Is the Anking deck superior to LightYear? (2024)

They're both proven and more or less comprehensive. If you're going to pick one, pick based on card style. Zanki has short and focused cloze cards. Lightyear has that basic style where you have to remember multiple facts/concepts in order to get the card right. Personally, that just takes too long and ruins my rhythm. If you're trying to get through a boatload of cards, it's better to have the cloze style, for speed and efficiency. Lightyear used to balance it out by having significantly less cards, but now it's got 27K, so it's not really that much of a smaller deck. Zanki has 30K+

You can run both for a few days and see how you like them.

altblue said:

Big proponent of Zanki for the above reasons... just keep in mind that the easier Cloze deletions will make you less relatively prepared for physio and path. But that's why we have QBanks

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See Also

Best Boards and Beyond Anki Decks – willpeachMDMedical School Zanki: Should You Use It? - TheMDJourneyAnki for Dummies! How to Use Anki for Med School - Kelly Takes MedicineWhat is The Best Anki Deck for Step 1? – willpeachMD

Yeah, I personally had to do a mega crapton of phys questions in M1 to give me a real understanding of the physics heavy subjects (cardiovascular, renal, respiratory). Phys is just something that I couldn't afford to be weak in, especially because I have heard repeatedly from top scorers (260+) that it's critical to master.

slowthai said:

Yeah, I personally had to do a mega crapton of phys questions in M1 to give me a real understanding of the physics heavy subjects (cardiovascular, renal, respiratory). Phys is just something that I couldn't afford to be weak in, especially because I have heard repeatedly from top scorers (260+) that it's critical to master.

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If you've subscribed to B&B, the video practice questions for normal physio and pathophysio are straight fire. They're much harder than the actual thing but with solid explanations and lots of those "increase/decrease/no change" questions you dread on NBMEs. Plus you can make custom quizzes by video

altblue said:

If you've subscribed to B&B, the video practice questions for normal physio and pathophysio are straight fire. They're much harder than the actual thing but with solid explanations and lots of those "increase/decrease/no change" questions you dread on NBMEs. Plus you can make custom quizzes by video

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TheDavidLettermanShow said:

What questions would you use?

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Exactly. I did all of those, plus BRS, Guyton, Thieme's, and Pretest.

slowthai said:

Exactly. I did all of those, plus BRS, Guyton, Thieme's, and Pretest.

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Man, I'll have to look into some of those.

TheDavidLettermanShow said:

Thanks to both. I have an entire 3 page list of Step 1 resources and the list keeps growing and growing. It seems like everyone is so focused on certain resources that we don't end up hearing about other great resources. Guyton looks insane (in a good way).

I'm planning on using Zanki as a supplement to aid long term retention. It probably won't be my core resource.

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No problem. Those aren't step resources, really. They're just preclinical practice question books. They're not necessary at all. It's just that some of us (me) need the extra help, lol. But yeah, Guyton really pissed me off...in a good way, lol.

Yeah, you can definitely slice and dice with it. Like some people focus on class and use Zanki only for the brute force memorization subjects like micro and pharm. Some people like to take parts from Zanki and parts from Lightyear. Some like to mix and match with lesser known decks. It's all about what you prefer and what your goals are at the end of the day.

TheDavidLettermanShow said:

@slowthai When did you take Step 1?

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Spring/summer 2021. So about a year ago plus two

slowthai said:

Exactly. I did all of those, plus BRS, Guyton, Thieme's, and Pretest.

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Damn dude you're a ****!n monster lol.

Edit: just want to cast my vote for anking(zanki) for the reasons listed above but also because it's tagged to a ton of board resources. Not sure if that's the case with LY.

Lightyear user here; I find the cards to be short and sweet. They're 'front-back' cards so most of the time you actually have to straight recall the answer. Personally, I can blast through them if I am really focused. I still use the original deck which is the 22.5k deck made in 2018. The update has some new stuff, but I don't think it added a crap ton of value to the deck to justify 5500 more cards. I also plan on adding the lolnotacop deck to the end of it. In which, it comes to 27k cards anyways.

Like stated above, both resources are going to build you a solid foundation for you to be successful. All about what you like. AnKING is king because it was the first, currently the most used, and due to time, the most successful. I don't think you can go wrong.

I prefer cheesy lightyear. Has slides straight from BnB and images from osmosis, pathoma, sketchy, and even picmonic.

I also prefer the style. Zanki is short cloze deletions and honestly I find that while it makes it easy to memorize things in that context, it removes the thinking part of learning and when I see it in a different context, I have to think more. With lightyear, because it’s already more of a q/a style I don’t have that issue.

penicillinman said:

What’s the difference btn lightyear and cheesy lightyear? Is it just additional cards from additional resources? Or are they totally different ?

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