As a student, you have a lot of information
to understand and memorize for your tests. If you have powerful photographic memory,
your job is much easier. But if you’re one of us mere mortals, then
you face two issues: first, you don’t remember everything you should, and second, it takes
too much time to memorize! What if I told you you could have your cake
and eat it too? Here’s how you can boost your memory, memorize
more facts, and spend less time doing it. Dr. Jubbal, MedSchoolInsiders.com. For more lessons, insights, and tips, follow
me on Instagram @medschoolinsiders. Now there are different types of memory, such
as procedural memory, like knowing how to swing a golf club, and declarative memory,
like being able to recite and draw the cervical plexus for your anatomy exam. We care about semantic memory, which is a type of declarative
memory, which is what’s going to help you get an A on your chemistry final and a 525
on the MCAT. From examining neural networks in sea snails
to caring for amnesic patients with localized lesions, neuroscientists have learned a great
deal as to how human memory works and how to squeeze the most utility out of our hippocampi. The hippocampi are the centers in our brain that store long term memory. Looking back over a century ago, we can thank
the psychologist Herman Ebbinghaus for studying his own memory and generating what is now
known as the Forgetting Curve. In its simplest terms, the Forgetting Curve
demonstrates that after forming a memory, we gradually forget more and more of it as
time elapses. Retrieving memories is a separate process
from storing them, and this too is imperfect. That’s why eye witness reports are notoriously
unreliable. We know from neuroscience fundamentals that
repetition potentiates neural connections and allows us to remember information more
effectively. The problem is that we have far too much information
to learn - we can’t repeat every fact we need to know on a daily basis. Enter the Spacing Effect. By repeated exposures to a piece of information
at increasing intervals between each repetition, we can optimize memorization and retain the
most information in the least amount of time. The key here is that you must recall the information,
and not simply recognize it. Recall refers to being given a cue and retrieving
the relevant information on your own. Recognition refers to seeing a piece of information
and finding it familiar, thinking “oh yeah I know that.” For memory purposes, recall is far superior to
recognition. This is correlate to the testing effect, whereby
being tested and having to recall a piece of information strengthens the memory encoding
process. The Spacing Effect is most powerful when the
timing is just right. If too little time elapses between repetitions,
the information is not reinforced as strongly. If too much time passes, you forget and are
unable to recall the desired information. Medical students are tasked with learning
insane amounts of information in a very short time frame. Through necessity, many have turned to less
common study tools to aid them in overcoming this seemingly insurmountable feat of knowledge. Enter spaced repetition software, the king
of which is Anki. Anki and other spaced repetition software
automate the process of scheduling facts that you need to learn in the form of flashcards. While far from perfect, Anki is the best option
we have right now. I have no affiliation with Anki, but I used
it heavily as a medical student and ascribe much of my own success to using it properly. It’s cross platform and syncs across all
your devices, which is important for reasons I will get to shortly. Inevitably, many students ask me whether or
not they should create their own cards or if using a pre-made deck is ok. There are pros and cons to each approach. If you make your own flashcards, you are implementing
a form of active learning, and therefore you will learn the information on those flashcards
faster and more effectively. Second, if you create the cards, they are
in your own words, and you’ll have no difficulty understanding them. Lastly, you can practice good flashcard principles
and best practices, which most students do not follow in creating their flashcards. Creating these ineffective and “bad” flashcards
is the most common mistake and main reason that students end up dropping Anki altogether. The main benefit to using a pre-made deck
is that you’ll save time on the card creation process. However, if you are following the principles
from this channel, you should be efficient enough to create your own cards and reap those
additional benefits. As a medical student, I always created my
own flashcards. That being said, if you find a high quality
deck with high quality cards, one could justify taking the hit in active learning for the
benefits in time savings. When learning memorization-heavy information,
like studying for the MCAT or USMLE Step 1, using Anki will not only help you learn the
information faster, but also retain it for longer periods of time. By using Anki in your biology or psych classes
as a freshman, you’ll remember more information 2 years later when you’re studying for the
MCAT. But not all information is created equal,
and for some classes I would recommend Anki, but for others you may not need it, or you
may find yourself making only a few cards. For information heavy but conceptually light
courses, like biology, sociology, or psych, your Anki reliance should be higher. Other courses, like physics and organic chemistry,
are more conceptual heavy. There is still use for flashcards for all
of these subjects, but I would make fewer cards here and prioritize doing more practice
problems instead. Some people suggest creating multiple choice
practice problem cards, but I advise agains this, as you may find yourself simply memorizing
the answer to the question, rather than reinforcing the information and concepts you need to learn. More on card creation best practices in the
part two video. If you’re a medical student, know that most
of your subjects will be quite conducive to flashcards. I have an entire playlist on how to use Anki
most effectively. If you aren’t already familiar with the
program, these short videos will get you up to speed in no time. In next week’s part two video, we’ll cover
specific best practices on how to create good flashcards. Remember, the benefits of Anki are only as
good as the flashcards you create. Now while creating good flashcards is key, the
proper daily use of Anki is equally important. Here’s how to realistically achieve a daily
practice. First, Review Strategically As a medical student, I was reviewing between
50-300 cards daily for months at a time. As someone who went into an ultra competitive
surgical specialty, there were many early mornings and late nights, limiting the amount
of time I had to review my Anki deck. So to reasonably get through all my cards and
make this habit sustainable, I learned to use any down time I had to review flashcards. Unlike studying an entire lecture, Anki cards
are self-contained, meaning reviewing even 5 cards in the course of one or two minutes
is a good use of your time. That meant cranking through 10 or 20 cards
while waiting in line for breakfast, while waiting for the elevator, or even while walking
between buildings. These few cards here and there added up quickly,
allowing me to complete most of my reviews before I got back home for the day. It’s not glamorous and it’s not easy,
but practicing cards in such a manner was one of the key factors allowing me to crush
my boards and impress attending surgeons on my audition rotations. I personally am not a fan of doing Anki for
more than 30 or 60 minutes straight. Therefore, if it was a weekend and I was spending
most of the day studying, I would set a single 25 minute Pomodoro of Anki to break up the
monotony from other studying. This is a great trick to enhance your mental
endurance over the course of the day. It’s ultimately much easier to do four chunks
of 75 cards than a single session of 300 cards. Number two, Practice Every Single Day Anki runs on an algorithm which optimizes
for learning information, but it is not easy to schedule days off. It doesn’t care if you are sick, if you
want to relax, or if you’re on vacation. It’s therefore critical you do your flashcards
every single day. This is challenging in the first few weeks
as you’re building the habit. During this time, your review burden also
builds, meaning the number of cards you are assigned to review each day. Number three, Avoid Getting Behind on Cards Inevitably, you will fall behind. You will skip a day here or there. Understand that this should be an exception,
not the rule. The more often you skip days, the harder it
is to keep up, and the less utility you will get from Anki. When you do fall behind, your best bet is to take a couple days playing
catch up to power through your overdue cards. Avoid skipping days and avoid resetting the
cards, as you’re losing valuable interval information that ultimately helps to consolidate
your semantic memory. Number four, Don’t Make Too Many Cards The two biggest reasons students fail to stick
with Anki is creating poor flashcards, which we’ll talk about in part 2, and creating
too many flashcards, resulting in an unrealistic daily review burden. Students often get carried away when first
using Anki, sometimes creating over one hundred cards for a single lecture. Understand that each card you create is a
card that you’ll have to review in the future. Practice some constraint and create cards
for more important information while leaving out the less important details. We go over how exactly to do this in a previous
video. And lastly, Be Honest with Recall vs Recognition Remember, this algorithm and the spacing effect
works best with recall, not recognition. So don’t cheat yourself. If you aren’t able to get a card correct
without flipping to see the back, then mark the card as incorrect. Often times students are forced into a situation
where they must cheat on cards for fear of an unrealistic review burden. In most instances, this can be solved by creating
better flashcards. On the other extreme, if you forget a single
word or a minor detail on a card, don’t be so hard on yourself that you never get
past the 1 day interval. In the part two video, we’ll cover the art
and science of how to create good Anki flashcards. While a big part of doing well on your tests
comes down to improving your memory, there are several other important factors you need
to optimize. Our tutors at MedSchoolInsiders.com can help
you crush the MCAT, USMLE Step 1, or any other pre-med or medical school test you need help
with. They’ve scored in the top percentiles and
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 creating desirable
results. Our tutoring is no different. We have painstakingly taken months crafting
the systems in place to provide the best quality tutoring. We examine your test taking strategies, study
methods, road blocks and sticking points, and customize a tailored plan to optimize
your performance on test day. Visit MedSchoolInsiders.com to learn more. Thank you all so much for watching. If you enjoyed the video, let me know when
a thumbs up, and comment down below if you have any questions. New videos every Saturday morning, so hit
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in that next one.
