If you aren’t familiar with the term “Anki,” it’s basically a Medical Student’s most prized possession. Anki is a flashcard software that uses techniques such as active recall and spaced repetition to memorise ungodly amounts of lecture content. Honestly, I had never heard of “Anki” until I began my medical school journey. The best way I could describe it is Quizlet on steroids. The concept behind Anki is to force you to spend more time on challenging material and less on what you already know. It achieves this by utilizing a spaced repetition algorithm to schedule when you review your cards. This is based on how you rate your ability to recall the information on the card. Essentially, you can create your flashcards (or use pre-made cards), and after answering, you have the option to select “easy, good, hard, again,” etc. If you choose ‘easy’, Anki will select it for review at a longer interval in the future. If you rank a card as ‘difficult’, it will appear again sooner to reinforce your learning.
It sounds super effective and efficient, right? But what if it’s not actually being used the way it was intended to? What I have observed and personally experienced with this application is that it’s very easy to spend hours mindlessly pressing the spacebar, just to see the number of reviews decrease, until you feel a mild sense of accomplishment that you’ve gone through more than a thousand cards that day. I’ve even seen people download add-ons that allow users to compete with their friends by tracking Anki progress and comparing it on a leaderboard. There are even game control clickers you can purchase to make it feel like a video game. Although this is an ingenious way to motivate students to complete their cards, could it be unintentionally promoting passive studying?
I remember walking into the silent library study area for the first time, and I could only hear the monotonous clicks of students pressing the ‘again’ or ‘easy’ buttons because they were fed up with seeing the same card for the hundredth time. It was almost apocalyptic. I’m not going to sit here and say I didn’t fall into the lure of this study method–because I am an avid Anki user. I believe that, when used correctly and supplemented with further learning, it can be a lifesaver for retaining large amounts of content at once.
On the other hand, Anki may not be for everyone. If you do choose to use this application, here are some suggestions to ensure you are getting the most out of it.
1: Understand that new and more challenging cards will take you twice as long as reviewing cards. I would recommend adjusting your Anki settings to prioritize review cards, allowing you to tackle the more challenging ones first.
2: Try to supplement the cards with lectures or videos so you are reinforcing your learning with concepts rather than simply memorising isolated facts.
Needless to say, coming into Med school and learning how to study all over again, using Anki seems to be a rite of passage for most students. Some will continue to use it throughout their studies, while others will realize that they’re better off with pencil and paper. If you’re reading this and realize you might have been a victim of FOMO (it’s okay, we’ve all been there), maybe it’s time to take the road less travelled.