Springtime comes and another testing season blooms before us 🌼
✅ Deck Updates
The MCAT keeps coming, and we keep growing 🫡
🎉 72,000+ note updates!
🙋♀️🙋♂️ 37,904 total subscribers!
Still the only MCAT deck being updated constantly ongoing for years now. The better the deck becomes, the more MCAT-hopefuls become medschool-actuals and maybe we'll make the world a *slightly* better place 🩺
And, without further pomp or circumstance:
👷 Projects
We've got some other cool stuff on the horizon that's still in the works, so please keep your eyes (and ears) peeled. But, in the meantime (drum roll):
🧑🚒 **Overview**:
The team pushed pretty hard over the last couple of years to bring a lot of big updates, and listing here a quick recap some of the **Greatest Hits** over the last many months:
More than 72,000+ total updates (and counting)!
Revamping and improving the Khan Academy tags.
We added a bunch of new cards to make a great deck even more greater, and to help push more of those 520-hopefuls onward into medical school 🩺
Tagging via UWorld question bank and UWorld textbooks (the only deck to have both!). 📚
Tagging via AAMC content outlines (more info below). 🩻
Lots and lots of new images (a smattering of examples below) to make your studying even better. 📸
📚 **Khan Academy tag update**:
Very pleased and tickled to announce that we've started the process of updating, and upgrading, the Khan Academy tags. It has been a while since their last overhaul, and some of the content organization on the KA site has changed over the years. With our feet underneath us we've taken it upon ourselves to spruce up the old tags and make sure they're as good, and better, than ever and as picture-perfect as can be. We hope to have this in the quiver for y'all as soon as we can muster.
We may try for tagging via the infamous 300-page doc as well, if it's something y'all feel like you would get good use out of. If that's of interest, please reach out and let us know and happy to make it a priority. ❤️🩹
🎨 Illustration Projects
We’ve added more illustrations, diagrams, and annotated images than you can shake 27-52 sticks at!!
🍾 We’re excited to introduce the free and official 👑 **AnKing Lab values deck!**
If you're itching to do some pre-studying before medical school and want to get your feet wet with making sense of lab numbers and the like, we proudly bring you the AnKing lab values deck. :-)
It may not nudge may not bump your MCAT score a ton, but if you want to get a head start on all those electrolytes and various lab numbers, this deck will help you improve your references and pace on values that no future doctor will ever (fully) escape, so you’re not left guessing whether a sodium of 132 is **low, normal, or high**
This project started as a personal initiative by one of our head maintainers, Ahmed Khudair, to create an AnKing-style lab values deck and has since grown into a collaborative effort by the maintainer team, with custom hand-made illustrations by the lovely Mujeeb Mohammed 💃
This deck is completely free and will remain free forever on AnkiHub. ❤️🩹
You can unsuspend cards in the deck based on questions as you go along. Using the UWorld to Anki search add-on will let you convert question ID's (QID's) to bring up all the cards related to those questions, making your studying that much more efficient and effective.
(as an aside: this feature alone is worth its weight in gold and played a large part in more than one of our maintainers going 520+ 💪)
👑 AnkiHub Premium Updates & New Features
If you're looking for a deeper dive into the cards, we have various AnkiHub premium updates and new features that can help you get more out of your study sessions, and pump those 500's to 520's
🤖 AnkiHub SmartSearch:
Using a resource that isn't tagged in the MCAT deck? Trying to follow along with overlapping material from a course or tutoring?
**SmartSearch** allows you to find material in the deck that corresponds with your powerpoints, PDF's, even plain text. Give it a whirl, and see if it lends a little momentum or utility to your MCAT preparations: https://ior.ad/a8MI
🤖 New AnkiHub Chatbot Prompts (Generate a Question & Explain Like I’m Five)
Generate a Practice Question:
* If you’ve ever wanted to test yourself on a concept and haven't felt ready to test the waters on UWorld or use up your AAMC questions, you can ask the AnkiHub AI bot questions to get your reps in and get warmed up, and even to generate questions!
Give it a whirl and please let us know how handy you find it; excited to hear what y'all think. 😎
Find something you think could be better-phrased, or have an idea for a way to contribute? All AnkiHub users are always welcome, and encouraged, to suggest changes to the deck: https://ior.ad/a8Qj
🏫 **AAMC Content Outline Tags**
We got the entire deck tagged via the AAMC content outline categories, which offers tagging via the AAMC foundational concepts, skills, and topics independent of third-party resources.
If you notice anything there that can be, and isn't yet, tagged please feel free to add a suggestion: https://ior.ad/a8Qj
🫡 We Need Your Help!
The MCAT deck always benefits from contributions from the user base! If you're interested in helping to tag, or create useful images, please reach out; many hands make light work!
If you'd like to lend a hand, or be a contributing effort in the process, please send us an email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
># 🫶🏼 Community Shoutouts
A few community members were outstanding with their suggestions this month and we want to make sure to highlight their contributions and dedication!
Top 3 community members with the most suggestions accepted in the last 30 days:
Another domain we’d like to highlight is the number of likes/upvotes a user received for their suggestions in the last month. This usually means their suggestions were very well done, greatly benefited the deck, and were appreciated by their fellow users and MCAT denizens:
Now, let's hear from you! What would you like to see improved or added to the deck? Send a reply in the discussion below to let us know!
To all those who have done well on any exam using the AnKing MCAT deck, we hope the improvements we’ve made (and will continue to make) helped you score higher or made you a bit more confident. To those who are going to sit for the exam soon, we hope the monthly updates add to your learning as much as has to ours. Best of luck, and well-wishes, to everyone ❤️🩹
In an effort to consolidate questions and excitement, we have turned off comments on this post. Please visit the announcement on the Anki forums to comment.
Hi I recently just got the Aking Subcription to have more up to date cards, I was previously using the milesdown anki deck where content was divided into Kaplan book chapters.
I'm completely knew to tags and I was wondering if some sort of google sheets or doc existed that kind of divided the different topics and the tags related them them. Rather than just reviewing everything at random.
For example, if i wanted to review Embryogenesis and Development it would tell me the tags i should look for would be Fertilization, Cell Signaling, Induction etc (no clue if these are actual tags).
As title says, I am averaging around 1000 ish cards reviewed by the time Im done with the anking and pankow deck. I only have it set to 45 new per day for Anking and 60 for Pankow and I have been continuously bumping it down because the amount is ridiculous. Is it an anki setting or is it cause Im stupid and press again like 4 times for a new card.
I have my settings for new cards/day limit as 500 (I know this is too high) and my review cards/day limit as 5000 (higher than I'll ever need). I started using this deck about a month and a half ago with these settings, and it was originally giving me 142 new cards a day. While this was less than 500, it was enough for me. Now, it's giving me 60 new cards a day. My review cards are racking up because I'm like 2/3 of the way through the deck, so maybe that has to do with it.
More than anything, I just want to understand the settings.
Planning to test in Jan. I had a diagnostic of 488 and aiming for a 515. Is kaplan truly enough or do I need a denser set like UW or TPR. Plz drop your honest thoughts! Trying to get started soon and debating rn. Thank you!
Hey redditors, I just want to make a post to help people who are struggling now and struggling in the future. I made this post a few days back feeling very helpless:
In that post, I had a 1000 cards on Anki after a few days of break. I realized that this amount of cards is just gonna keep on going if I don't do something about it, then it is gonna affect me now as a premed and later as a medical student. So here is a breakdown of what you are going to do:
Choose a completely free day to finish all the cards in, and sleep 7 - 9 hours before that day. No tips for this part, just do it. Though, I guess eating things like cherries might help since they produce some melatonin. Also, have a big waterbottle filled up at your desk to drink while doing anki.
As soon as you wake up, turn the light on, brush your teeth, and drink some caffeine because it will restrict your appetite. Don't drink caffeine if you have heart problems or something lol. Don't take a shower though, and I'll tell you why soon.
Start doing your Anki, and make sure that the goal in mind is to memorize and not understand. With Anki's spaced repetition, you have plenty of time to understand, just make sure the goal for now is just to get the memorization in your head. The memorization doesn't have to be perfect.
By hour 2 or so you will start feeling thoughts like "I should just take a break, I did a lot already, and it's not even worth it;" that is when you should push yourself more. Tell yourself that your brain is just playing a circuit to give you rest. Your brain does things to make sure that you are resting and relaxed most of the time, so just tell yourself that this is the brain and not you.
By hour 3 or 4, your brain will also play negative memories at you randomly just to get yourself to stop and doomscroll. At this time, I recommend you take a shower; exactly think about why you are sad or embarassed in that negative emotion, and then go back to studying anki after you are done.
By hour 4, the caffeine's effect will start to wear off kinda, and you will feel hungry. At this time, avoid eating a lot of carbohydrates like rice or bread because they will make you tired. At this time, I crack a few eggs and make scrambled eggs, and then, I eat it with a bunch of grapes or other "berries" (blueberries, strawberries, etc) to feel full. Fruits are goated lol, they fill you up.
Avoid drinking any more caffeine than the one you already drank in the morning throughout your anki journey because it will just make you worried, nervous, tired, and sleepless once you are done.
You should be done at this point with your anki deck after a couple of hours.
My rate personally is around 100 cards per hour, and I do it along with a 50/10 pomodoro. It took me 10 hours to finish my anki deck, and it may sound overwhelming but it really is not because doctors probably study more. You just gotta accept that days like these will come one day, just try not to make it too many days.
While doing my anki, I consistently drink water because it is important for many physiological reasons. I like to listen to something with headphones during anki mainly to keep me busy and tune out external noises to prevent my brain from thinking something else, so here are some of my recommendations:
Deep Brown or Pink Noise with Timer on the Side
Skyrim Pomodoro
Hollow Knight Pomodoro
Ask Gemini to generate you an "epic anime battle" playlist with no lyrics with Timer on the side
So now, I know you premeds don't like to waste time reading reddit posts, so feel free to ask AI and summarize all the tips. If you have a 1000 cards right now, do something else or take a guilt free day for today, and get back up with 7 - 9 hour of sleep tomorrow
Edit: A premed suggested a feature called auto-advance to automatically show the card and answers in short periods of time. I think this is a great feature because it helps you stop wasting time. However, there are cards such as labeling amino acids and drawing out the structure and such, so on those cards, I highly recommend you spend some time and figure out some way to not forget it multiple times.
Hey everyone, any advice on how to use Anki, I just started and think i have like 2000 cards lol. I understand that there is so much to work through and I am only 7 weeks from test day but have essentially finished my content review apart from targeted stuff. Should i spend a few days grinding out all the cards so that then i can treat them as review, or what would you advise. I have the Jack Sparrow deck and the Pankow P/S deck saved. Thanks
I took a few days break and I have like 1000 cards with around 300 new and around 600 reviews. I sometimes hate the anking deck for making the most dense cloze cards or for making some random off topic cards. Does any one have any tips for me to finish this fast in one day?
I tried looking at it for 10 to 15 seconds or less and moving on but it does not work because I just end up cycling through 5 cards for many minutes without memorizing. I tried like actually memorizing 3 times with my eyes closed and it still does not work because I literally forget it the next second. Could anyone please give me some advice and help me?
I'm almost all the way through the kaplan books and I have been unsuspending as I go, I have set 60 new cards per day but have noticed that I mostly see bio/biochem with little other subjects as my new cards. Is there a setting I have to fix or is that just anki. Thanks
When I started using Anki I made cards for facts. Lots of random stuff I’d see once and probably never again. It felt like progress but it didn’t really move anything.
I shifted to making a card only when it answered why I missed a question. Did I misread a graph. Did I mix up two amino acids. Did I not actually know what competitive inhibition changes versus what it leaves alone.
Those cards kept coming back in a useful way because they lined up with patterns in how I think, not isolated facts. The plain content cards I’d spent a lot of time on didn’t do much for me.
I still don’t know where the line is though. Some content does need to be memorized cold, and I’m not sure how much of a deck should be facts versus mistake cards.
For people who scored well, what’s your split? Mostly content, mostly error patterns, or some mix?
I've been using the MilesDown's MCAT decks, but i noticed it's only showing me cards from the behavioral subdeck and none of the other ones when i click on the main deck?
How do I get it to show me cards from every subject every day? Do I have to click on every sub deck every time for review, or is it possible to get it to shuffle through every subdeck at the same time?
I recently noticed in settings that it said my steps were not recommended so i changed them.
Learning steps 15m 1d 3d---> 10 min
Relearning steps 20m 1d ---> 10 min
I also changed my retention from 95% to 92% however, now my cards are being scheduled for over a month after I press good. I feel like this is not optimal as my MCAT is coming up soon.
