Note-takers, Typers & Handwriting, Drawers, Mindmappers

- An organised system; can have an all-encompassing view of all previous Block or Theme notes.

- Annotating alongside your notes; unlike Notion, OneNote lets you draw next to your typed notes.

- Verbal learners; use Dictation to type your written notes, and Recording if you'd rather hear them.

- Expansive space; unlimited horizontal and vertical scrolling, so you can spread your notes or mindmaps into any direction - you'll never run out of space.

Aesthetic notes, some Organisers

- Limited aesthetic functions; you can change tab colours, but not much more. However, this does limit you procrastinating on making your notes pretty!

- Some organisers; it may or may not suit you, as the organisation method is fairly rigid with lists of sub-/sections and sub-/pages.

- Make a 'revision' (etc) 'dump page'; useful sudden thoughts can be thrown here for you to review / organise / research further later.

- WebClipper will save images, pdfs, webpages etc for your notes; the Chrome extension will save anything useful you've found to add to your notes, without getting distracted having to fully add it in the midst of research.

- Integrates easily with Evermore and Mendeley; read more at the bottom of the page.

Read/Write, List-makers

- An organised system; can use the checklists as a base.

- Collaborative work; share spaces and delegate tasks, including note-taking.

Drawers, Annotators, Mind-Mappers

- You can make these, then scan it into a Notion page, but it won't fit easily with anything you type, as information defaults to lists and tables.

- Drop-down toggle-points can become questions; hide the answer within the drop-down

- Existing note sets help when you can't find an answer; but you really won't learn just downloading someone else's notes, so try first!

Habit-makers, opportunistic 'on-the-go' study, Goal-setters

- Spaced repetition questions of key facts

- An alternative to making notes; writing the info should engage you with it, often helping retention - but do you ever read your notes back, or learn from that?

- Avoiding unequal time spent between topics; the algorithm will show you cards dependent on your retention, so you don't thoroughly revise cardio but accidentally skip MSK.

- Understanding what you're learning; it's just fact-learning, so make sure you process how they link together through other means.

- Those unable to spend time on how to use it best; many YT videos can show you the basics within 30 minutes, but different algorithms (how often cards show, what order, etc) and card styles can take hours, days, weeks.

- Don't make full notes and full cards of every LO, to equally cover everything; it'll be far too much!

- Uncritical use of existing decks; from a different uni's LO's, another country, out of date, or just plain wrong - legacy decks are not guaranteed to be as reliable as you hope!

- Cramming; Anki is for long-term learning and revision. Having to review thousands of cards a day will (understandably) exhaust you.

- Too good pattern-recognisers; it's easy to get 'right' answers from recognising a card without comprehending the question, so when asked with different phrasing, you may not know the answer.

- Those not interested in learning how to learn; you really do need to invest some hours learning this system to make it worth your time. There's no problem trialling it for a Block, but expect to dislike it if you haven't learnt how to use it!

- A good alternative if you're unlikely to really review your notes.

- Watch YT videos on how to adapt the algorithm settings to suit your retention capacity, available time, learning speed, etc. It's vital.

- Use the Remote Decks add-on; it converts a live G-doc into your cards, so you can read your 'notes' that are also your cards. Organise by class, paste in the LO's, then answer them!

- Collaborate with a few peers to make cards and share the workload. But check you have similar card styles and work ethos!

- Making the cards is just as valuable as reviewing them; using someone else's deck reduces initial workload but isn't as useful as you hope. Decks could be out of date, inaccurate, for a different uni, in a style that doesn't suit you, or cover different content to what you need to review.

- There's work underway to centralise shared student resources; Anki is one part of this, but as above, it means a lot of collaborating and coordinating very different styles. We'll let you know how this moves through Student Sems!

- Hardcore Anki? Get a BlueTooth remote controller; it makes reviewing cards a breeze, and (slightly) more fun!

Habit-makers, Goal-setters, Gamifiers (& if you're ND!)

- Minimal effort set-up; unlike Anki, Quizlet can be set up in 10 minutes as you don't need to learn or amend the algorithms.

- Making notes and flashcards; it saves you time as you don't need to make the cards - just paste in a chunk of text and the AI will create the cards!

- Those intimidated by Anki's interface; you may prefer the friendlier, 'Duolingo'-esque aesthetic that gamifies learning with individual achievements.

- Learning & understanding - and then reviewing; different modes and levels allow you to actually understand what you're learning, before you review via flashcards and rote-memorisation.

- Add Graduate Entry Medicine as your course at Warwick; you can search and add for other students, and even learn their cards (if made public) - or save and edit them!

- If you get a question that's not great, edit or delete; the AI is still young, so some questions might be a little simplistic. Just delete these, or run those notes through another AI programme first (try asking ChatGPT 'make these notes into [simple] flashcards')

- Use the suggested questions; as you type a question, the AI may suggest a question and answer that has been previously added.

- Revision of core facts and clinical scenarios; covers 1st-line teaching too if you read the high-yield & extended textbook notes.

- Quality explanations of key concepts.

- High-yield & extended textbooks; worth the time to review, rather than only complete questions! Most questions display the associated section, so take the time to read them.

- Repeated questioning with an algorithm; all without the work of making, or checking, Anki. The optimisation algorithm monitors your knowledge and displays questions in an order to help you learn and retain information.

- Over-reliance in Phase I & II; some questions are on niche topics we don't touch, and it doesn't cover all of our LO's - which we're examined on - so you will need to revise other sources.

- Not a replacement for clinical experience!; theory helps for exams, but exposure helps you actually understand and link things together (and makes for a better clinician).

- Create a deck by searching for related topics to revise; you can read on a topic, then keep to WMS LO's - but if using Finals you can't also choose difficulty.

(We've emailed them this idea, and they're looking into it!)

- Knowledge Tutor; great to learn and revise core facts, especially in Phase I, and honestly - a huge amount of Phase II. It's the base facts threaded throughout the decks, with more questions added for each level you might buy.

- Years 1-3; the fundamentals of bioscience, anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, immunology, with a pre-clinical intro, and free for 12 months. Covers Phase I & II very well.

- Finals; paid level, best for Phase III. Single-hammer level questions are good for Phase II, but many questions are more complex or niche than needed.

- For Phase II, students typically opt for single-hammer Finals - but do not forget Years 1-3! Ensure you still cover their weaknesses; revise more initial-clinical application with the former deck, and more basic bioscience with the latter deck.

- Testing core knowledge via 'application'; like PassMed, it uses clinical scenarios as a basis.

- Good for Phase I revision; the pre-clinical section tests core bioscience and anatomy.

- A feel for Finals; the question structures are very similar.

- Repeated questions without the work of making or checking Anki.

- Over-reliance in Phase I & II; some questions are on niche topics we don't touch, and it doesn't cover all of our LO's - which we're examined on - so you will need to revise other sources.

- Not a replacement for clinical experience!; theory helps for exams, but exposure helps you actually understand and link things together (and makes for a better clinician).

- Use the question builder; this way you can map questions as closely as possible to Phase II presentation lists!

- Introductions to various parts of the WMS curriculum before you start here.

- Anatomy, SocPop, and VLE.

- Sticking to WMS expectations.

- Testing core knowledge.

- A one-stop revision centre for finals; not like other resources aim for, so utilise other platforms too.

- Good for Phase I & throughout Phase II; although consider other resources as primary revision aids.

- 2nd year

- Straight-forward app pre-loaded to your WMS-issued iPads.

- Revising on placement; keep your iPad on you!

- Revising concepts with a question set very similar to WMS exams.

- Structured revision of topics; if you want to focus on a speciality or system at a time, with a stem that has 3-7 questions attached.

- Finals; as it's WMS-focused, not the national exam.

- Explanations of concepts; it's covered well enough, but quite simply, and other platforms perform more strongly here.

- Sole learning of content; as above, it doesn't thoroughly explain concepts to learn them this way, but recaps them for quick revision.

- Absolutely use Capsule; but alongside other platforms.

- Simple and concise explanations; no fluff or overcomplication!

- Finals revision

Ways to access:

- Readers; the books (currently four volumes) cover surgery, medicine, paediatrics, and obs & gynae. Medicine covers most of Phase II!

- Listeners; good podcasts for on-the-go learning if you'd rather do some of your work whilst shopping, exercising, housework, etc.

- Flashcards; a pricier alternative, but good for clinical revision, and works nicely for revising with friends (if you have an older deck, check meds against NICE)

- Website: free, it covers all major conditions for a Finals student.

- Those who struggle reading text, even if concise

- Visual readers needing images too; the books are so condensed there are no images, although the flashcards may be of greater benefit here with their simple drawings.

- Read the books (especially Medicine) throughout Phase II; it's a solid source of most clinical information you'll need.

- Read a selection of related topics, then review with flashcards.

- Still useful for Phase III onwards!

- Visual learners.

- Those who enjoy YouTube videos.

- Super condense 'high-yield' notes; no time spent on full sentences!

- Those who wouldn't be happy with lots of Americanisms.

- Some topics may not be relevant to UK medicine.

- YouTube videos are limited in nature; they don't cover all the topics that their notes do.

- Those on a budget (though you can find free-uploads...)

- It's not cheap; so maybe split a subscription with some friends.

- However, you can find the content online for free; but if you can afford it, show the creators your support - they work hard on this!

- Those preferring to see skills; rather than just read how to do them.

- Great videos of examinations; with helpful explanations of what you're doing.

- Introductions to other clinical skills; such as ECGs and x-ray interpretations.

- OSCE and OSLER prep; best used in combination with the clinical examination checklists from WMS.

- Question bank; it's good, but lags behind offerings from the other resources.

- A sole study resource; it's mainly focused on clinical skills!

- Watch the clinical skills videos periodically, as revision, and before clinical skills sessions!

This free system will capture your references (just search for the name or url) and it'll generate a pretty reliable reference or bibliography.

Available as a programme, add-on, or extension, it integrates with many other programmes you may use, like OneNote.

Website and blog with concise yet comprehensive free notes on nearly all of the Phase II Presentations. Cannot emphasise enough - just check it out!

Plus it has mindmaps, (flash) checklist-cards, and covers medications.

Perfect for those Presentations lists - just double-check NICE guidelines (but you can see when notes were last updated).