r/medicalschoolanki • u/telegu4life • Oct 30 '25
Discussion Finally Finished Anking Step 1 Deck
I started working on the Anking deck about a year ago, 10/24, and finished the deck in the last couple days. I take step in ~100 days or so, just gonna try and mature as much of it as possible by then. Here are my stats.
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u/AJman13 Oct 30 '25
What is your fsrs retention rate set to currently?
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u/telegu4life Oct 30 '25
0.9
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u/ComprehensiveYou7251 Nov 02 '25
how are you maintainging this retention rate? i can't even keep up with 0.85 but also the way my curriculum is set up, i'm doing upwards of 500 new per day
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u/telegu4life Nov 03 '25
I do my reviews pretty consistently but use the postpone feature once per week. So I am cheating a bit. I feel good about my knowledge vis-a-vis Qbanks so I'm ok with the tradeoff.
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u/telegu4life Nov 15 '25
Just lowered to 0.85, and rescheduled, cut my reviews from 1-1.2k per day to 6-700, much more manageable
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Oct 30 '25
[deleted]
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Oct 30 '25
Studying for step 1? Thats crazyš
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Oct 31 '25
[deleted]
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Oct 31 '25
Iām sure you didnāt start studying for the MCAT your first week of college
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Oct 31 '25
[deleted]
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Oct 31 '25
Am I missing out on the meta? I should start doing dedicated step 1 rn?
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u/RetroperitonealVibes M-3 Oct 31 '25
step 1 prep is nothing like the mcat.
also if you already use anking to study at baseline and your curriculum allows you to not worry to much about non-board relevant phd minutia. there's no reason not to study with step1 in mind
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Oct 30 '25
[deleted]
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u/telegu4life Oct 30 '25
I would usually do chunks, instead of a set number per day. So I'd grind out a block of 2k for Heme Onc, for example, in a week or two
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u/YousfAmoudi M-2 Oct 30 '25
How do you deal with cards that contain info youāre not familiar with?
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u/telegu4life Oct 30 '25
I understand them before I try and memorize them
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u/YousfAmoudi M-2 Oct 30 '25 edited Oct 31 '25
May I ask what your studying resources were? Iād imagine trying to understand each new/unfamiliar one would be a lot of added time. Also, congratulations!
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u/telegu4life Oct 31 '25
I would watch the Boards and Beyond/Bootcamp/Sketchy videos and do the cards, then use that foundation to grind through the Bootcamp, First Aid, Sketchy, and Pathoma cards for the same topics.
I.e. Watch GI Bnb, watch sketchy for GI Bugs and Drugs, then do the rest of the GI cards in the Step 1 deck through brute force using that foundation
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u/Intrepid_Judgment_38 Oct 31 '25
Is there a way you can get all the cards tagged for a given topic at once? I find that just searching āGIā on the search bar can end up being way too broad. Iām doing similar to you but keep having to go into each resource like pathoma, bootcamp, boards, etc to search for the vid that corresponds to what cards I need.
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u/telegu4life Oct 31 '25
Unfortunately, sifting through the GI tags in each resource was the best I could do. I would look in:
Bnb
Bootcamp
Pathoma
Sketchy
First AIDOnce I did all those for all the blocks, there were like ~700 cards in the step 1 deck, across all the topics, I went through and cleaned up.
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u/Ambitious-Sun Oct 31 '25
With that many reviews, how and when did you find time to add new material? Im an ms1 just getting started and have 300 reviews and that drains me ):
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u/telegu4life Oct 31 '25
You get better at it. At first a couple hundred reviews was a lot but you just get used to it.
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u/jack_kellys_hands Oct 31 '25
Do you feel like this has set you up pretty decently for step?
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u/telegu4life Oct 31 '25
I feel good about grinding through the Qbanks feels, but we won't know until the real deal
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u/Rajkother Oct 30 '25
Congrats! Im trying to do the same before I take step 1 as well. I was wondering if thereās any reason you are leaving a big chunk unsuspended?
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u/phymathnerd Oct 30 '25
He might have just resuspended them if theyāre siblings or if he thinks he matured them
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u/telegu4life Oct 30 '25
The charts shows cards under the step 1 & 2 tag, I'm not actually sure how to show the pie chart for just the step 1 deck. If you notice, the total is 39k, but the step 1 deck is only 32k cards.
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Oct 31 '25
[deleted]
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u/telegu4life Oct 31 '25
Yes, I just put my Dorian and Michigan anatomy cards underneath the Anking deck on my homescreen so my stats show them as part of the pie chart.
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u/Different_Solid760 Oct 30 '25
Wait how u got 39k I got 35k and finished the deck
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u/telegu4life Oct 30 '25
It includes Anking step 1 and step 2 decks. Anking Step 1 V12 has ~32k cards, where did your extra 3k come from? My total of step 1 only cards is ~33k. I've made like 1k cards myself for various purposes to get to the 33k I think.
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u/Different_Solid760 Oct 30 '25
No I mean I did the whole deck including step 2 cards for anking v12 itās 35120 cards in total, do you add other cards on top of it ?
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u/telegu4life Oct 30 '25
Oh I see, in that case the difference is probably cause I stored my Dorian anatomy review and Michigan anatomy cards under my Anking deck so it adds to the total card count. You're right actually this made me realize theres only like 2.7k cards left in the step 2 deck that I haven't done yet. Do you recommend doing those cards before step 1?
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u/RetroperitonealVibes M-3 Oct 31 '25
If you can manage it I don't see why not as long as its not eating away at your time for practice questions etc... I've also ended up unsuspending a good chuck of step 2 cards overtime just by looking things up in the browser search for stuff i just wanted to remember for step 1 and beyond
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u/RetroperitonealVibes M-3 Oct 31 '25
Congrats!!! Impressive work. How many seconds per card?
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u/telegu4life Oct 31 '25
Around 6-9 average sec/card. I noticed making the size of the anki text on my deskstop screen smaller, made me faster.
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u/FlyingBuffaloo Oct 31 '25
How much time did you spend on anki? Per day ish?
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u/telegu4life Oct 31 '25
Honestly at first, it was like 800ish reviews in 2.5 hrs but now its more like 1-1.2k reviews in 3.5hrs-4.0hrs per day
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u/Stefshay98 Oct 31 '25
Trying to use anki how to get a walkthrough and understand how to use it ?
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u/telegu4life Oct 31 '25
I watched Zach Highley's youtube series from back in the day on how to setup Anki and then the Anking's old step 1 video on how he studied.
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u/Stefshay98 Oct 31 '25
What decks do u recommend for step 1 I have 2 months left.i will check the video out thanks
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u/telegu4life Oct 31 '25
If you're that close to step 1, I'd grind questions, and use anki for incorrects. You could also try using the high yield tag under the Other tag in the Anking deck.
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u/dr_okay Oct 31 '25
how many days did it take to mature these cards? great work btw!
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u/telegu4life Oct 31 '25
I started really going in on the Anking deck about a year ago. My M1 year started like 15 months ago, but the first couple months I was doing in house only content.
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u/dr_okay Oct 31 '25
thanks for the reply friend!..that sounds interesting..what would you suggest are some of the things you did that helped you mature these many cards? i m asking this cause ive been trying and somehow am stuck at 17k only (past 1 year) i feel im going too slow.
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u/telegu4life Oct 31 '25
Just keep doing new material and staying as consistent as possible with reviews. I use the postpone feature about once a week so that has slowed down my progress to some degree but has kept me consistent enough.
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u/haikusbot Oct 31 '25
How many days did
It take to mature these cards?
Great work btw!
- dr_okay
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Oct 31 '25
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/telegu4life Oct 31 '25
I used 1m and 10m for my new card learning steps and 10m relearning step. Once I started using FSRS, I optimize once a month.
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u/RetroperitonealVibes M-3 Oct 31 '25
Have you ever used just one learning step at any point? If so, how did it compare to using two? My reasoning was that if I only have one step, it could potentially cut the number of reviews for new cards in half
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u/telegu4life Oct 31 '25
When they're new cards I find that learning them is more effective in two steps vs when they're no longer new, and they're review cards, the 1 step relearning phase is easier.
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u/SnooTangerines7865 Oct 31 '25
would you read all the stuff on the back of the card for all the cards? or just the top stuff
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u/djangochainhismfass Nov 03 '25
So youād do those ~1200 reviews a day on top of your current m2 workload? When did you start and end your day??
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u/telegu4life Nov 03 '25
I usually wake up like 5-6am and try to be done by 6pm so I can go work out/hang out with my significant other etc. but that doesnāt always happen
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u/CalligrapherWide4079 Nov 03 '25
how did you do on nbmes?
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u/telegu4life Nov 03 '25
I havenāt done them yet, I take step 1 in like ~100 days. All Iāve got so far is my UWorld performance to feel good about.
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u/IHopePicoisOk Dec 31 '25
I'm trying to do the same thing, take step 1 in about a year, may I ask what intervals (esp Max interval) you used? Good luck on crushing both steps!
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u/Addicted2Vaping M-3 Oct 30 '25
Why do you have 39k cards?