This deck is a mostly comprehensive deck for USMLE Step 2. It combines the best parts of Dorian and Zanki Step 2 and merges with the Step 1 deck. It is also forever updatable so we as a medical school community can continually update it for new content. We originally shared it on reddit with this post. Learn vocabulary, terms and more with flashcards, games and other study tools. UWorld to Step 1 score conversions So there are these 2 score conversion charts which correlate how people do on UWorld first pass to their eventual Step 1. Uworld or Combank for COMAT Shelf Exams: medicalschool reddit. UWorld Coupon 2020 go to uworld. Moved NBME or UWorld question screenshots from the Extra field to the Additional Resources field. Added this deck off reddit which contains a lot of information from UWorld and AMBOSS Qbanks that is not currently in the deck. Added a!Shelf tag that combines everything needed for specific shelf exams.
We all know med school is tough and the amount of information required to memorize is tremendous. So obviously the question begs why not make it easy on yourself and use some powerful tools?
Anki is an open source flashcard software. If you’re here, you likely know how popular it is among med school students. Since it’s open source, anyone can build on top of it. So we decided to compile a list of most popular add-ons we heard from our users!
You can find the free add-ons on the Anki website to improve your Anki experience.
There are hundreds of add-ons by other Anki users. With every Anki update, more functionality is added, especially through support of more add-ons.
We have categorized these Anki add-ons to make it easy to find what you are looking for. While these Anki add-ons are great for med students, they can be used by other students or casual learners as well.
To install an Anki add-on, go to the tools menu and then Add-ons, then click on Browse & Install and paste in the code. Here's also a video that explains this process.
With that, let’s get started.
Gamification
These add-ons will bring some fun to your learning habits.
Pokemanki
Updates: Regular
Popularity: Very popular (73 upvotes)
Description: The Pokemanki add-on will keep you motivated to use Anki by letting you catch and train Pokemons inside your deck. It gives you a hatchable Pokemon egg for each lowest-level deck that you start learning. Your Pokemon will keep on leveling up as you review and learn the cards in the deck. They might even evolve.
You can access your Pokemons under your Stats screen. They will be above all your figures and charts. You will be able to see Pokemons for specific decks and their origin. Just review the deck to keep on training them.
Anki code: 633922407
Kitten Rewards
Updates: Infrequent
Popularity: Somewhat popular (15 upvotes)
Description: Kittens rule the internet, and they have taken over Anki decks as well. Kitten Rewards is an Anki add-on which acts as an excellent learning motivator. This add-on has a simple concept: it adds a 'cute kitten' on the congrats screen after a deck is finished. So if you lack motivation to study, use this add-on to get back on track.
What's more? You can upload your own kitten pictures as well :)
Anki code: 1627107763
Anki Fanfare
Updates: Infrequent
Popularity: Somewhat popular (14 upvotes)
Description: Anki fanfare is another cool add-on if you want to add a particular theme to your flashcard review. For example, there’s a trout theme and a Bruce Lee theme. The trout theme shows pictures of trout, and the Bruce Lee theme shows you sayings from the Master. Be like water?
It has so many themes that you can use with your cards. Simply download a particular theme and unzip it to 'fanfare/user_files'.
Users have reviewed this add-on writing that they get a 'dopamine hit' every time they finish a card.
Anki code: 2073603704
Anki Habitat
Updates: Regular
Popularity: Somewhat popular (14 upvotes)
Description: A little RPG magic always does the trick. No, we are not talking about Skyrim — you might never do any learning around Skyrim. But this little RPG integrated into the Anki software can take you a long way when it comes to finding a little motivation while reviewing those cards.
Anki Habitat is supported across platforms. It works by adding points to your Habitica stats as you progress through your cards. With these points added to your Habitica character, you can battle your friends and slay monsters.
It's a really cool add-on if you already use Habitica. If not, give it a try and motivate yourself to achieve your goals. Over 2,000,000 people are having fun through Habitica while achieving their goals.
Anki code: 1758045507
Productivity
Some Anki plugins to boost your productivity and ace your card review.
Polar Connect - PDF and Incremental Reading with Anki Sync
Updates: Regular
Popularity: Very popular (45 upvotes)
Description: Polar is a document manager, reader, and learning tool all in one. Have you ever had to study from a book or a website and then create flashcards based on what you’re reading? Well, Polar is your tool. With Polar, you can auto-convert any annotation, highlight, or comment in one click into a flashcard.
The Polar add-on for Anki establishes a communication channel between Polar and Anki to easily sync flashcards from Polar to Anki.
Finally, Polar simplifies managing a reading list with tags, groups, reading progress tracking, and more
Anki code: 734898866
More Overview Stats
Updates: Infrequent
Popularity: Popular (38 upvotes)
Description: As the name indicates, this Anki plugin adds more stats to your overview page. This way you can keep track of your learning progress. It even adds colors to the labels for a different touch to the Anki stats page. When you hover over the colors, they show you the cards in the following order: new, learn, review, buried, and suspended.
Anki code: 2116130837
Batch Editing
Updates: Regular
Popularity: Popular (66 upvotes)
Description: The Batch Editing add-on for Anki adds a new menu item to the card browser, which allows you to do two things: Batch-add information/media to a specific field, batch-replace the contents of any particular field.
The changes that you make are applied to all selected notes that are featured in the field.
Here's an instructional video on how to use this add-on.
Anki code: 291119185
Visual upgrades
Visual upgrades to Anki enhance the way it looks, giving it room for more memory cues and helping you learn faster.
Night Mode
Updates: Regular
Popularity: Very popular (383 upvotes - I mean, seriously, who doesn’t love night mode?)
Description: The history of night modes can be traced back to Windows Phone 7. The feature was added to the now-dead OS to reduce battery consumption as entirely black pixels didn't emit any light on OLED screens. Since then, night mode as a feature in apps and software has come a long way.
It's one the best Anki add-ons for medical students as they can recharge their deck review (even at night) by modifying Anki to having an all-black background. The add-on gives you the option to automatically (timer) or manually turn on the night mode. You can even invert colors of images or latex formulas and define custom color substitution rules.
Anki code: 1496166067
Button Colors
Updates: Infrequent
Popularity: Very popular (111 upvotes)
Description: If you need some rigorous learning done through Anki, then you might as well use some colors. You must know that the Anki's deck page has buttons defined as 'Good', 'Easy', and 'Again' to update the time between iterations on a card.
This add-on only imitates the impact of colors on humans: red is known to pose a bit of danger, and you are good to go when things are green. This add-on makes the 'Good' button green and the 'Again' button red.
'I'm a simple man. I see colours, I click like.' — add-on review.
Anki code: 2494384865
Full Screen Toggle
Updates: Infrequent
Popularity: Somewhat popular (14 upvotes)
Description: Medical studies require a high amount of focus. There are so many new terms coming in, and you wouldn't want to entertain any distractions as you try to get through them.
This add-on does what it says — it adds F11 key binding so that you can toggle full screen on Anki. You can also find this feature in the Tools menu. With this add-on at hand, you can cast all the distractions aside.
Anki code: 1612375712
Customize Keyboard Shortcuts
Updates: Frequent
Popularity: Popular (44 upvotes)
Description: The Keyboards Shortcuts add-on is designed to increase your efficiency on the Anki app. It allows you to change the shortcuts on the main page, the editor window, the review window, and the deck browser window.
You can head over to Tools > Add-ons> Custom Shortcuts and click Config to change each shortcut inside Anki.
Anki code: 24411424
Usability
The add-ons under this category add extra features to the way you use Anki. With these add-ons in action, you can do much more than just reviewing your deck.
ImageResizer
Updates: Infrequent
Popularity: Popular (67 upvotes)
Description: The whole point of Anki is to make memorization more efficient. Now imagine this: you plan out your cards, add images, and at the review time, you realize that the pictures are too small or big.
With the ImageResizer add-on, you can resize all the images to the desired format and make sure that the image size is not a problem anymore. To change the shortcut and the size of the photos you are using, click on Tools, and then go to ImageResizer. The add-on page has a great tutorial to figure out exactly how to use this add-on to your advantage.
Anki code: 1214357311
Image Occlusion Enhanced
Updates: Frequent
Popularity: Very popular (159 upvotes)
Description: Have you ever had to remember body parts from an image? Probably… :) A quick and effective way to remember these names is by hiding parts of an image in your card and then testing your knowledge of that hidden information.
The Occlusion Enhanced Addon is designed to do just that. You can use it to memorize things better by hiding labels in a diagram, and then revealing them. The cards generated under this add-on are described as 'mage-based cloze-deletions'.
There's even a series of video tutorials on how to use the add-on.
Anki code: 1374772155
AwesomeTTS
Updates: Infrequent
Popularity: Popular (74 upvotes)
Description: The AwesomeTTS add-on makes it easier for medical students to learn new terms by adding speed to their card decks. It has the option to store MP3 or speech to the collection. And yes, you can generate MP3 files on the go.
Click here to find their documentation, including their usage, service, and configuration.
Anki code: 427598962
Batch Download Pictures From Google Images
Updates: Frequent
Popularity: Somewhat popular (10 upvotes)
Description: Wouldn’t it be great if you can batch download pictures to Anki through an add-on so that you can later use them in your cards? This add-on for Anki downloads pictures from Google Images into a destination field. You also get to select how many pictures to download and choose the maximum height and width for them.
The add-on is fast and takes about 3 seconds to download a picture.
Anki code: 561924305
Web Browser - Search terms, Import texts and images automatically
Updates: Regular
Popularity: Somewhat popular (24 upvotes)
Description: Web browsers can be a distraction. You sit with Anki open on your computer, and next thing you know, you are browsing memes on Reddit ;)
This add-on prevents you from opening your computer's web browser by installing a native browser to Anki. It has a simple browser that lets you search words on the internet and then later import the information to your card.
Uworld Step 1 Anki Deck
Anki code: 864545277
Review Heatmap
Updates: Regular
Popularity: Popular (50 upvotes)
Description: While studying, it's always great to track your progress. Anki does come with some stats that you can look at, but the Review Heatmap add-on gives you an advanced tracking functionality. It's a great Anki plugin for med students as it shows you your daily review averages, days learned, current streak, and longest streak.
The newest release for Anki 2.1 is still in Beta, and you can download it from here. This Anki plugin also integrates well with the Night Mode add-on.
Anki code: Suggested download from the beta page on GitHub.
Summary
Here you have it folks. These Anki add-ons for medical students can save you valuable time and totally redefine the way you use Anki to learn and retain new information. Most of these plugins come with great support and documentation to make their usage as easy as possible.
If you have other add-ons you think med students should use, do let us know.
Target: 255+
Score: 273
First of all, we have to talk about the foundation of basic subjects in medical school. I did basic sciences for the first 2.5 years in my med school and I passed an exam similar to step 1 in the end. So I had to review my basic sciences a couple of times. In addition, I knew I would eventually have to pass USMLEs when I entered medical school so, in addition to the big books (like Robbins and Guyton) that we studied there, I would also supplement some Pathoma, Kaplan or Goljan to build more USMLE-specific knowledge. Therefore, my foundation was good because I had done some of the USMLE review books here and there besides my big textbooks and overall I was a pretty good student.
Because of that, I never did relatively large review books for my actual Step 1 prep (like Kaplan and Goljan, which include a lot of low-yield information), except for some small subjects.
One thing that was a little bit of a challenge for me was lack of extra time besides my med school so I didn’t really have much chance of working solely on step 1 until 5th year which for me started in September 2018. Even then, I had to do step 1 with clinical rotations. At the end of 5th year, I had to pass an exam similar to Step 2 CK in my med school so I had to drop all my Step 1 prep and study for that. I also had to participate in a lot of extracurricular activities. So I had a huge gap from May 2019 to October 2019.
At the end of October, I had to do some med school stuff too but it was a lot lighter than before. So that’s when I did some real studying. I started my dedicated period in December and wrote the exam on March 12th, 2020.
Now I will break down the study process. Before I get into it, I want to say that for me, learning medicine always had two parts – understanding and memorization. There is no point in memorization until you have understood the concept.
Complete Uworld Qbank For USMLE Step 1
Sources used for USMLE step 1:
Uworld Anki Deck Reddit
- BnB (everything except for what I did in Kaplan)
- Kaplan (Biochemistry, Molecular, Genetics, Immunology)
- Pathoma
- Sketchy (Micro)
- Anatomy Shelf Notes
- UWorld
- FirstAid USMLE Step 1
Uworld Anki Deck
First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 2020 PDF Direct Download
Anki Decks used for Step 1:
- Zanki (Biochem, Immunology, Basic Pathology, Reproductive)
- Lolnotacop (Follows sketchy micro and uworld micro)
- Lightyear (everything else – follows Boards and Beyond and FA)
- Dorian’s Anatomy Deck
I am separating Anki altogether because if I had to separate one source that helped me get this score, it would be Anki. Those of you who don’t know about it, it’s a flashcard platform that automatically organizes patterns of spaced repetition (frequency by which you see each learned card after you have studied it). It can be used on PC, Mac, Android, iOS. You can search it on YouTube, there are tons of tutorials on how to use it. The best thing is, you don’t even have to make your own cards, there are pre-made Step 1 decks available on MedSchoolAnki and Reddit. I have listed the decks that I used above.
Studying process for USMLE Step 1:
I didn’t really have any fixed schedule because of other things I had to do along with step 1. I would watch as many videos as possible in the time I had each day and I would review them via PDFs the next morning. In the case of Kaplan, I just read through the PDFs, those videos are too slow for me. I love BnB videos though. They are quick, thorough and always get right to the point. When I was done with the subject/system in BnB/Kaplan/Pathoma, I would review it with FA. All this time, I also did Anki (New cards in the evening, after studying and reviews in the morning). Always do Anki. Seeing those concepts multiple times throughout your prep time is what locks them in your brain.
In my dedicated 3 months, I did Uworld and Anki along with Self-Assessments. I would get up at 8 am, take an hour for the morning routine and then a whole day of studying until 10 pm. After 10 pm I would watch some Netflix and go to sleep at 12.
Now I know a lot of people start using Uworld right away along with other study materials to primarily study from it and they don’t really care about the scores they get on it. I have nothing against that, it’s a proven method and it works. I personally didn’t touch Uworld until I covered everything before my dedicated period. For me, it was kind of an assessment tool besides a learning tool. That made me look forward to each block I wrote. I would write one block (random, timed – makes it feel like the real thing) in the evening and review the questions the next day (both correct and incorrect, there is so much that I learnt from the questions I answered correctly). I made my own Anki cards from the information that I wasn’t familiar with in those explanations. I also did my Anki reviews (like I said, always do Anki. Make sure you don’t forget anything).
So, my dedicated was 3 months of UW, Anki, Self-assessments. Many people use FA with UW but I ended up reading FA just once in my whole prep. Anki replaced it for me.
Self-assessments for Step 1:
- NBME 18 – 257 (2.5 months out, UW 30% done)
- UWSA1 – 277 (1.5 months out, UW 60% done)
- NBME 23 – 252 (1 month out, UW 80% done. Tough one.)
- AMBOSS Self-Assessment – 266 (2 weeks out, UW almost done)
- UWSA2 – 277 (1 week out, UW done)
- Free 120 – 90% (3 days out)
- NBME 24 – 269 (2 days out)
- Uworld First (and only) Pass: 92,3%
I was pretty nervous before the exam but it all went away once I started writing the test. It wasn’t tiring at all during the process but I felt how exhausted I was after the exam ended. I marked 10-15 questions per block but I tend to mark many questions. If I’m not 100% sure about the answer, I mark it.
The test itself was harder than UW and NBMEs. The stems were long and the answers – vague. They didn’t really give you buzzwords like they do in Uworld tests. Definitely do at least one of the new NBMEs. The real thing was abundant in ethics and weird anatomy questions, just like new NBMEs.
The 3 week waiting period was the worst, especially because of the COVID-19 lockdown. I didn’t think I did well compared to my self-assessments because there were a lot of questions that I wasn’t 100% sure about. I thought I was in the high 250s or low 260s but I didn’t really imagine 270s. I thought it was almost impossible on the real thing. Therefore, you can imagine my reaction when I found out.
Thank you if I didn’t bore you and you made it this far 🙂
Good luck on your exam!