First of all, thank you so much for making this video. It’s probably the most useful anki flashcard video I’ve watched by far. But I have a question about using flashcards: what do you use to learn information when it’s something you have to understand rather than just memorize? For example learning how to construct Hess cycles or something like that. How do you make flashcards out of them?
Hi, so for that sort of information, yes you should make an effort to understand it instead of blindly memorising the information. For concept-based flashcards like say "Explain Lenz's Law" in A-level physics, usually I would give myself some lee-way with my explanation as long as I was hitting the main points I wanted to. I wasn't going to recall the other side verbatim. But for definitions like "Ethanply change of combustion", it can help to recall the other side verbatim. I also find it helpful to include a short explanation of the concept in the flashcard just incase I forget it. Remember that flashcards aren't purely a tool for memorising information blindly, they are just a tool for remembering. Even if you understand a concept, it doesn't mean you will remember it. You will still need to be reminded of it and you can do so by testing yourself through active recall on the concept. I have understood plenty of concepts from class but just end up forgetting it later on but if someone reminds me of the concept then my understanding re-appears. It's mainly to do with triggers too. For example, in further maths, there are techniques to help solve improper integrals. I understand why they work but it is useful to make a flashcard on them to remind myself that this is a thing that exists and be on the look out for in exams and often, I will see a question and be like, "hey this is an improper integral so I need to use X or Y". Also, for Hess cycles, it can be quite difficult to turn that into a question without any examples so I try to include an image of an example and just have a flashcard on some key points of a Hess' cycle that I want to remember. Especially small mistakes that are easy to make like messing up on factors. And after doing a couple exam questions, you can nail most Hess' cycles questions. I hope that makes sense!
How would you use anki for maths. I understand Bio and chem but what kind of things would you put on flash cards for maths and what resources would you use? Thank you
Do you find it is annoying that the anki flashcards change the order that you add them? as my flashcards tend to build on from each other and thus makes learning hard. is there a way to combat this?
@Ray Amjad how do i change the time intervals for the cards because they are quite even like from 10 mins to a month to a year which doesn't help ,because like you said the more you use the mores spaced it becomes but im going to review them everyday ?so can i set a limit of like lets say 2 months rather than year and a half?
Going to one of your decks and pressing the cogs then options and scrolling down, you should see something saying Maximum Interval which you can change to say 60 days
I think many of the ideas like spaced repetition, active recall, understanding hard concepts and future videos like on tackling difficult questions are still applicable but I think most STEM courses are pretty concept-based so require much more understanding than GCSE's and A-levels do. I think that making flashcards like how I do in this series can easily lead you overwhelm yourself with thousands of flashcards which isn't particularly useful. I do still use flashcards but instead on an app called RemNote which, I think, is better suited to very concept-heavy subjects like quantum physics where many concepts can extend across dozens of flashcards (compared to probably at most 2 or 3 for GCSE's and A-levels). And I drill the subject down to a few essential principles rather than doing everything. I like Remnote because it has features that lets you understand flashcards in the wider context. You can find an excellent playlist on it here: th-cam.com/video/8oyP4SYWpo0/w-d-xo.html I may make a series later on - maybe over the summer? But there's no gurantees. Altough, for now, there is an excellent blog post from someone I met at Cambridge who topped the year group twice in Maths (which is absolutely insane achievement) where he explains how he learns incase you're interested: www.neelnanda.io/blog/34-learning
Hi ray, in ur a level revision how many cards were u reviewing daily as I have around 200 cards of bio and chem to revise I was wondering if that’s normal.
Whenever I started learning new cards, Hi. I’d be reviewing a lot everyday but they would spread themselves out nicely over time such that I’d only review 100-ish per day across all subjects
assuming the marking is accurate , the grade you get on past papers should be the same as the real exam? ive heard people claim they did worse in the real exam and others say they did better
I guess it depends on how nicely or harshly you mark yourself. I tended to mark myself pretty harshly. And also, you generally have different questions and topics coming up so you cannot always expect to get the same mark in the real exam as your past papers. Also, I suppose the pressure that it is a real exam can cause some people for perform worse and cause others to perform better. Since a few marks can be the difference of a whole grade, it means they can end up with different grades too. I just tended to mark myself harshly and tried to use the keywords that the examboard like to use for those topics so the examiners have no reason not go give me the marks if I end up using those keywords for a quesiton similar to one that I've seen before. I hope that helps!
Hey Ray what would you do to maximise predicted grades? Most people in my 6th form get E,D,C and Bs so teachers aren’t really fond of giving anyone predicted grades of A/A* to anyone.
Hi, I am not too sure what else you can do besides trying to get A and A*'s in topic tests and your mock exams. Working consistently throughout the year is a good reason for your teachers to consider giving you better grades. I think it can also be helpful to make your teachers aware of your intention to apply to Oxbridge too and how they like to see predicted grades of mostly A's and A*'s on applications. My teachers pretty much knew this towards the end of Year 12 and my intention to sit the admissions tests and whatnot. I often came to most dinner-time revision sessions to silently do some work and maybe them always seeing me there knew I was committed and serious about achieving the results I wanted to? Even if you're scoring well in class then just being at those sessions and asking teachers questions can show your commitment to do well. I'm not too sure how teachers think about these things, to be honest. Also, even if you get predicted say A*AA (which is the minimum requirement for Physics at Oxford I think?) then don't be too disheartened. Sure, try to get it higher but if they don't budge then still apply anyways because Oxford and Cambridge know the general results people get at your school and your teachers may be too reluctant to predict you higher results. Also, getting a good admissions test score can come in handy too. I imagine they would rather interview someone who scored in the high 60's or low 70's and was predicted A*AA than someone who scores in the low 50's and was predicted A*A*A* (overpredicting is a common problem at so many schools and plenty of people from my school were predicted A*'s and just didn't achieve them). I hope that helps.
how do you have so little flash cards! ( a good thing) I have 46 cards for just the first topic of a1 chem (atomic structure). do you delete cards once you think they are too easy?
Hi, it may be worth looking into ways you can combine many ideas into one flashcards or addressing many points in a single one. Such as asking how many electrons fit into s, p, d, f subshells in a single question rather than splitting that across many different questions. But you will also find yourself getting to a stage where you can delete flashcards because you find them too easy
Hey Ray, thanks to you I have been using Anki for business and economics A-level and love it because the syllabus takes a very logical approach. However, for history, with a great emphasis on content and an essay-based subject, do you have any revision methods/tips? Anki is difficult here because I typically need to learn large bulks of text, mind maps also don't really work for me. Thanks! Dylan
Hi, I'm so glad that you're finding it useful. I honestly can't say for essay-based subjects (largely because I left those behind back at GCSE) but I think you might find Ali Abdaal's video ont the subject to be quite useful here: th-cam.com/video/-46Vyiwat_Y/w-d-xo.html Also, do remember that Anki is also good at memorising key information like dates, names, laws passed (and their consequences), etc for essays and that detail using gets some marks in essays. I was generally bad at remembering that information at GCSE History and found Anki to be invaluable for that. I hope that helps a little!
@@RAmjad Thank you mate, you genuinely have been a massive, massive help to me in my studies. For history I have started just doing general notes and then practice work/structure, it is going well so far. For Econ and business Anki is an absolute life saver. What a brilliant tool it is.
Hmm, that is odd. I tried it myself and it says "500: Internal Server Error". It seems GitHub's servers are experience some (see here www.githubstatus.com/ ) so you may want to try again later today or tomorrow. I'm so sorry about that, it's something completely out of my control.
I remember just watching all of MrBruff's videos to figure out exactly what the mark scheme is looking for and writing accordingly which helped me to get a 9 in English Language despite never actually being good at it 😅
Hi, I think Notion is pretty good. The collapse feature is quite handy. But in the previous video in the series, you see that I like using tables to help me make my flashcards. I think tables on Notion aren't great for text-heavy content. They have more of a spreadsheet feel so it can be quite difficult to have multiple paragraphs of text / images in them. I know people like Ali Abdaal instead use Notion and write questions for themselves and use the collapse feature to hide the answer and I think that works well (because of active recall) but it can be difficult to incorporate spaced repetition unless you transfer them over to an app like Anki.
I think if you tried and it doesn’t work for you then you shouldn’t force it anymore. There’s no one size fits all approach. I mostly just share what worked for me
Usually I tried to go through them on the same day I added them onto Anki but it isn't a major issue if I went through them on the following day or the one after as I would still have an understanding of the content and doing the flashcards would remind me of that understanding. I hope that makes sense!
For sure! I single-handedly attribute all my A*'s to Anki. £25 for the iPhone app is tiny compared to the return on investment you get. Also, it's a great way to support the people who made such a great program.
Hi, I think you can still learn some stuff from the videos on exam technique and you may also find my video on preparing for mocks with weeks to go useful here: th-cam.com/video/ZXp-eKchWHc/w-d-xo.html I hope that helps!
@@RAmjad thank you! I was just wondering as active recall and spacial repetition is based on the accumulation of the work you do across an extended period of time, is it possible to start spaced repetition and get through all the content you need to within a month?
@@luna-il2pw Yup, for sure, the effects of spaced repetition are seen across all time frames. It is much better to cover something once and come back to test yourself on it a few days later and a few days afterwards against (slowly increasing hte interval) than it would be to cover something once and not come back to it for say 30 days. If you are interested in how the effects of spaced repetition vary across different time periods then you can see a table of it in this video at the time linked: th-cam.com/video/TxtEfalZXPY/w-d-xo.html I hope that helps!
Thankyou for being clear, straight to the point and easy to follow!
First of all, thank you so much for making this video. It’s probably the most useful anki flashcard video I’ve watched by far. But I have a question about using flashcards: what do you use to learn information when it’s something you have to understand rather than just memorize? For example learning how to construct Hess cycles or something like that. How do you make flashcards out of them?
Hi, so for that sort of information, yes you should make an effort to understand it instead of blindly memorising the information. For concept-based flashcards like say "Explain Lenz's Law" in A-level physics, usually I would give myself some lee-way with my explanation as long as I was hitting the main points I wanted to. I wasn't going to recall the other side verbatim. But for definitions like "Ethanply change of combustion", it can help to recall the other side verbatim. I also find it helpful to include a short explanation of the concept in the flashcard just incase I forget it.
Remember that flashcards aren't purely a tool for memorising information blindly, they are just a tool for remembering. Even if you understand a concept, it doesn't mean you will remember it. You will still need to be reminded of it and you can do so by testing yourself through active recall on the concept. I have understood plenty of concepts from class but just end up forgetting it later on but if someone reminds me of the concept then my understanding re-appears. It's mainly to do with triggers too. For example, in further maths, there are techniques to help solve improper integrals. I understand why they work but it is useful to make a flashcard on them to remind myself that this is a thing that exists and be on the look out for in exams and often, I will see a question and be like, "hey this is an improper integral so I need to use X or Y".
Also, for Hess cycles, it can be quite difficult to turn that into a question without any examples so I try to include an image of an example and just have a flashcard on some key points of a Hess' cycle that I want to remember. Especially small mistakes that are easy to make like messing up on factors. And after doing a couple exam questions, you can nail most Hess' cycles questions. I hope that makes sense!
@@RAmjad thank you for the detailed answer! :)
Thank you for sharing this with us 👏🏻
What would you reccomend we actually put in the anki cards? Flashcards from our books? Other resources?
Bro these videos deserve so much attention
Could you make more study with me vlogs
Sure! I'm planning on making a couple after this series is over
Thank you so much!
How would you use anki for maths. I understand Bio and chem but what kind of things would you put on flash cards for maths and what resources would you use? Thank you
maybe equations? or rules like indice law
Hi, I would recommend looking at my A-level flashcards here to get an idea of what I did: github.com/RehmanAmjad/a-level-resources
do you use the default anki settings?
Thank you for the video , are you able to share your chem flashcards
Do you find it is annoying that the anki flashcards change the order that you add them? as my flashcards tend to build on from each other and thus makes learning hard. is there a way to combat this?
@Ray Amjad how do i change the time intervals for the cards because they are quite even like from 10 mins to a month to a year which doesn't help ,because like you said the more you use the mores spaced it becomes but im going to review them everyday ?so can i set a limit of like lets say 2 months rather than year and a half?
Going to one of your decks and pressing the cogs then options and scrolling down, you should see something saying Maximum Interval which you can change to say 60 days
@@RAmjad thanks
Man, how do you change the time interval?
Can you do a series for effective studying and learning for university or can this series be used for university education?
I think many of the ideas like spaced repetition, active recall, understanding hard concepts and future videos like on tackling difficult questions are still applicable but I think most STEM courses are pretty concept-based so require much more understanding than GCSE's and A-levels do. I think that making flashcards like how I do in this series can easily lead you overwhelm yourself with thousands of flashcards which isn't particularly useful. I do still use flashcards but instead on an app called RemNote which, I think, is better suited to very concept-heavy subjects like quantum physics where many concepts can extend across dozens of flashcards (compared to probably at most 2 or 3 for GCSE's and A-levels). And I drill the subject down to a few essential principles rather than doing everything. I like Remnote because it has features that lets you understand flashcards in the wider context. You can find an excellent playlist on it here: th-cam.com/video/8oyP4SYWpo0/w-d-xo.html
I may make a series later on - maybe over the summer? But there's no gurantees. Altough, for now, there is an excellent blog post from someone I met at Cambridge who topped the year group twice in Maths (which is absolutely insane achievement) where he explains how he learns incase you're interested: www.neelnanda.io/blog/34-learning
Hi ray, in ur a level revision how many cards were u reviewing daily as I have around 200 cards of bio and chem to revise I was wondering if that’s normal.
Whenever I started learning new cards, Hi. I’d be reviewing a lot everyday but they would spread themselves out nicely over time such that I’d only review 100-ish per day across all subjects
assuming the marking is accurate , the grade you get on past papers should be the same as the real exam? ive heard people claim they did worse in the real exam and others say they did better
I guess it depends on how nicely or harshly you mark yourself. I tended to mark myself pretty harshly. And also, you generally have different questions and topics coming up so you cannot always expect to get the same mark in the real exam as your past papers. Also, I suppose the pressure that it is a real exam can cause some people for perform worse and cause others to perform better. Since a few marks can be the difference of a whole grade, it means they can end up with different grades too. I just tended to mark myself harshly and tried to use the keywords that the examboard like to use for those topics so the examiners have no reason not go give me the marks if I end up using those keywords for a quesiton similar to one that I've seen before. I hope that helps!
Hey Ray what would you do to maximise predicted grades? Most people in my 6th form get E,D,C and Bs so teachers aren’t really fond of giving anyone predicted grades of A/A* to anyone.
Hi, I am not too sure what else you can do besides trying to get A and A*'s in topic tests and your mock exams. Working consistently throughout the year is a good reason for your teachers to consider giving you better grades. I think it can also be helpful to make your teachers aware of your intention to apply to Oxbridge too and how they like to see predicted grades of mostly A's and A*'s on applications. My teachers pretty much knew this towards the end of Year 12 and my intention to sit the admissions tests and whatnot.
I often came to most dinner-time revision sessions to silently do some work and maybe them always seeing me there knew I was committed and serious about achieving the results I wanted to? Even if you're scoring well in class then just being at those sessions and asking teachers questions can show your commitment to do well. I'm not too sure how teachers think about these things, to be honest.
Also, even if you get predicted say A*AA (which is the minimum requirement for Physics at Oxford I think?) then don't be too disheartened. Sure, try to get it higher but if they don't budge then still apply anyways because Oxford and Cambridge know the general results people get at your school and your teachers may be too reluctant to predict you higher results. Also, getting a good admissions test score can come in handy too. I imagine they would rather interview someone who scored in the high 60's or low 70's and was predicted A*AA than someone who scores in the low 50's and was predicted A*A*A* (overpredicting is a common problem at so many schools and plenty of people from my school were predicted A*'s and just didn't achieve them). I hope that helps.
how do you have so little flash cards! ( a good thing) I have 46 cards for just the first topic of a1 chem (atomic structure). do you delete cards once you think they are too easy?
Hi, it may be worth looking into ways you can combine many ideas into one flashcards or addressing many points in a single one. Such as asking how many electrons fit into s, p, d, f subshells in a single question rather than splitting that across many different questions. But you will also find yourself getting to a stage where you can delete flashcards because you find them too easy
can u share ur chem flash cards
Hey Ray, thanks to you I have been using Anki for business and economics A-level and love it because the syllabus takes a very logical approach. However, for history, with a great emphasis on content and an essay-based subject, do you have any revision methods/tips? Anki is difficult here because I typically need to learn large bulks of text, mind maps also don't really work for me. Thanks! Dylan
Hi, I'm so glad that you're finding it useful. I honestly can't say for essay-based subjects (largely because I left those behind back at GCSE) but I think you might find Ali Abdaal's video ont the subject to be quite useful here: th-cam.com/video/-46Vyiwat_Y/w-d-xo.html Also, do remember that Anki is also good at memorising key information like dates, names, laws passed (and their consequences), etc for essays and that detail using gets some marks in essays. I was generally bad at remembering that information at GCSE History and found Anki to be invaluable for that. I hope that helps a little!
@@RAmjad Thank you mate, you genuinely have been a massive, massive help to me in my studies. For history I have started just doing general notes and then practice work/structure, it is going well so far. For Econ and business Anki is an absolute life saver. What a brilliant tool it is.
Hi I was checking out your A level resources you uploaded and I can’t seem to download it on github. Just says error ?
Hmm, that is odd. I tried it myself and it says "500: Internal Server Error". It seems GitHub's servers are experience some (see here www.githubstatus.com/ ) so you may want to try again later today or tomorrow. I'm so sorry about that, it's something completely out of my control.
@@RAmjad I completely understand, thank u I’ll check another time.
Ray do you have any tips for revising for English I’ve been getting consistent grad 4’s for all my test and I have my mocks coming up.Thanks
I remember just watching all of MrBruff's videos to figure out exactly what the mark scheme is looking for and writing accordingly which helped me to get a 9 in English Language despite never actually being good at it 😅
What’s your opinion on using notion to take notes?
Hi, I think Notion is pretty good. The collapse feature is quite handy. But in the previous video in the series, you see that I like using tables to help me make my flashcards. I think tables on Notion aren't great for text-heavy content. They have more of a spreadsheet feel so it can be quite difficult to have multiple paragraphs of text / images in them. I know people like Ali Abdaal instead use Notion and write questions for themselves and use the collapse feature to hide the answer and I think that works well (because of active recall) but it can be difficult to incorporate spaced repetition unless you transfer them over to an app like Anki.
What is your new cards/review a day set to?
i just cant seem to use flashcards efficiently. i remember the content way better after revising using the textbook.
I think if you tried and it doesn’t work for you then you shouldn’t force it anymore. There’s no one size fits all approach. I mostly just share what worked for me
@@RAmjad ❤
do you go through your flashcards on the day you make them?
Usually I tried to go through them on the same day I added them onto Anki but it isn't a major issue if I went through them on the following day or the one after as I would still have an understanding of the content and doing the flashcards would remind me of that understanding. I hope that makes sense!
Is it worth paying for anki on iPhone
For sure! I single-handedly attribute all my A*'s to Anki. £25 for the iPhone app is tiny compared to the return on investment you get. Also, it's a great way to support the people who made such a great program.
Hey ray there is a brilliant software known as math type where you can type math and chemistry equations very easily...🙂🙂🙂
Awesome, thank you for the recommendation! I'll try it out 🚀
no my a-level mocks are in a month I found this series too late wtf do I do 😭
Hi, I think you can still learn some stuff from the videos on exam technique and you may also find my video on preparing for mocks with weeks to go useful here: th-cam.com/video/ZXp-eKchWHc/w-d-xo.html I hope that helps!
@@RAmjad thank you! I was just wondering as active recall and spacial repetition is based on the accumulation of the work you do across an extended period of time, is it possible to start spaced repetition and get through all the content you need to within a month?
@@luna-il2pw Yup, for sure, the effects of spaced repetition are seen across all time frames. It is much better to cover something once and come back to test yourself on it a few days later and a few days afterwards against (slowly increasing hte interval) than it would be to cover something once and not come back to it for say 30 days. If you are interested in how the effects of spaced repetition vary across different time periods then you can see a table of it in this video at the time linked: th-cam.com/video/TxtEfalZXPY/w-d-xo.html
I hope that helps!
@@RAmjad thank you for this ! I will check the video out :) have a nice day