Now that you scheduled your MCAT test date and have your study schedule, how do you actually study efficiently for it? We know it's far different than most other tests, and is likely the biggest one you've ever taken, so it follows that studying for it is different than other tests as well. You may have heard of Anki, which is a flashcard application used by medical students, and is now being used to boost MCAT results too!
As your official East Lansing & Grand Rapids MCAT Tutors, we're here to help you find the right tools to succeed with this helpful guide to Anki, one of the most important tools used by high MCAT scorers.
What Is Anki?
Anki, as previously mentioned, is an online flashcard app similar to Quizlet with a focus on spaced repetition. Spaced repetition is a learning method based on repeating exposure to information in increasingly prolonged doses, and is something Anki specializes in. Using Anki is one of the main ways medical students learn all the information they need to, and can be a great tool you can use to master the MCAT material as well.
Installing Anki
Anki has a free web-based application and an app on that App Store that costs $25, we recommend getting both but using the free CPU application as your main app (download it here). After downloading Anki, you won't find any cards there yet because you need to download decks for it, which we will go through next.
After installing, you'll want to make an account with Anki so you can sync your flashcards with their cloud and also sync it with your phone app, so don't skip it!
Downloading MCAT Anki Decks
From here you'll want to find a good Anki deck to use. These decks are created by other studiers, and can be found in a variety of corners on the internet. The most popular and our personal recommendation is the official AnKing MCAT deck, but there are multiple other community-approved decks to look into as well, so it is worth exploring a bit. Anking also has a collaborative application that can be greatly valuable depending on your study style, so it's worth checking out. In this guide we'll mainly just be using the non-collaborative, regular Anki application though.
After downloading the deck on your computer, go to Anki, select 'Import' from the 'File' dropdown and select your newly-downloaded file, from there you should see the deck on your Anki hub. Don't be intimidated by the amount of cards in a deck, we'll cover how to optimize it and make it actually doable next.
Optimizing Your Anki
Now the most important part, setting your Anki schedule. Two of the most important aspects of Anki are to review brand new cards every day, and to make sure that the cards you're confident in don't show up every day. Start by clicking the small gear next to your MCAT deck and clicking 'Options'.
From here you'll see a large screen. The most important values to change are below:
New Cards per Day - 20
Maximum Reviews per Day - 9999
Learning Steps - 15m 1d 6d
Graduating Interval - 15
Easy Interval - 60
Insertion Order - Sequential
Relearning Steps - 10m
Minimum Interval - 1
Leech Threshold - 8
Leech Action - Tag Only
New/Review Order - Show After Review
Interday Learning/Review Order - Show After Review
Review Sort Order - Due date, then random
Maximum Order - 240
Starting Ease - 2.50
Easy Bonus - 1.30
Interval Modifier - 1.00
New Interval - 0.30
After inputting these values, click 'Save' at the top.
IMPORTANT - At first, you'll only want 20 new cards a day to get the hang of things, but you'll want to move this closer to 50 cards over time.
Unsuspending Cards
If you downloaded the deck and found that there were very little cards showing, then they may still be suspended. Suspended basically means they're locked, meaning they need to be unlocked via unsuspending them. To do so, click 'Browse' to go into your MCAT deck. Click the cards you'd like to unlock (or shift + click for a wide range of cards), right click and then select 'Unsuspend'. The color of the cards should change away from Yellow and should now be unlocked. If you formatted your options correctly above, there should only be 20 cards
Choosing which cards to unsuspend depends on your comfort and the current topics you're reviewing. We don't recommend unsuspending them all at once, or you'll find serious desynchronization between what you're studying and what flashcards you get, you don't want brand new Organic Chemistry cards when you're in the middle of your Sociology review.
Actually Doing The Cards
Do Anki every day. Don't skip it if you can avoid it. This study tool is only as useful as your loyalty to it, so don't neglect it! When you click the deck and start with the cards, press 'Space' to reveal the answer. If you got it right, press 'Space' for 'Good' or press '1' for 'Bad. These are the only buttons you need to press, do not use the '2' for 'Hard' or '4' for Easy buttons, as they don't play nice with the repetition algorithm.
After you finish your cards for the day, don't forget to Sync them!
If you want to ease the burden of spacebar mashing and get a bit fancy, you can buy a cheap bluetooth controller and connect it to your computer, linking the controller to your keyboard with a program like JoyToKey. This way you can lay back and still do cards without having to hover over your keyboard the whole time.
Optional: Making New Cards
If there's a subject or topic not covered by your deck that you think would be worthwhile, you can always make a new card as well. To do so, first find a premade card in your current deck, click 'Edit' to understand the format they use when making cards, then click out and click 'New" to create a new card in that format. The card should then be available for usage.
Conclusion
Congratulations, now you've fully downloaded and optimized your Anki MCAT deck. You are able to customize the application further to your liking with Add-Ons like the Postpone Cards add-on or the Review Heatmap add-on, but those can be read about in other online forums. This tool is a lifesaver for many Pre-Med students, and we hope it can be useful to you as well.
If you think you'd benefit from an MCAT tutor local to East Lansing or Grand Rapids, feel free to check our MCAT offerings out. Otherwise feel free to browse our other resources below or share it with your colleagues. Good luck on the MCAT!
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