Spend any time in pre-med, med school, or PA forums, and you'll see the same claim repeated constantly: Anki and Anki Remote changed everything for me.
But is that actually true for most students — or is it just the loudest voices in the room? And more practically: do you need to use it?
Let's look at this honestly, with 4 real pros and 4 real cons, so you can make the call for your own study routine.
First — What Is Anki?
Anki is a free spaced repetition flashcard app that optimizes when you review each card based on how well you know it. Cards you struggle with appear more frequently. Cards you've mastered appear less often.
The result is a study session that automatically prioritizes your weak points — without you having to manually sort through everything you've ever studied.
4 Pros of Anki
1. Efficient Memory Retention
Anki is built around spaced repetition — a learning technique that schedules each card for review just before you're likely to forget it. This timing is what separates it from passive re-reading or standard flashcard apps.
The forgetting curve shows that memory decays rapidly without reinforcement — but each successful recall resets and extends the retention window. Anki automates this process so your review schedule works with how memory actually functions, not against it.
2. Customizable Learning Experience
Anki adapts to what you're studying. Whether you're preparing for the MCAT, USMLE Step 1, a language proficiency exam, or a professional certification — you can build or import decks that match your exact curriculum, tag cards by topic, and filter reviews to target specific subject areas.
It's a study tool that grows with your needs rather than forcing you into a fixed format.
3. A Massive Library of Pre-Made Decks
One of Anki's biggest practical advantages is its community. Thousands of students have built and shared high-quality decks across nearly every subject imaginable. You don't have to start from scratch.
Key resources worth bookmarking:
- AnkiHub — collaborative deck platform with real-time updates and add-on integration, popular in medical school communities
- AnkiWeb Shared Decks — Anki's official deck library, free to browse and download
- Anki Pro — pre-made decks for university exams and language learning, with 50,000+ decks available
If you'd rather build your own, you can create a custom Anki deck in under 2 minutes.
4. Cross-Platform Accessibility
Anki syncs across all your devices via AnkiWeb — desktop, phone, and tablet. Start a session on your laptop, pick it up on your phone during a commute, and everything stays in sync.
For students who study across multiple environments and need flexibility in their routine, this cross-device continuity is a genuine advantage.
4 Cons of Anki
1. There's a Real Learning Curve
Anki isn't intuitive out of the box. Setting up your first decks, understanding how the algorithm works, adjusting daily limits, and exploring add-ons all take time to learn. For students who want a tool they can open and use immediately, the initial friction can be discouraging.
The good news: most students get comfortable within the first week or two. The payoff tends to outweigh the setup cost — but it's worth knowing upfront.
2. Card Creation Takes Time
The ability to build fully customized decks is one of Anki's strengths — but it comes at a cost. Creating high-quality cards that are specific, well-worded, and actually useful takes effort. Early on, it's easy to spend more time building cards than reviewing them.
The practical fix: use high-quality pre-made decks where they exist (especially for MCAT, Step 1, and PANCE), and save custom card creation for gaps those decks don't cover.
3. It Doesn't Work the Same for Everyone
Anki is highly effective for students who learn well through active recall and repetition. It's less suited to learners who need narrative context, visual learning, or conceptual frameworks before facts "stick." If you've tried Anki for a few weeks and it genuinely isn't clicking, that's useful information — not a failure.
Give it a fair trial before drawing conclusions, but also recognize that different study methods work for different people.
4. It Struggles with Complex, Multi-Part Concepts
Anki is purpose-built for memorizing discrete facts. It's excellent for drug mechanisms, lab values, diagnostic criteria, and vocabulary. It's less effective for subjects that require deep conceptual understanding, clinical reasoning, or applied problem-solving.
For those areas, Anki works best as a complement to other study methods — not as a replacement for working through practice questions, case studies, or concept-based review resources.
In Summary
Anki is one of the most effective study tools available for high-volume memorization — but it's not universally necessary, and it's not right for every learner or every subject.
Use Anki if:
- You're studying for a high-stakes exam with heavy factual content (MCAT, Step 1, NCLEX, PANCE, bar exam, language exams)
- You're willing to invest a week or two learning how to use it properly
- You can commit to consistent daily reviews — even short ones
Get Your StudyRemote
Consider alternatives if:
- Your exam is more concept- or reasoning-based than fact-based
- You genuinely retain information better through other methods after a fair trial
- You don't have the bandwidth to maintain a consistent daily review habit right now
If you're committed to Anki as a core part of your study routine, it's worth looking at the full ecosystem — including accessories like Study Remote (formerly Anki Remote) that make daily reviews more comfortable, portable, and sustainable over long prep periods.
"Anki Remote has been incredible! It makes studying pre-med classes so much easier and fun!" — Leanna, pre-med student
"Anki Remote is really good! I didn't realize how much more efficient this is over a keyboard until I got it." — Shadman, med student
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