Anki - Math Problems

Anki is an excellent tool for memorizing theory, but what happens when we need to learn mathematical or physics calculations? Can we also learn those with Anki? The answer is yes!

Studying pharmacy involves a lot of calculation problems in various subjects. I used to approach the problems by solving as many calculation problems as possible before the exam. When I learned about Anki, it seemed obvious to add those problems there too. At that time, there were more subjects with fewer calculation problems or shorter ones, so my plan was simple. I added all the problems to Anki in such a way that the entire problem with all the numbers was written on the front of the card. The full solution was written on the other side of the card. When I came across a calculation card, I took a calculator and calculated the entire problem from start to finish and checked the result. Great. So we can add calculation problems to Anki, right?

I quickly realized that these problems took more time than other question cards, but that was okay. I still used this method because I knew it would help me pass the exam successfully. Still, I often felt like I was doing a lot of repetitive work on the calculator. Similar to when I first learned about spaced repetition or the forgetting curve. I saw that I often repeated cards that I already knew in my deck. It felt very boring and seemed like a waste of time. "Not this card again? I already know this!" It seemed like I was experiencing a similar story with calculation problems, but I didn't know any other solutions for learning. It was still the best method for memorizing such problems, so I stuck with it.

All of this worked for a while until I came across Biopharmacy with Pharmacokinetics in my fourth year. It seemed like I hit a wall. Solving one problem could take 30-40 minutes. That's not an issue if we don't have to solve the problem repeatedly. But if we add this problem to Anki and spend 30 minutes repeating it each time, we can spend more than two hours on just three problems in this subject. There were many different types of problems in this subject. So what now? Of course, I wanted to learn calculation problems with Anki. But what should I do if repeating just three of these problems in Anki takes almost my entire daily time when we’re most focused?

I took on my tasks again and suddenly it dawned on me. "Of course!" I realized what I had known all along in the background. I had spent a lot of time on constant calculation and reading long tasks to repeat flashcards. In the end, I still got stuck on the same part of the task every time. What if I skip the calculations? What if I completely omit all the numbers? And just use their labels? In that case, I would only repeat those important jumps in the task. And everything would run much faster.

I returned to the tasks and opened Anki. Instead of the entire text, I now only recorded the data provided in the task on the front of the card.

On the back, I recorded only how I manipulated formulas to get the desired data.

Below, we will explain this principle further using a simple example of calculating speed. First, let's see what the entire copied task and solution with numbers would look like in Anki.

How could we better write this task in Anki now? If we omit all the numbers, we then write only the labels of the data we have on the task (on the front of the card).

In such a short task, the difference may be less noticeable, but we don't have to read the text, and we don't need to take out a calculator and calculate the tasks. At the same time, we keep all the jumps we need to successfully solve it.

So, what are the advantages of this approach?

1. We significantly shorten the time it takes to repeat the task.
2. We retain all the necessary jumps to solve the task.
3. We prevent ourselves from only memorizing the solution for specific data, but we can solve the example even if the task has different numbers.