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Premed Productivity Podcast with Dr. Andre Pinesett
Iโm Dr. Andre Pinesett and Iโd like to welcome you to the Premed Productivity Podcast, where I'm bringing 15+ years of experience as an award-winning mentor/coach to take the stress out of getting into med school with episodes designed to help you: develop a healthy mindset, study efficiently, premed smarter, dominate the MCAT and make your application stand out!
I was told I wasnโt good enough to get into medical school, but I adopted the โNo Excuses, Just Dominateโ mindset, learned the secrets of successful students and got into Stanford Medical School.
Now, I'm on a mission to empower 1 million students in 5 years by making sure that every passionate student has the information, inspiration and support they need to make their doctor dreams a reality. This podcast is all about you, the premed. I will be answering real student questions, coaching premeds and breaking down every aspect of premed and getting into med school. Enjoy!
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Premed Productivity Podcast with Dr. Andre Pinesett
Anki Users Beware: The 3 Biggest Flashcard Mistakes Youโre Probably Making!
Are you using Anki for your study sessions? ๐จ You might be making some critical flashcard mistakes that are holding you back!
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In this livestream, Iโll uncover the 3 biggest pitfalls of using Anki for flashcards and studying. From the dangers of rote memorization to time-consuming habits, Iโll break down why these flashcard mistakes can keep you from learning and how you can avoid them and start studying smarter, not harder. Whether youโre a premed student or just looking to improve your study strategies, this session is a must-watch! ๐ก
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Each week, Iโm bringing strategies for:
๐ช Locking in that bulletproof mindset.
โฐ Cutting the nonsense and getting productive.
๐ง Studying smarter, not harder.
๐ฉบ Streamlining your path to med school.
If you're serious about medicine, this is where you need to be!!
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Live action, live action guys. Dr Pinesett here, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it by showing up on time. A bunch of y'all in here today. All right, we're talking about Anki today.
Speaker 1:How many of you guys have heard that Anki is the way Anki is life. Without Anki, you will not succeed and you're trying to figure out how to implement Anki in your life. Well, today I'm going to point out three common mistakes people make with Anki and I'm going to point out three common mistakes people make with Anki and I'm going to get you on the right track with your flashcards, with your Anki, with your studying in general. So if you are ready for that, go ahead, let's get started. This is live, it's interactive, it's for you guys. So if you have questions about flashcarding, about Anki, about studying effectively, studying less, getting better grades, please put your comments in the box. You're going to take your future into your own hands. You're going to dominate. You're going to be successful. No excuses, just dominate, all right, guys. So, like I said, we're talking about Anki today and before we get into a discussion specifically about Anki, as I'm always trying to do, I'm always trying to educate you guys, inform you guys, give you all the information so that you can make real, factual, feasible, functional, effective decisions for your life. And so, with that, before we can launch into a discussion about Anki, we have to talk about studying in general for a second.
Speaker 1:I get a couple key principles of understanding down before we get into Anki. The first is that studying success when people say, oh yeah, this is a good strategy or this is a good technique, or you should do this, you should do that we have to understand that studying is not black and white. People try, let's do this, do this. Studying is not black and white, it is a million shades of gray. And when I say that, I want you guys to understand what I mean by this.
Speaker 1:Very often people tell you, hey, use Anki or Flashcard or whatever. And then you try it and it's not effective. Or you try something else oh, it works for me perfectly. I did this and it didn't work. It's because studying success isn't black and white, it's a gradient of success. So how well did it actually go? And so it might not have worked for you, but what if you iterated? What if you practiced a little bit? What if you did something slightly different in the way you approached it right. So it's how we do things and it makes this spectrum so.
Speaker 1:It's very important when someone tells you to try something, that we understand it may not work the first time we try it and it may not work because we might have misexecuted, we might have done something wrong. It's how we approach it that makes it push further along that spectrum towards an effective method versus an ineffective method. So studying success is not black and white, it's gray. And with that, what creates all that gray is that any tool, any strategy, any approach is only as good as the user using it. Any tool is only good as the user using it. It's called the good user model, meaning that if I tell you, hey, use Anki or use a flashcard, how effective those flashcards or that Anki is for getting you the A is determined in large part by how good of a user of the tool you are. So how facile you are with Anki, how facile you are with flashcards, how quality your flashcards are, and so when we have this discussion, we have to understand these two important principles and paradigms in studying, because it really shades and people tell you to do this or do that, you should look at it like hmm, am I a good user of that tool? And if I'm not, do I have the time to get up to speed to become a skilled, proficient, knowledgeable user in that tool to be able to make it effective? And then I have to understand that just when I do it, it doesn't mean it can't get better, it doesn't mean it can't be executed better. It's these small degrees of iterations and execution that succeed. And so frequently when I talk to my students, we talk about the fact that it's not about just doing something, it's about doing something at a high level. We talk about being productive, being efficient, and being productive is all about doing the right thing in the right way at the right time. And so if you aren't doing those things, then you aren't going to be able to execute at a high level and you aren't going to be the A student. That's what separates the A student, the A plus student, from the B student, is they're executing at the highest of levels.
Speaker 1:When it comes to flashcards Anki being the principal tool I like to use now because everybody likes technology and as I say this to you, I'm going to step off screen for a second because I have them here. This is an important part of this discussion. As I talk to you about Anki and flashcarding, it's important that you understand I love flashcards. Flashcards are my preferred modality, my preferred tool to learn from. I went to medical school right Went to Stanford Medical School. This is the second year of medical school. It's MS2, box two, so I was able to put all of medical school into two flashcard boxes that are this big. It's because I love flashcarding and so I've become a highly skilled user and so therefore, in that shade of gray, my skill level is like black y'all. I'm amazing at flashcarding and I love flashcards.
Speaker 1:They have the potential to have huge benefits, and the benefits of flashcards this is important when you utilize Anki or any flashcarding tool is in order to use something effectively, we have to understand what the functionality of it is right, the function, the goal, what its best use is. And, in the case of flashcards, the biggest advantage of flashcards is that they are a modality that allows for and promotes for and, structurally, will allow you to be and utilize what's called active retrieval right. We hear this word a lot active studying, active retrieval and flashcards are great for that. Why? Because there's something on the front and then you have to use that front to cue, to trigger you, to guess at and to know at what's on the back. So you have to recall from your mind what is linked to that. That's the opportunity Now as we'll talk about.
Speaker 1:Many of you guys, as students, don't actually use that great benefit of flashcards effectively. You make it flat and you actually don't even do active recall. So we just said that any tool is only good as its user, and so because flashcards allow for the potential of higher active learning doesn't mean that it's always active learning, because you can take any active learning tool and make it passive. How do we do that? Let me show you. You're doing flashcards, which is an active tool. You look at the front and you see a word or a question. You can't think of the answer, so you flip it over to the back and then you read what's on the back of the card and then you say to yourself oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that. And then you move on and then you proceed to do the same thing over and over again. That's not active recall, guys. That's not active learning, that's passive learning. It might as well be a piece of paper note, and so you have to leverage the flashcard and make it truly active and make yourself strain and struggle to remember and challenge yourself and push yourself to create an understanding through those flashcards. We have to make it active.
Speaker 1:The other way that it falls short in terms of this active retrieval is that when we talk about active retrieval, we're trying to mimic what we would have to retrieve on an exam. And when we talk about learning right, there's learning at the memorization level. Right, so rote memorization where here's a term, here's what I associate with it, right, it's the associations. And then there's learning at a functional, adaptable, applicable level, meaning if you tell me one word or one term, I can then take that term and I can talk about it in multiple different ways. I can apply it quickly and accurately in multiple different ways to attack problems and problem solving. And so when we do our flashcards, if we want to leverage the flashcard up, we have to make sure that when we're going through the active recall process, when there's a word or question either way it works on the front of the card that we are challenging ourselves not just to know what the definition is, but to understand the utility of that definition in the environment. We would need it on the exam. And so when we're actively recalling, we're not recalling the definition itself, we're recalling how it's used in how we're going to be tested on our exam.
Speaker 1:So if, for example, we're talking about physics, and okay, here's a physics question, and we have this equation okay, what are the kinematic equations? Now, on the back of all the kinematic equations, well, that's cool and everything, but on the exam, I'm going to expect you to be able to use that kinematic equation on the exam. And so memorizing the equations doesn't help you actually answer the question. I got the formula, but I can't get the answer. And so we have to push ourselves to actively recall in the mode that we're going to be asked about it. So if we have kinematic equations on the front, we have to say, okay, wait, there are different types of kinematic equations, the four of them, Okay.
Speaker 1:So what would be the scenario and the problem where I would use this kinematic equation? Okay, this would be the one where I know the speed of it and I'm trying to find the acceleration. Okay, when would I use this one? Well, this is when I know one position, but not the end position. Okay, I'm going to use this equation. Okay, how can they make this tricky? How would they present this to me? And then how would I solve it and peel the layers back and find the answer? Does that make sense to everybody what I'm saying right here?
Speaker 1:I know we said we don't talk about Anki, but we have to get to this principle first, before we can really dive in to the mistakes you're making with Anki. We have to understand these higher level principles. Whenever you're learning something, this is general learning for all you guys. If you guys are understanding what I'm saying right now, comment like this video. Let me know you guys are following me. But when we learn, we have to learn.
Speaker 1:Think about a pyramid. We have to build our foundation of knowledge and then layer more information on top of that to build a strong, sturdy, lasting pyramid. If you don't build the foundation and you're just working up in space, there's nothing anchoring, nothing holding you to the ground, nothing supporting that knowledge. And so, as I talk about Anki, you have to have a basic understanding about the fact that studying right is not black and white, it's gray, and any tool, any modality is only as good as the user, and that every tool, every modality, every strategy has a perk has a function, has a leverage point, but is only going to boost your studying and make you efficient if you recognize what the leverage point is and you recognize how to leverage it. And so, with flashcards, the key leverage point is that active retrieval. The second leverage point is the spaced repetition that flashcards allow you to do, because you can come back and forth, you can create repetitions.
Speaker 1:And now everyone focuses on the space part of this, but the real focus should be on the repetition part of this. You should be repetizing as much as possible, and when we say repetition, that means we should be going through the same material multiple times. It's not okay to say I have an exam on Friday, so I want to be done with everything, reviewing everything, by Thursday. I want to review it once right before the exam. That's only one repetition.
Speaker 1:The effective students if you want to be the A student, if you want to be the doctor, you have to be doing hundreds, thousands of repetitions. That's why in residency training right, you do such long hours, because they don't want you to just do one case. I don't want you to remove one appendix, one appendectomy, I want you to have done 90 appendectomies. So you know that like the back of your hand, and it's the same way with you guys' material. We should be striving to finish the first pass of our material very early, in front of the test. That way we have a long pathway to repetize, to repetize, to repetize, because with each repetition we dial it deeper and more solid into our brain and we create a clearer understanding and we also create a longer understanding. And we also create a longer understanding where we won't forget it, because through repetition we create retention, repetition, retention, and so with flashcards it allows you to flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip and to repetize the material and get lots of reps.
Speaker 1:The problem is and so again, everyone follow me here and if this is you, comment on the box and let me know if this is you but how many of you guys take notes that you spend a bunch of time making flashcards and by the time you've made the flashcards, there is actually no time to review these flashcards more than once? How many of you guys spend all this time making flashcards and you're like dang, I don't have any time anymore? It took me so long to get through the material, to make all these flashcards that I don't actually have time to review them, but a handful of times. Well then, we've lost out on one of the key leverage points of flashcards. Thank you, 08, rainia.
Speaker 1:Talking about guilty? Right, I know it, guys, I work with enough students. It's 20 years in the game, y'all I know that's what we do with flashcards, right? If Farid is a true? True, we know it. So if we can't create repetition, it's a waste of time to create flashcards and not be able to repetize it.
Speaker 1:This is also on a side note. I know you guys see all these fancy influencers do their calligraphy right, either in their notes or they do their fancy calligraphy up on the whiteboard. And I always laugh at that because I'm like guys. All that calligraphy you're doing, all that switching pen colors guess what it's doing, taking extra time out of your studying, and it's taking you time away from actually reviewing those notes, which is the whole function of the notes. When you take all that time to draw out all that fancy calligraphy on the whiteboard, at the end of the day what happens? The janitor comes in and erases your whiteboard. So you spent all that time making that fancy whiteboard art, but you ain't got no repetitions from it. Wouldn't have been better to spend some time repetizing to get the repetitions, to get that retention. So those are the two key leverage points of flashcards active retrieval and spaced repetition.
Speaker 1:So what is the problem with Anki? So now we've set up the discussion, everybody ready? Mjk said I did that, shaking my head Write the calligraphy. I got 9,000 different colors of pens. It helps me learn better the colors. Repetize, spend some time reviewing and you'll remember stuff better. Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:So the problem with Anki is that Anki is a software and it is not the most user-friendly software. Therefore, right, we said, any tools only good. As the user, anki will not be effective for you if you don't become an Anki expert because you can't leverage all the functionality of the platform to actually use it. Even on the front end, when you create your cards, you can't use all the functionality to create the cards and it will take you a long time to create the cards and when that's happening, it's slowing you down as the user. What are you taking time away from the repetitions. So, if it takes you a long time, if you aren't really familiar with Anki's platform you're trying to learn it as you go you aren't a good user and therefore the tool will not be sharp in your hand. You'll be working with a butter knife when you need a steak knife out this peasy. In your hand you'll be working with a butter knife when you need a steak knife out this peasy. So you have to level up and know okay, this is how I actually do.
Speaker 1:Anki it's not a user-friendly platform. It's open source. Stuff is crazy. So you have to know how to use that platform. You're going to be effective to be able to make your flashcards quickly. But then here we go.
Speaker 1:The other thing is that Anki is complicated for the once you make the flashcards. It's complicated for the retrieval part because in its algorithm it determines when you see flashcards, and so if you don't have the fidelity, if you aren't a good user, then what can't you do? You can't manipulate the retrieval aspect of the flashcards. You can't manipulate when you're going to be repitizing to maximize your reps and then also to create functional retrieval. And this is important and this is one of the big breakdowns in Anki is that Anki shows you flashcards based on how well you know the flashcards. Oh, you know this well. We're not going to show it for a long time. You know this. You don. You know this. Well, we're not gonna show for a long time. You know this, you don't know this at all. We're gonna show it to you all the time and in theory, that seems great, because then you're seeing material that you aren't as good at more frequently. That's woo, that's a win, great.
Speaker 1:The problem is, is everyone hear me now? Okay, we set up this discussion. If you want to learn effectively, how many of you guys let me start with this question how many of you guys, please, please, comment in the box, because other students need to hear. They aren't the only ones. How many of you guys feel like, oh my gosh, I'm struggling to remember everything because there's just so much to remember, because there's just so much to remember, there's all these random, all these isolated, all these amorphous can't get my hand around them topics that I have to memorize. How many of you guys feel inundated, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material and it all seems unrelated, right? No-transcript? Mackenzie says yes, thank you for being the first one, right, sid? You already know? Right, I already know you guys know, you guys are information overloaded. So the reason so many students struggle and they feel like I got to memorize a million chemistry is so complicated? Oh my gosh, o'kim so complicated. There's a million reactions in O'Kim.
Speaker 1:It's because, hear me, hear me now when we look at material, what we are doing is we aren't creating organization to our learning. We aren't building what's called a learning framework. We don't have any organization, any structure to our learning and, like any building, without a structure it collapses. And so, when we learn, we have to organize all of the different ingredients that we have to learn and we have to piece them together in some sort of logical puzzle. This is why people like things like Picmonic and Sketchy that draw images for you, because what are they doing? They're bringing all the items together. Well, when you do flashcards out of order, you are removing all the structure, all the organization to that learning and then all these random terms and words are coming at you. That's problematic for creating well-organized, long-lived learning. Do you guys understand what I'm saying? It would be the equivalent. This is the equivalent.
Speaker 1:Would you ever? Would you ever in your life read a book, starting at page one and then going to page 15 and then going to page seven and then to page 40 and then page 100? Would you ever read a book that way, right? Would you ever start a class and with a teacher, like, and then page 100, would you ever read a book that way? Right, would you ever start a class and, with the teacher, be like, hey, listen, instead of starting with lecture one, we're going to go ahead and start with lecture nine and we're going to come back to lecture one later? You would never do that. Why? Because every lecture builds on the previous one, and so when you make your flashcards, you want to do the same thing. You want each flashcard to be close in relationship to the next flashcard.
Speaker 1:You see, that way you are building this pyramid of knowledge where you say, okay, wait a minute. Here I am in this biology class. I have the cell, okay. And then inside the cell, I have organelles. Okay, so now I should have a flashcard that has organelles on it. Okay, so now, what are the different organelles? That's the test question, right, what are the different organelles do? So we want to link them all together. And then, once we build all these organelles, we have to ask ourselves, well, why do we have organelles? Oh, because we have to segment and compartmentalize. Okay, boom. And then now we have different cells and do different things, and we want to build into chapter two, to build chapter three.
Speaker 1:But if you're getting flashcards out of order it makes it a whole big cluster, like when you go to try to find the answer. It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack. We have to build organized learning like a filing cabinet so that when we get on the exam we can say oh, that is related to that, pull out this ba-boom, ba-bam. That's what we're trying to do, and so when you skip around your flashcard deck it's problematic. And so for me, my flashcards. If I were to pull my flashcard box out, you guys would see that all my flashcards are in the same exact order. I put numbers in the corner so they're numbered, so I know exactly because they fall. I'm on the bus and they fall everywhere. Whatever, I can put them back together in the right order. So that way I can build that knowledge and I'm building into more complex topics.
Speaker 1:The other thing that this does and this is important when Anki is showing you the stuff you know the worst frequently and it's not showing you stuff you know well very often, how does it make you feel, guys, it always comes back here. I should have started with this. Thank you for saying I'm right. Y'all Thank you for saying I'm right. Yeah, exactly, choose your own adventure books. How many of you guys right when you go through Anki and you have this scattered learning? How do you guys feel with those scattered flashcards? The answer is you don't feel great, you feel terrible. And one of the biggest things that students lack in studying is motivation. How many guys lack study motivation? You lack the confidence in your ability you lacked right. How many guys have test anxiety because you lack confidence going to the test?
Speaker 1:Well, when you do flashcards out of order, what it does is in Anki, it constantly shows you what you don't know. And so how do you feel? You feel like you aren't informed. You feel like you aren't knowledgeable. It hurts your self-esteem, it hurts your confidence, it hurts your drive to continue to study. You just want to give up. You're like man. Why did I even try this? I don't know nothing, I can't remember nothing. You don't have an opportunity to be motivated and feel confident.
Speaker 1:But when you do flashcards, not in the order of what you know them or don't know them, but in the order in which they occur, it allows you to start with simple complexes or simple excuse me simple concepts and then to build your confidence. Oh yeah, I know what that is, I know what a cell is, I know what the mitochondria is, the powerhouse of the cell, energy generator, electron transport chain. Oh, I know that. You build that confidence. You build the motivation. You get that confidence. You build the motivation. You get that ball rolling right and it's inertia, like in physics. You get the ball rolling and that ball don't stop and then you're rolling through flashcards.
Speaker 1:Instead of stumbling through flashcards out of order, you're rolling through ordered flashcards. Therefore, you feel better, you're more motivated, you're more driven, you'll study longer, you'll go through the the cards faster, which means you can repetize. What more? And one of the key leverage points of flash cards is all those repetitions. So if we can go through our flash cards faster and when we go through them, we can go through them more effectively, because we're linking concepts together, what happens to our learning y'all it? It happens better and it lasts for longer. And Anki takes you out of all of those opportunities and therefore it reduces your ability to learn. Well, do we see what we're talking about right now? If you understand, if you get what I'm saying right now, you better come in the gosh darn box. And let me know, hey, dr Pines, and I appreciate you After work getting out the OR, I appreciate you coming here and sharing with me how I could be sabotaging my Anki life.
Speaker 1:The other problem with Anki and this is the number one reason why I don't recommend it to students is that because Anki is open source and people can upload their flashcard decks and we are busy, overwhelmed students, we go for the lowest hanging fruit. And what is the lowest hanging fruit that Anki offers you? What is the poison apple off the tree that Anki offers you? Other people's flashcard decks, and I see it all the time with medical students. The ultimate step one flashcard deck. It's 9 million cards, everything you need to know.
Speaker 1:Oh, snap, what's the problem with that? Couple things. First and foremost, who would ever be excited to go through 10,000 flashcards? Like I said, I got all of med school in two little tiny boxes like this. All of med school, two boxes. Who would be excited to go through 10,000 flashcards? Nobody. So you're instantly what y'all? You're instantly overwhelmed. You're like dang, that looks impossible. 10,000 flashcards. Oh, dang, that looks impossible. 10,000 flashcards. Oh, oh, I'm hurting, it's overwhelming.
Speaker 1:And when we're overwhelmed, we're not confident, we're not driven, we're not persistent, we're not going to go through all those cards. And then what happens is we feel the pressure of being overwhelmed and having all this to get through and so little time to do it. And so what happens? We rush. Oh, and if one of the big leverage points of flashcards is active recall and active retrieval? But we are rushing through the flashcards, what do we do? We go from active to being passive and saying, okay, okay, okay. And we just keep flipping the cards over, keep clicking the button Show me the back, show me the back, show me the back, show me the back. I got to get to these flashcards. And so we take away the big leverage point of that active retrieval. Yes, yes, we take away the repetitions because we ain't going to go through that deck more than once. Nine million flashcards, it's ridiculous. And when we do that, we flatten the effectiveness right of a very functional like it's a very functional fluid tool. Flashcards is amazing. We flatten its functionality, we flatten its ability to affect your studying in a positive way, because we're shifting from creating that knowledge, we shift from that active retrieval, we shift from doing all these repetitions to just doing what? Fast flipping passive memorization right, and then we're using people, flashcards.
Speaker 1:Who's to say these flashcards are made in an effective way? Because, again, a tool, right, it's black and white, not gray, so it's shades of execution. So making a flashcard doesn't make you effective. Making an effective flashcard and reviewing that flashcard in an effective way, that makes you effective. So what if this flashcard deck is just a bunch of random terms? Do terms help you? And this is the big thing, right, it's why, again, I'm anti-speed reading. Also. People speed reading technique. Speed reading technique 5,000. Speed reading was a tool designed for people who were trying to read leisurely.
Speaker 1:The problem is, if you're a student in higher education, in college, if you're a student in medical school, you have to take complex exams, and in complex exams, a superficial understanding of a topic doesn't help you, and a complex situational exam, memorization doesn't help you. You have to have functional, fluid knowledge and if you don't, you're going to get smoked. And this is what happens to you guys on tests. Oh, I knew it, but then I got to the test and, oh my gosh, I couldn't. It becomes a problem. So if the flashcards are flat and they're stagnant, as what happens in a pre-made deck or even in your Anki deck that you're not really revising. It flattens out your studying and you're not gonna see the gains. You're gonna feel frustration, your studying's gonna be futile and you aren't going to get to the A. So it bogs you down completely. Yes, yes, so do not do that.
Speaker 1:Instead, really quickly, here is how if you're going to use Anki very simple how you level up your Anki use. The first thing is you need to spend significant time learning the Anki platform, and if you're in the middle of a term, if you're in medical school, it's not the time to learn Anki. A good old paper flashcard will do just the same. As Anki Turns out, instead of clicking, I can just flip a flashcard. It's amazing, right? If you have time, you got to learn Anki. If not, then don't use it. Use a paper flashcard. If you have time, you got to learn Anki. If not, then don't use it. Use a paper flashcard. The second thing is, when you use Anki, don't use pre-made decks. Make your own decks.
Speaker 1:Why is it important to make your own flashcard deck? Because flashcards are not all of the material, and so, therefore, it's so important that we take the raw material and we filter it and manipulate it and go through it and we find and create our own meaningful understanding. And through that meaningful understanding then we make the flashcard. So the learning and the understanding happens up front and then the flashcard, the repetition, is just used to create retention and memory of that learning. But the learning has to happen before we make the flashcard. So make your own flashcards. That way we leverage that first initial super key ingredient to learning, which is creating your own meaningful understanding.
Speaker 1:So I call it my material matching, mmm. We're matching the material to what is already in our mind to build up the sound structure of knowledge that is on the tip of our tongues and our brains and we're able to organize and remember for a long long time. So my material matching. So take the time, learn, then make the flashcard. Then, once you make these flashcards, as you're making them, have the goal of making the flashcards in an active recall way that is specific to your exam.
Speaker 1:So it's not just about word definition, concept, a little diagram. It's about something on the front, a word, whatever that triggers you, and then on the back, what you should be thinking about is what is the test question? How do I answer it? How do I answer it faster. Okay, what else is related to this? What is something to compare and contrast this to? What are some other ingredient they could add on this to make it even more complicated?
Speaker 1:Well, you walk through this discussion. It's an elaborate discussion. I call it elaborative interrogation. We're going to elaborate on what's happening, to create meaning, to create connections, to create understanding, to create applicability, to level up on the exam, right? So we're doing that as we review it. Then, after you review it and you go through it and you make all these connections, now's the time to say, hey, you know what I made. All these great connections Turns out I have five separate flashcards that all kind of involve on this.
Speaker 1:How can I take those five flashcards and how can I make them one queuing flashcard that then allows me to walk through all of these concepts together. That then allows me to walk through all of these concepts together. So what is the one concept that rules them all? What are the key ingredients, what are the elements, right? So this is how you get rid of all the details you don't need and then say what are the essential ingredients to understand this and you put that on a flashcard. So now we take them from five flashcards and now we've got one, and so what that does is it shrinks your deck as you go.
Speaker 1:So at every stage of flashcard making, we're being effective, we're making our own flashcards. When we do, we learn first. Then we make those flashcards, make them active, recall, based on our modality, how we're going to be asked about them. And then, when we go to review them, we're taking the time to bring all the concepts together. We're taking the time to pull the concepts apart and think about how we can specifically remember those right, make them stickier in our brain. And then we're consolidating flashcards to shrink our deck, to allow us to be less overwhelmed, more motivated. Two, to be able to repetize faster and get more reps, which is going to help us for the exam, and then make all of those reps more interconnected, interwoven, to go from just having memorization to having complex, fluid knowledge of all these concepts and terms and topics as we go into the exam. That's how you level up your Anki game. Yes, did everybody get me? Everybody got me, everybody with me. Everybody learned something today about flashcarding and Anki.
Speaker 1:If you've enjoyed this, guys take a second Like this video, take a second, leave a comment, y'all If you really want to level up your studying game, get to my website. Get into my Five, five pillars course, guys, the five pillars of studying less, getting better grades. It will change your life because it will turn you into a knowledgeable, effective user. You will be so informed, you will have the right strategies, you will have the nuance, the execution at every single tool. So that way, it doesn't matter what tool comes at you, it doesn't matter how your career changes, what class comes at you. You're such a skilled, such a knowledgeable user. You can't be stopped. Guys. It's the five pillars of single-stakeholder grades. You can find it on my website pre-medprotectivitycom. And if you guys are lucky, if you guys ask for it, you guys put the comments in the box ask for five-pillar discount. I'll put a discount in the description box right after this video and you guys can get that.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you guys. I got to go. I got MCAT coaching with my students tonight on Zoom. So you guys who are in here I see some of you guys. I'll see you guys at coaching in just a few minutes, but thank you guys for hanging out with me. I hope you guys appreciate this. I'm Dr Pineset. As always, I'm here to help. You guys think better, study better and pre-med better so you can get into medical school and you can live your dreams. Guys, I appreciate you. We always end. No excuses, just dominate y'all. No excuses, dominate them. Flashcards no excuses, dominate your class. You guys got this in. You get it done. I'll see you guys next time. That's it for another episode of the pre-med productivity podcast. Show your love by smashing the like button and commenting the box below.
Speaker 1:Today. Today is the day, guys. No more excuses, no more complaining. You're going to take your future into your own hands. You're going to dominate. You're going to be successful. I challenge you what are you going to do today to make your life better? Get to my website, premedproductivitycom. Grab a free ebook, sign up for a free webinar and, if you're really ready to transform, enroll in one of my life-changing courses or coaching programs. You have greatness inside you. Let me show you how to unlock it so you can dominate and make your dreams a reality. No excuses, just dominate.
