. I basically just use zanki and the cadaver deck there. The USUHS class cards are basically just the relevant portions of FA and pathoma that our profs want us to know, but zanki has all of that stuff plus more so I just do zanki.
 
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