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Ingredients (The Basics)
Anki is an online flashcard software that allows you to learn flashcards via spaced repetition. Its utilization of spaced repetition and active recall make it one of the most powerful tools you can use in medical school. However, not everyone likes Anki, especially because it has such a steep learning curve. While there are fantastic Anki tutorials that already exist (we recommend Overview on how Anki is useful for med school and Video tutorial on how to get started), we made this guide to help you learn the basics. Please know that this section is optional. Anki does not work well with everyone's learning style so do not feel pressured to get on the Anki train if it doesn't work for you. Lots of students succeed without Anki.
The first thing you should know about Anki is that it is much more effective to use pre-existing flashcards than it is to make your own flashcards. You can make your own flashcards for a few course-specific details, but this is often a time-consuming process. That being said, how do you get pre-made flashcards? You download pre-existing decks of flashcards from the internet. To start with, you should download Anking, which is the most popular and comprehensive deck. Here are other decks that you can consider as you get more comfortable with Anki:
Lightyear: deck made from Boards and Beyond, different style but similar content
Pepper: deck made from Sketchy videos, cards are more concise than Anking and is best used for microbiology and pharmacology
Preparing Your Cards for Studying
After you download Anking, you will see a very intimidating number of cards with absolutely no organization. Additionally, they will all be “unsuspended” which is Anki talk for “ready to learn”. You want to “suspend” all of these cards so you don’t have to learn all 10,000+ cards at once. To do this, go to the browse screen (you will see this option at the top), click on the Anking deck, select all the cards (Control+A on mac), and then click toggle suspend (Control+J on mac) in the toolbar. You will see all the cards become yellow and that means that they are suspended.
Now that all your cards are suspended, you are going to want to add some organization. The Anking deck is organized into Decks and corresponding Subdecks. Each card can only belong to one subdeck, and often looking in a specific subdeck is a good way to narrow down the cards. However, this is pretty limiting when each card belongs to multiple subjects or is covered by multiple resources. Thus, you’re going to also want to get used to the Tags system. Each card can have many tags, and you can search for cards with a specific tag. See the instructions below to install the hierarchical tags add-on (Hierarchical Tags - 594329229) to organize your cards based on the resource of origin. Add-ons are additions to your Anki that allow it to have an additional function. In this case, hierarchical tags allow you to see cards broken down by subject or resource. For instance, you can separate cards based on individual Boards & Beyond videos or First Aid sections. This is very helpful when you are unsuspending cards. Here are some more tips about add-ons:
How to install add-ons: Tools -> Add-ons -> Browse & Install -> Copy-paste your add-on code into the box and click OK
Try to limit your number of add-ons because too many can slow down the app
Some popular add-ons are discussed in this article and in this video, and I personally recommend the Review Heatmap
Frozen Fields (516643804) and Image Occlusion (1374772155) are helpful if you make your own cards
You are now ready to start unsuspending cards. Let’s say that it is your first day of biochemistry and you just learned about the structure of DNA. You watched Boards & Beyond to review this material, specifically the DNA Structure video in the Biochemistry section. To unsuspend cards from this video, you will go to the browse screen and then scroll down in the menu on the left until you see the “Tags" section.
Go to the #AK_Step1_v& tag, which organizes cards by outside resources. The Boards and Beyond tag is called #B&B. Open the biochemistry section, then the molecular section and find the tag for DNA Structure. Once you click on this tag, you will see all the cards related to the video you just watched. Unsuspend (using toggle suspend at the top or control +J) the cards that you want to study.
There are also tags for First Aid, Pathoma, Sketchy, general subjects, and more. Many med students have found that unsuspending cards using hierarchical tags is the most effective way to use Anki.
Let’s assume that your biochemistry lecture about DNA Structure included information not included in the Boards & Beyond video, and you also want to unsuspend cards related to DiGeorge Disease (22q11 Deletion Syndrome). You can search by keyword on the browse screen in either all of Anking or a specific deck/subdeck of Anking (for instance, “Molecular, Cellular and Genetic”). We recommend starting with a specific deck so that the number of cards you see is less overwhelming. See the image below for what that search looks like:
Once again, unsuspend the cards that you want to study. Be sure to only unsuspend cards you want to memorize very well, many cards will show up in your search that are not related or are too detailed. Start small so you don’t get overwhelmed by how many cards you have to study. You can use the same method of unsuspending by hierarchical tags and the search function for all of the content that you learn in medical school. TIP: if you find a useful card and want to see more like it, look at the tags it’s listed under and go to that tag to find similar cards.
If you want to make your own cards (which we recommend you do sparingly!), you can click the icon for “Add notes” at the top of the browse screen. We recommend using the “cloze” card type to make your own cards. Here are some tutorials related to making your own cards:
Video tutorial on the basic card types (cloze is the most common/useful)
Video tutorial on image occlusion add-on (good for anatomy/diagrams)
Video tutorial for making cards based on lecture using frozen fields add-on
Studying Your Cards
To study your cards, close the browse screen and click on the deck that you want to study. You can either click on the entire Anking deck and study from there, or study each subject at a time by clicking on a subdeck. The automatic settings will have you start reviewing old cards if you have any, then start learning new cards that you either made or unsuspended. These will all be in a randomized order by the default settings, which can be jarring at first but helps you really learn the material without context cues. Use the buttons on the bottom (with keyboard number shortcuts, 1 = Again, 2 = Hard or Good) to rank how you feel about each card and the app will decide when next to ask you about that specific card.
Finally, you are able to sync your anki across your devices if you want to study on both your phone and computer. Here are some tips:
Mobile Anki is free for android, $25 for iPhone/iPad
Instructions are here
That is all of the basics that you need to know about Anki! Read on to learn some more tips about using Anki effectively.
Recipe (Key to Success)
Unsuspending the right cards
Anki helps you learn minute details, not big picture concepts
Concepts and pathways should be fully understood before you start Anki on them, the cards should only remind you of the overarching concept
Read the cards before you unsuspend them, even if it’s under a specific tag that you think is relevant enough
As you are doing your cards, don’t be afraid to suspend ones that are too detailed or are not relevant to your course material
Doing them consistently
The algorithm is designed for you to finish your cards daily
Consider a card cap by clicking on the gear icon on each deck, then Options, and adjust “New cards/day” and “Maximum reviews/day”
See the “Decorations” section below on tips if you’re having trouble finishing your cards every day
Decorations (Advanced/Extra)
Catching up
Filtered decks help you prioritize what cards to do
Other strategies and add-ons are covered in this video
Changing settings
Settings are personalized to your preference and how you use Anki
Here is an overview of The Anking’s settings and modifications, and here’s another person’s walkthrough of settings and their modifications
If you feel like you are seeing cards too frequently, increase your Steps (in minutes) (ex. I have them at “5 1440 4320,” which means that if I feel good about a card, I won’t see it until tomorrow -- default has that set at 10 minutes)
Modifying Anking cards
You can add in details: instead of making new cards, I often modify existing cards with extra details from class with a note that says “Class: ___”
You can combine the cloze deletion cards by modifying the number so they all show up at once, in pairs, etc.
For example, “{{c1:ATP}} and {{c2:O2}} are important molecules” can be changed to “{{c1:ATP}} and {{c1:O2}} are important molecules” which would show up as a single card with two blank spaces -- you will have to suspend an empty card where the “c2” card used to be
Fun add-ons
Custom background image and gear icon (1210908941)
Change up your environment: do it in the hot tub, sitting by the pool, on a cardio machine, outside, etc.
Gamify it with a controller: it helps keep it fun and can improve your posture!
Grab a switch controller or buy a mini controller and program it to work with Anki
Anki Tutorial Presentation - Orientation 2021 (By Ning McKenzie & Chris Allen)
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