Even if you are the focused student who attends all their lectures and utilizes their textbooks to enhance their understanding outside class, you will agree that forgetting is inevitable sometimes.
Forgetting learned content would discourage some students from working hard at school and end up failing their courses.
However, you do not have to go through such problems. The use of flashcards for private studies is a learning strategy tested and proven to work for most students.
The introduction of digital flashcard creating platforms such as Anki and Quizlet has simplified this mode of studying,
To help you understand the use of flashcards and these flashcard-making platforms, this article answers some of your questions: Is Anki worth it? Is Anki worth it for medical school?
Is Anki Worth It?
Anki is worth it. This platform has been tested repeatedly and proven to reduce the amount of time you spend studying while improving the content you acquire and retain.
Whether you are learning continuously, learning a new language, studying engineering, or are in a medical school, Anki is the program to utilize. This is because Anki is a coercive and effective program to improve your private studying through the use of its space-repetition flashcards.
Is an Anki Subscription Worth the Money?
An Anki subscription is worth the money. This program has numerous features, including synchronization assistance to keep your flashcards across various computer and mobile devices, flexibility, and the ability to customize your flashcards and access spaced-repetition algorithms.
When you subscribe to Anki, you will be able to access these features to enhance your studies.
Although most Anki’s products and services are free, paying the $ 25 to download the Anki Mobile for iOS devices is worth the fee. Therefore, as a student, you should not worry about getting the app because its long-term benefits are more.
Is Anki Worth it for the Medical School?
Anki is worth it for medical school. Remember, in medical school, you will learn loads of medical content within a short period, which you can easily forget. A perfect way to solve that problem would be to use Anki flashcards which support memorization of such loads of content. Through reviewing the Anki flashcards, you will be bettering your active learning and reducing passive learning.
As a medical school student, there are numerous benefits that you could reap by employing Anki. Firstly, Anki allows you to study actively while testing yourself.
That said, Anki offers two of the most effective study strategies: practice testing and spaced repetition. Through these strategies, you will be in a better position to recall actively and retain the medical content you learn through Anki flashcards.
Also see: Is using Quizlet cheating?
Secondly, Anki allows you to set daily goals where you will have to review a particular number of flashcards daily. Through this technique, you will always have the time to review the information that you find hard to understand in the first round.
Finally, you will have the opportunity to attach images, audio, or videos to your flashcards. Such mnemonics help improve your long-term and short-term memory. In addition, Anki allows you to review your flashcards from anywhere at any time. Therefore, as a medical student, you can check your cards on the bus, at home, at school, or in the medical lab.
The following are several cards that would prove pretty advantageous to you as a medical school student;
- Basic cards. This card has a front and backside, where you will have your medical questions on the front side of the card and their answers on the back. An advantage of these cards is that you could use mnemonics to understand the content better.
- Cloze Deletion cards. These cards are more used with the denser medical content that is in paragraph form. In these cards, you will leave out multiple blank spaces in the paragraphs and try filling in the blanks with the possible keywords.
- Image Occlusion cards. These are some of the best cards to use when studying anatomy. You will import images of body parts diagrams, biochemical processes, or flow charts and insert particular shapes to block texts that label some of these parts through these cards.
Anki Vs. Quizlet for Medical School
Anki and Quizlet are both effective platforms to study your content if you are a student in medical school. However, they have their differences that would push you to choose one over the other. Below, we list several features that may differentiate between the two and guide you on the best platform to employ as a medical student.
- Study Modes
Anki utilizes the digital flashcards study mode. Through this platform, you will create your own cards of medical content or import those already created by other medical students and educators. Through spaced repetition, you can review these flashcards daily with the order of the most difficult ones coming first.
On the other hand, Quizlet offers five study modes for you to utilize as a medical student. These modes include Learn, Digital Flashcards, Test, Spell, and Write. In addition, this platform offers two games to help you understand your medical content better, and these are Match and Gravity.
Comparing the two in terms of study modes, it is clearly evident that Quizlet is the superior platform. It offers more study modes than Anki.
- Cost of the Products and Services
Most of Anki’s products and services are free. That means that you can access Anki Desktop, AnkiDroid, and Anki Web for free. The only time you have to pay a fee is when downloading the Anki Mobile for your iOS device, in which case you will pay $ 25 for the app.
On the other hand, Quizlet will offer you a seven-day free trial period. However, after the trial period is terminated, you will have to pay a monthly subscription fee of $ 2.99 for the Quizlet Go option or pay a $ 3.99 per month subscription fee to enjoy the Quizlet Plus option.
Comparing the two in terms of pricing, Anki is clearly cheaper than Quizlet.
Anki and Quizlet have their desirable features and weaknesses. Therefore, as a medical student, select the one with features that appropriately suit your study habits and pockets.
- User Interface
Most Anki users would agree that Anki’s interface looks old-fashioned and outdated. This clunky look often makes it challenging for first-time users to maneuver the site comfortably. However, when you get used to the interface, it becomes more comfortable to exploit and utilize.
Nevertheless, Quizlet’s user interface is more friendly and artistically attractive. If you are a medical school student using this site for the first time, you will find it quite intuitive and comfortable to navigate around.
Quizlet comes out first when you compare the two platforms in terms of the friendliness of their user interface. Therefore, if the comfortability of navigating a site is an issue for you, Quizlet is the option to go for.
Conclusion
So, is Anki worth it? Yes, anki is worth it for students and especially medical students since it is the perfect study partner for schools when studying. It allows its users to create flashcards are are helpful when trying to understand complex concepts when trying.