Every medical student has had occasional (or near-constant) thoughts that there aren’t nearly enough hours in the day. Class lectures, lab courses, discussion groups, assignments, clinic work, research projects, applications…it all adds up. For those of you using the Yousmle method, you already know the number of hours you can free up in your day simply by studying more efficiently. Here, I outline 9 tips to make even better Anki cards, streamline your studying, and free up time for life. Even if you don’t use Anki (yet) for your studying, many of these tips can help you save hours each day!

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The best place to find existing and new, upcoming Anki Pharmacology decks is the r/medicalschoolanki community. Using the search function there can uncover hidden gems that otherwise aren’t featured on the community sidebar along with all other popular subject-specific Anki decks.

The Must-Have Add-Ons to Make the Most Out of Anki. Anki is a powerful piece of software that allows you to put control of your memory into your own hands. And with add-ons, you can make Anki even more powerful. Now, Anki is plenty powerful on its own, and you don’t need add-ons to use it to become the master of your memory. AnkiMobile is a paid companion to the free computer program, for use on Apple devices. By purchasing the app, you help to support Anki's future development. If you can't afford the app, you can still use AnkiWeb. Android Devices. AnkiDroid is written by a separate group of people. This list contains a total of 25+ apps similar to Anki. Content-agnostic flash card software that supports audio, images, and videos via LaTeX. If you're looking for more info about Anki like screenshots, reviews and comments you should visit our info page about it. Below you find the best alternatives.

Table of Contents

1. Quick, Customized Screenshots for Media Cards

As the USMLE Step 1 exam continues to become more and more clinical, your ability to recognize every diagnostic clue is critical. Just like pharmacology = free points on the USMLE Step 1 exam, improving your simple recognition of histologic/radiologic findings can dramatically boost your score.

For Mac: to take screenshots of your entire screen and save it to the clipboard, hold “Command ⌘” + “control” + “shift,”then press “3“. You will hear the sound of a camera shutter. Then simply hit “Command ⌘” + “V” to paste it to your Anki “add card” fields. If you would like to take a screenshot of a particular part of your screen, hold down “Command ⌘” + “control” + “shift,”then press “4“. You will see a crosshair, which will allow you to highlight the area you would like to copy to your clipboard.

Here, I have use the “Command ⌘” + “control” + “shift,” then “4” command to copy an image to my clipboard. I then take that image, and copy it directly to an Anki card that will ask to identify what disease it is seen in.

For PC: Locate the “PrtScn” button at the top right of the keyboard. This will copy the active window to your clipboard. From there, you can paste it directly into your Anki card, or you can open the Paint application, paste it in there, and crop out parts you want to eliminate.

For a PC/Mac/Mobile complete tutorial, visit this website.

2. Reverse Cards

This option uses your card template to create two cards instead of one. This is particularly useful for reinforcing difficult-to-remember information, particularly since the USMLE Step 1 has so many different ways to ask questions. For example, you could be asked to identify hydralazine by name, or they might give you the mechanism of hydralazine and force you to identify it among the mechanisms of other drugs.

Normally, when you create an Anki card, it takes the “Front” field, in this case “Hydralazine – mechanism,” and uses that as the question. The answer, then, comes from the “Back” field (currently blank). A “Reverse” card takes the “Back” field, using it as the question, and turns the “Front” field into the answer. Here is how you set it up:

First, click on the Anki card “Type” (Basic).

Next, select “Basic (optional reversed card)”. This will add a new box below the “Back” field, called “Add Reverse.”

If you would like a forward card and reverse card, type “y” into the “Add Reverse” box. If you would like only a forward card, simply leave it blank.

NOTE: it is easy to get carried away with reversed cards. Remember that if you reverse every card you make, you essentially make 2x the number of cards. Like all things in life, moderation will likely yield the best results.

3. Balance Information in the Forward and Reverse Directions by Rating the Difficulty (1-10)

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Continuing with the “Forward/Reverse” theme, this tip is to get the most out of your forward and reverse cards. In particular, when most people begin with this, they load up all of the facts to recall on one side of the card, and make it relatively simple in the reverse. Pharmacology, again, is a common place to see this in. For example, consider the following example of a drug use (hydralazine). Here, you can see that the forward direction (4 items) is MUCH more difficult than the reverse (1 item – the name).

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A useful exercise is to “Rate” your cards 1-10 based on how difficult you anticipate them to be. For example, the forward question, with 4 items, not all of which can be related to each other, would rate rather high, probably a 6-7. However, the reverse question would be much easier, which I would rate 2-3. Ideally, the difficulty of the forward/reverse cards would be similar, to minimize the number of repetitions,

Instead, it can be useful to move one or more facts from the forward to the reverse direction. Which you choose is up to you, but generally it makes reviews easier if you transfer item(s) that are most different from the others. For example:

Using forward and reverse cards, combined with balancing the difficulty in both directions can vastly speed up making cards, as well as Anki card review!

4. Use Audio Files to Crush USMLE Heart Sounds

As more and more audio files, particularly heart sounds, make their way onto the USMLE exams, the more important it is to include recognition of sounds into your repertoire. You can do much more with Anki than put in text and pictures. Click on the “Attach pictures/audio/video button” at the top right, or just hit F3, then select a particular sound you would like to add.

5. The Ninja Method to Learn Bug/Drug Pronunciations While Improving Your USMLE Pharm Scores

Virtually no first- or second-year medical student knows the correct pronunciation of drugs. It’s almost comical to think back to my first year, when I would quietly ponder questions like, “is it thy-AY-zides, or THY-ah-zides?” During the pre-clinical years, it never feels too pressing, though, since no one else knows the pronunciation, and they don’t test pronunciation on your exams.

Then our clinical years hit, and we feel like an idiot for not knowing how ANYTHING is pronounced.

To learn the pronunciations, a student in the Online Course has been using this website.

This is a new way to add audio pronunciations to your Anki cards. You can go to this site, and find the term you need, and download it.

From there, you can add it to your Anki card:

Select File:

Now, whenever this side of the card is reviewed, it will play the sound of the drug! Not only will this make you a superstar on wards for knowing the correct pronunciation of ALL THE DRUGS, but it will also help you remember the names of the drugs, which is critical for the USMLE Step 1 exam.

There you have it!

I hope you found these tips helpful! However, I have learned so much from the Yousmle community, and I’m sure there are many more useful tips out there. Please leave your favorite tip below in the comment sections!

Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. ?

I’ve been learning languages on and off for more years than I’d like to count. Different books and websites and ways to figure out languages come and go, but only one always remains: Anki (available for iPhone, Android, and desktop).

Anki cards are basically digital flashcards that you can use on both your computer and your mobile device, but they’re so, so much more than that.

If you think I love Anki because it saves paper, you’re… well you’re not wrong, but you’re not completely right, either. Honestly, Anki is a dream for language learners, because instead of forcing you to learn the same terms over and over and over and over again, it puts the easy stuff to the side and drills you on what you’re having a hard time with.

Here’s an overview of all the Anki features that I love and why they make Anki the perfect tool for language learners.

How to Use Anki to Learn a Language

Anki only shows you words that you’re on the verge of forgetting. This little trick of knowing what terms to show you, and when, is known as Spaced Repetition. It’s only one of the features of Anki. Nonetheless, let me explain what Spaced Repetition is, and why you absolutely need it in your language learning life.

You Tell Anki Which Words You Find Easy, Medium or Difficult to Recall

The Anki language app works like this: you plug in your vocab, review your words for the day, then tell Anki how easy or difficult those words were to remember. You do this by selecting: easy, medium, or hard. Anki uses this information to plug these cards into its algorithm. It then waits longer and longer to show you the cards that were easier for you to remember, and shows you the most difficult ones (the ones you got wrong) right away, as if they were brand new.

As the days go by, you’ll see the timing between when you see these easier cards increases — from three days, to a week, to a couple of weeks, then a month, etc. When you remember a work correctly, Anki slowly creates more and more space between reminders for that word. This is how the Anki language app gets these cards into your long term memory, which is exactly what we’re going for. Instead of seeing the easy cards every day forever, which takes up more time than any of us have, we only see them just enough times to remember them, and at just the right time.

And that, my friends, is a major time saver. I mean, depending on how you approach your language learning, you could be learning hundreds of words, phrases, and grammatical concepts at a time! That’s a lot, and nobody has time to review every single thing over and over again. And even if that’s a thing that you do with normal flashcards, you shouldn’t just put away the easy cards forever, but, at the same time, we can’t be expected to know the optimal time for reviewing them.

So, instead, the Anki language app puts the easier stuff away for just enough time so that you can focus on what you should actually be focusing on: drilling the flashcards that your brain just doesn’t like. Then, every once in a while, it flashes an easy card at you so you don’t forget.

You Can Add Images and Audio to Anki Flashcards Too!

Although Anki’s Spaced Repetition algorithm is amazing, it’s not even the only thing it has to offer. See, these aren’t just your average “word on the front, definition on the back” flashcards. Nope, the Anki language app has a lot more.

Are you a visual learner? Do you recognize people’s faces, but can’t remember their names? Well, Anki gives you the option to upload images directly onto your card. You can add images to either side of your cards, and they can be anything. If you can’t find a picture, Anki even connects to the camera on your phone, so you can take a picture of your desk directly in the app to learn that term.

Another wonderful option for us language learners is the ability to upload audio. The amount of time you spend learning your vocab and training your ear to hear it can be combined into one, just by uploading an audio file of the word. You definitely can’t do that with normal flashcards!

Anki Can Even Help with Spelling, Sentence Structures, and More

There’s yet another way that Anki blows regular flashcards out of the water: typing. You don’t have to just stick to basic recall. You have a couple more options than that. For example, typing your terms in instead of just seeing them. I personally love this, it’s the only way I learn vocab these days.

This way, I’m not just learning to vaguely recognize the word, but I’m learning to spell it, which is important for learning to write in the language. I tell ya, it makes a world of difference to have to really understand the word and how to spell it, accents and all, as opposed to just going “yeah that word, not sure how to pronounce it or spell it, but yeah, it looks like that!”

Or, you can opt to use Anki’s “cloze” feature, which takes any part of a word, phrase, or sentence, and replaces it with an ellipsis, so you can use Anki to practice any number of things: spelling, conjugating verbs, completing a new phrase, etc.

That’s right: you can use Anki flashcards to learn to conjugate your verbs. Crazy, right? That’s much better than sitting there and copying down your “I/you/he/she/it/they/us” verb charts for all of eternity.

Anki Lets You “Borrow” Flashcard Decks from Other Language Learners

What if you love the opportunities that all these features have to offer, but you don’t want to go through the motions of making Anki cards yourself? Well, fortunately, Anki hosts shared decks. Shared decks are Anki decks created by other users made public, so anybody can access them and learn with them. And you can find a variety of topics, from languages to geography to random history facts.

If you go to the Anki shared decks, you can click through to the most popular subjects. Or, if you’re looking for something else, there’s a search bar on the upper righthand corner. Search for literally anything in the world and I can guarantee that you’ll find something. You’d be amazed by the kinds of things people are using Anki to learn.

If you’ve built up a really helpful Anki deck, you can share it, either with just a couple friends or the entire world. The Anki site is completely open to anybody to access or create any kind of cards imaginable, which is amazing. Plus, users take their Anki decks seriously, so you can find some really helpful, in-depth information.

You Can Use Anki for Language Learning on Your Laptop or Your Phone

Anki is available for both desktop and mobile, which makes it great for everybody, no matter what device you use. There are plenty of language learning services out there that only work on mobile (which, even though I’m more than comfortable using my phone, is still incredibly annoying to me), and others that don’t offer the same functionality on mobile.

Fortunately, Anki is almost exactly the same both on desktop and mobile, which I love. It’s simple enough that I’m totally okay just using the mobile app, but there’s really no difference between it and the desktop version – the desktop app is just bigger text on a bigger screen.

And I know what you’re thinking: “it must be complicated, though, to keep track of where you are in your flashcards between two different devices!” Well, it’s not. Both devices sync easily to the Anki database. Not only do you not lose your cards if something happens to a computer or phone, but you just need to check back in with the database when switching devices to make sure you’re all up to date.

What do you have to do to sync? Refresh your page (on mobile) or press a button (on desktop). And that’s it. Anki syncs deleted cards, new cards, edited cards, recently reviewed cards… everything. And because the program is so bare-bones, it’s quick. So even if you need a good refresh on your device, you won’t have to wait long before studying.

Anki Cards: Ugly, But Worth It

We live in this glorious age of technology where everything is beautiful. We get huge, 4k Ultra HD TVs, cute apps on our phones that make little noises, and fun memorization games. So I get it when you first take a look at Anki and you’re underwhelmed. We’re spoiled by pretty tech and Anki is definitely not pretty.

It’s, honestly, the ugliest language learning resource on the market. But it’s also the best. I use it every single day, I’m obsessed. Other websites try to do a similar thing, and they’re much more aesthetically pleasing, but they just don’t have the power that Anki has. Duolingo and Memrise, for example, are really pretty programs that attempt Spaced Repetition but don’t quite hit the mark. Nobody does flashcards better than Anki cards. Pretty is great, but it’s not everything.

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So there you have it. In my opinion, the one language learning resource that every language learner needs. There is no better way to learn your vocab, practice conjugations, passively practice listening, or any number of other skills that you can improve with Anki’s options. I know, it’s ugly, but looks aren’t everything!

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Want to try it for yourself? Anki is available for iPhone, Android, and desktop.