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Comment by siva7

8 hours ago

It was a fascinating symbiotic between nerdy med students from all over the world and an obscure open source flashcard app that originally targeted language learners. I've been part of that community for many years and would have never foreseen this outcome but in hindsight it seems the best path forward for anki.

Amazing. A few nerdy med students and I started a student group for tech back in 2009 or so, a big part early on was preaching Mnemosyne (another SRS app), with shared decks syncing over a free Dropbox account.

Later used Repetitions (iOS / Mac / web) for the steps, EM boards, and informatics boards most recently.

Only within the last year finally tried Anki -- and this time for language.

I don't think it's just for nerdy med students nowadays. Who studied for Step I without it? And How? (And Why? :)

  • If one is of a certain age, of course they studied for step I without it

    and the classic method was the inspiration for Anki to begin with: making your own flashcards on index cards! You could do a version of spaced repetition by shuffling the deck.

    Not sure the digital version is actually easier or more effective

  • Step 1 is pass/fail now. If I had to redo it and just pass, I don't think it would be necessary to use anki now (except maybe for something Sketchy).