I’m cringing right now after spending $35 to purchase the Anki mobile app. I’m a digital flashcard fanatic and I started to use flashcards to do the bulk of my studying for particular classes such as microbiology and immunology, and pharmacology. Flashcards don’t work for studying physics or chemistry unfortunately.
I’ve been using Quizlet since high school. I’m actually a beta tester for Quizlet – yes, I’m such an obsessed Quizlet user. Quizlet’s been making some much-needed updates to flashcard review that are not available to the general public. I’ve testing these new releases and have to say I like them. Even without the new features, Quizlet itself is easy to use and has great options such as creating practice tests. However, the spaced repetition is still far from what I would like so I’m splurging on the mobile app for Anki.
While using Quizlet all along, I’ve tested out other flashcards including memrise, memorang, ankiapp (different from AnkiMobile), studyblue, flashcards +, and others that I tried so long ago that I don’t remember their names. I have to say I found memrise really helpful for learning Chinese vocabulary, especially since I’m a pretty visual learner. I can’t remember why I didn’t use memrise for other subjects but there is probably some reason. I also really love how memorang coverts your flashcards into multiple choice questions easily. Memorang does not function without internet connection so I only used to study for our anesthesia unit and then stopped using it.
I’ve chosen to purchase Anki after a lot of internet research and agonizing over whether I want to spend that much money. I’m justifying my purchase like this: if buying a new MCAT review book can cost $54.99, spending $35 on Anki which I plan to use for multiple courses in school and for the MCAT is worth it because I could be saving on study time. I already anticipate that I’m going to miss the audio play function of Quizlet so it is possible that I’ll return to Quizlet in the future.
I plan to use Anki as my exclusive study tool for my Psychology class. I hope I’ll have a positive review of Anki to write for you all in the future.
Anyways, if you haven’t tried digital flashcards yet and want to, I highly recommend Quizlet as a free platform to start out (**I do NOT get paid to promote Quizlet **). Anki desktop is free as well if you start your Anki adventure along with me.
Now you tell me: Do you use flashcards, digital or paper? If so, what platforms do you recommend? Does anyone have any Anki advice for me?
Happy studying!
Shanna