Welcome to the third and final part of the memorization and Anki video series.
If you haven’t already, be sure to first watch parts one and two.
Link in the description below.
I hope this series proves helpful – I put a lot of time and effort into this video series
because Anki is so often underutilized and misunderstood.
Now I’m confident that if you learn to use Anki properly, medical school will be much much
easier for you.
Dr. Jubbal, MedSchoolInsiders.com.
Number 7, Mnemonic Techniques. In a previous video,
I went over the importance of various mnemonic devices and the method of loci.
Combining these mnemonic devices with spaced repetition in the form of Anki flashcards
is one of the best ways to supercharge your memorization abilities.
I personally used the tag “story” or “mnemonic” on my Anki cards and would craft stories or
mnemonic devices underneath the answer on the back side of the card.
Unfortunately, I can’t share too many of mine as most are rather risqué.
Remember, the more vulgar, obscene, or ridiculous, the better, as long as it makes sense to you.
When crafting your own mnemonic devices, there are two additional considerations to keep
in mind.
First, the Self-Reference Effect means you are more likely to remember pieces of information
that relate to you, so think of personal and relatable examples.
Second, take advantage of strong emotional states to help make the information be more sticky.
This ties back in with making more vulgar, obscene, and ridiculous memory devices.
Number 8, Avoid Sets and Enumerations. Sets are collections of objects.
For example, what are all the branches of the external carotid artery?
Now just listing them without direction is actually quite challenging.
So instead, convert this to an ordered list, which is called an enumeration.
By reciting the branches in order from proximal to distal, you’re much more likely to remember
the information.
So why is that?
Whenever you complete a repetition of the information you want to learn, it’s important
to reinforce it in the same way each time.
Enumerations are great for this because they are ordered, forcing you to recite the information in the
same order each and every time, therefore you are reinforcing the same learning pathway.
However, enumerations are are not simple and should not be used too frequently.
If you’re having difficulty during each repetition of an enumeration, you can also use
overlapping cloze deletions.
For example, have the first three branches. So that's the superior thyroid artery, the ascending pharyngeal
artery, and lingual artery as one cloze deletion, and then the next one you can have some overlap, so lingual artery, facial artery,
and occipital artery, and so on and so forth.
Number 9, Be Concise. Brevity is your best friend.
When you’re reviewing hundreds of cards per day, a superfluous word here or there
will quickly add up.
For that reason, it’s key that you optimize wording.
Focus on the exact information you need.
The words before and after that information are going to be less important.
So get rid of it.
Number 10,| Redundancy - Attack the Information From Different Angles
Most of us practice the information we need to learn in only one direction.
Come test time, that can lead to problems.
For this reason, I recommend you practice redundancy with your Anki cards.
Learn to practice the information from more than just one direction.
Let’s go back to the branches of the external carotid artery.
Rather than just reciting the branches in order, you can test yourself on a single artery
and trace the path from the heart.
For example, you could say trace the path of the L facial artery.
So you'd go from ascending aorta → common carotid → external carotid → facial artery
Number 11, provide sources for your cards.
This isn’t a hard rule, but this proved useful to me on many occasions in medical
school.
Certain texts may contradict other texts, and there are times when you need to figure
out what is the truth.
Listing the source from where you got the card will make the process much simpler when
you inevitably face this issue.
Remember, this is just for your own purposes so you know where you got the information
in case you need to reference it again.
You don’t worry about doing MLA bibliography format or anything like that.
Number 12, Don’t Be Afraid to Edit or Delete your cards. As you prepare for any large exam, your Anki
deck should be constantly evolving.
And over time, your Anki card creation skills will improve.
My earliest cards were far too complicated, and the process of developing my card creation
skill was gradual.
So don’t be afraid to go back and edit, improve, or even delete your earlier cards as needed.
And number 13, Set a Daily Threshold for New Cards. You will have days where you create lots of
cards, and other days where you don’t create any at all.
To maintain a more even learning schedule and review burden, I recommend setting a daily
threshold for new cards.
I usually left my review card number uncapped to let Anki’s algorithm work its magic,
and therefore I only capped the new card limit.
Lots of students ask me how many new cards they should be doing per day and how many
cards they should be reviewing.
There are too many factors and it’s therefore not possible to give a range that’s suitable
for everyone.
My recommendation is to stay flexible.
There were times, such as when I was ramping up for my sub-internships, where I was cranking
through up to 100 new cards per day.
However, once I felt comfortable with my knowledge and had a large review queue, I reduced the
new card limit to 25-50 per day, depending on how busy my rotation was.
Play around with the limits and figure out what works best for you.
Creating Anki cards and optimizing your learning in medical school is no easy task.
It took me years of experimentation and tweaking to finally get consistent and excellent results
that allowed me to match into a hyper competitive surgical subspecialty.
If you are not getting the results you want in university or medical school, our tutors
at MedSchoolInsiders.com can help.
Whether it’s the MCAT, USMLE Step 1, or any other pre-med or medical school test,
we've got your back.
Our tutors scored in the top percentiles and they can help you do the same.
If you regularly watch our YouTube videos, chances are you know how heavily we emphasize
the importance of systems in generating desirable results.
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Visit MedSchoolInsiders.com to learn more.
Alright guys, so this was the third and final part to the memorization and Anki video series.
Thank you for making it all the way through to the end!
If you enjoyed this video series, let me know when a thumbs up!
And I know Anki is a beast of a program, so if you have any questions, leave a comment down below
and I’ll do my best to answer them.
Anytime a new video is posted, I hang out in the comments for the first hour. So if you want to chat, make sure you're subscribed
and you have that notification bell enabled.
Much love to you all, and I will see you guys in that next one.