coisbhai
Mod
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2022
- Posts
- 5,143
- Reputation
- 7,663
Before you read this, check out and go over the actual Anki manual which tells you all the basics about the app, how to use it etc.
Here is the manual:
What Iām explaining is a manual on how to use it for studying specific content and applying it to other study techniques
A brief summary of what Anki is, itās a flashcard, spaced repetition tool which refreshes your brain of the content youāre trying to remember right before you forget it, remember it is not as effective when simply using it as a note/flashcard viewing tool, that is better done by physically handwritten notes/flashcards
Anki is mainly used to review your flashcards which means coming back to it after a while to refresh your memory of the content, after a card is learnt on Anki, depending on how well you remember it, it will come back as a review to make you remember it again and recall it
Ankiās gimmick is the interface, I will use one of my cards as an example:
As you can see at the bottom, it has 4 options youāre able to click, this is after the cards are slightly matured and learnt, this is just a review, when reviewing it is showing the options Again (<10m meaning it will show again in that given time), Hard (1d meaning it will show again in a day), Good (2d meaning it will show again in two days) and Easy (3d meaning it will show again in three days)
These options help you decide how well you remember the card and when you want to see them again, with Anki youāre working at a confidence interval, it all is dependant on how well youāre able to recall a card
Some things to take into consideration when starting you use Anki, you must be consistent with it, if youāre not consistent and miss even a day, your reviews will pile up, and itāll fuck up your memory of the cards youāve previously memorised
Another thing is to look into algorithms which make your Anki experience easier and takes a load off the amount of reviews youāre completing daily, it is extremely difficult to explain and would defeat the purpose of the simple guide in the title, but I use the FSRS algorithm, after a while itās taken 40% of my reviews down whilst keeping a retention rate of 0.9/90% for all my cards
Hereās the manual on FSRS (It comes as two parts, the scheduler and optimiser, the manual explains it more in detail):
Now if youāre a last minute crammer like me, worried that you havenāt written down any notes, typed up flashcards onto Anki, Iām gonna teach you how to do it all in five minutes, the only thing you need to do is use Anki consistently
1) You need an AI tool, I use ChatGPT, itās the most common, if you have ChatGPT 4, youāre golden, if you donāt, make sure not to use content pages online that have images on there which are required for the content specification, since GPT 3.5 doesnāt allow you to paste in images, with GPT 4 you can upload PDF files that content images, Iād recommend you to pay the small monthly fee for even a month since this only takes five minutes, or borrow a friends login, Iāve borrowed one of my friendās login at University
2) What you need to do now is go online and search up your specification/module content notes, if youāre in the UK, Iāll link a resource for you (STEM only), Iām retaking my A-Levels privately whilst Iām at University so this is what I do to memorise the content:
3) Using the content either save it as a PDF file by clicking the share button or copy and paste chunks of the information for ChatGPT 3.5 to comprehend, you can tell GPT to not reply to anything youāre about to send until you say so, if itās saved as a PDF, upload it, if itās not, paste it, once itās pasted in, ask GPT to make either question answer flashcards in the form of a CSV file (very important), or normal chunks of information (Iād recommend this since you can do past paper exam practice anyways)
4) It will generate a CSV file which you save onto your desktop, then you open up Anki, click on import, select the deck you want to upload your CSV file onto, and upload it, it will create an X number of notes that ChatGPT generated, all in the format of Anki flashcards
Another way to take advantage of Anki, once youāve learnt the content, you still need to apply it to exam questions, if youāre a STEM student like me, youād know the mark scheme of an exam paper is the most important thing to remember since the answers are extremely specific, messing up a single word in Biology will cost you 1-3 marks, and those marks add up and result in 1-2 grades lost (Iāve been there, even though Iām naturally good at Biology), so what Iām saying is, using Anki to memorise the mark scheme is a superbly wonderful idea, and extremely effective
However, in the circumstance of making five to six thousand cards which will take months to remember and take up a majority of your day, I would recommend you to complete a past exam paper (After youāve memorised 60-80% of the content prior), then mark, and put a red dot next to the questions you got wrong, then do this:
1) Open up your AI tool again, this time youāre going to need ChatGPT 4
2) Save the past exam paper you just completed
3) Upload it to GPT and tell it to create a CSV for the file you just uploaded and make sure to tell GPT all the questions to generate it for
4) Once it generates a response, import the CSV file to Anki and memorise the mark scheme
Thank you for reading my simple thread, this is what has been working for me this year, itās the only thing that works for me and Iām happy to share it as a diagnosed ADHD that finds a lot of other study techniques boring
Here is the manual:
Introduction - Anki Manual
docs.ankiweb.net
What Iām explaining is a manual on how to use it for studying specific content and applying it to other study techniques
A brief summary of what Anki is, itās a flashcard, spaced repetition tool which refreshes your brain of the content youāre trying to remember right before you forget it, remember it is not as effective when simply using it as a note/flashcard viewing tool, that is better done by physically handwritten notes/flashcards
Anki is mainly used to review your flashcards which means coming back to it after a while to refresh your memory of the content, after a card is learnt on Anki, depending on how well you remember it, it will come back as a review to make you remember it again and recall it
Ankiās gimmick is the interface, I will use one of my cards as an example:
As you can see at the bottom, it has 4 options youāre able to click, this is after the cards are slightly matured and learnt, this is just a review, when reviewing it is showing the options Again (<10m meaning it will show again in that given time), Hard (1d meaning it will show again in a day), Good (2d meaning it will show again in two days) and Easy (3d meaning it will show again in three days)
These options help you decide how well you remember the card and when you want to see them again, with Anki youāre working at a confidence interval, it all is dependant on how well youāre able to recall a card
Some things to take into consideration when starting you use Anki, you must be consistent with it, if youāre not consistent and miss even a day, your reviews will pile up, and itāll fuck up your memory of the cards youāve previously memorised
Another thing is to look into algorithms which make your Anki experience easier and takes a load off the amount of reviews youāre completing daily, it is extremely difficult to explain and would defeat the purpose of the simple guide in the title, but I use the FSRS algorithm, after a while itās taken 40% of my reviews down whilst keeping a retention rate of 0.9/90% for all my cards
Hereās the manual on FSRS (It comes as two parts, the scheduler and optimiser, the manual explains it more in detail):
GitHub - open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki: A modern Anki custom scheduling based on Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler algorithm
A modern Anki custom scheduling based on Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler algorithm - open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki
github.com
Now if youāre a last minute crammer like me, worried that you havenāt written down any notes, typed up flashcards onto Anki, Iām gonna teach you how to do it all in five minutes, the only thing you need to do is use Anki consistently
1) You need an AI tool, I use ChatGPT, itās the most common, if you have ChatGPT 4, youāre golden, if you donāt, make sure not to use content pages online that have images on there which are required for the content specification, since GPT 3.5 doesnāt allow you to paste in images, with GPT 4 you can upload PDF files that content images, Iād recommend you to pay the small monthly fee for even a month since this only takes five minutes, or borrow a friends login, Iāve borrowed one of my friendās login at University
2) What you need to do now is go online and search up your specification/module content notes, if youāre in the UK, Iāll link a resource for you (STEM only), Iām retaking my A-Levels privately whilst Iām at University so this is what I do to memorise the content:
Physics & Maths Tutor
Revise GCSE/IGCSEs and A-levels! Past papers, exam questions by topic, revision notes, worksheets and solution banks.
www.physicsandmathstutor.com
3) Using the content either save it as a PDF file by clicking the share button or copy and paste chunks of the information for ChatGPT 3.5 to comprehend, you can tell GPT to not reply to anything youāre about to send until you say so, if itās saved as a PDF, upload it, if itās not, paste it, once itās pasted in, ask GPT to make either question answer flashcards in the form of a CSV file (very important), or normal chunks of information (Iād recommend this since you can do past paper exam practice anyways)
4) It will generate a CSV file which you save onto your desktop, then you open up Anki, click on import, select the deck you want to upload your CSV file onto, and upload it, it will create an X number of notes that ChatGPT generated, all in the format of Anki flashcards
Another way to take advantage of Anki, once youāve learnt the content, you still need to apply it to exam questions, if youāre a STEM student like me, youād know the mark scheme of an exam paper is the most important thing to remember since the answers are extremely specific, messing up a single word in Biology will cost you 1-3 marks, and those marks add up and result in 1-2 grades lost (Iāve been there, even though Iām naturally good at Biology), so what Iām saying is, using Anki to memorise the mark scheme is a superbly wonderful idea, and extremely effective
However, in the circumstance of making five to six thousand cards which will take months to remember and take up a majority of your day, I would recommend you to complete a past exam paper (After youāve memorised 60-80% of the content prior), then mark, and put a red dot next to the questions you got wrong, then do this:
1) Open up your AI tool again, this time youāre going to need ChatGPT 4
2) Save the past exam paper you just completed
3) Upload it to GPT and tell it to create a CSV for the file you just uploaded and make sure to tell GPT all the questions to generate it for
4) Once it generates a response, import the CSV file to Anki and memorise the mark scheme
Thank you for reading my simple thread, this is what has been working for me this year, itās the only thing that works for me and Iām happy to share it as a diagnosed ADHD that finds a lot of other study techniques boring