Hi all! I was answering a question about Anki decks, and since they come up all the time on this sub, I thought I could make a healthy contribution to what I think the current state is of each deck and how they may best be used for folks just entering this space. I wish I had something like this when I started prepping last year, because let's face it, information is often scattered, outdated, or personal. So hopefully this is helpful.

Keep in mind the best approach for YOU will vary based on your willingness to grind Anki, time, prior knowledge, learning style preference, and desired comprehensiveness.

TLDR: I’d recommend Anking if you like the cloze style and have a regular study period, Captain Hook if you like the open-ended style and have a longer study period, Aidan if you like the cloze style and have a very long study period, and MileDown if you really need to jam through a very short period (although less recommended). I also included two example Anki-inclusive studying strategies below deck commentary.

I’ll try to be objective below, but obviously this is a subjective thing. For context, I’ve been monitoring the Anki MCAT space for over a year and these opinions are formed from my own experience trying out several decks as I prepare for my own MCAT and the experiences of my peers. Of course, please check the comments of this post for additional perspectives!

Final note as we go in for beginners: Cloze v.s. open-ended? Skip to the next titled section if you already know what this is, and what it means for your memory!

Cloze or open-ended refers to the notecard format. Cloze is "fill-in-the-blank", and open-ended is the more traditional front/back approach. Cloze is probably the most commonly preferred because it is faster to get through than open-ended and requires less discipline to say whether you got it right or wrong. However, facts learned via cloze are vulnerable to "pattern matching" since that memory is more cued than it would be on an open-ended card. You may struggle more to recall that fact if it's not phrased in the same way or asks about a non-clozed part of the card. Yet, moving through faster allows you to get to practice problems sooner and have time to study other ways, so it's all a cost/benefit analysis you'll have to run for yourself!

MAJOR DECK THOUGHTS (subsection for p/s at section bottom)

Anking (includes Pankow P/S deck): Cloze. It's clean, nicely connected/tagged, and cloze-style will make for a modestly quick yet comprehensive push-through. May not capture everything, but has a nice balance of mostly high-yield info with some low-yield. Middle-of-the-road time investment. This is my general recommendation for people who recently took related classwork because I think it gives you the most optimum balance of a solid base while getting you into practice problems for the average MCAT study window. If your classwork is less recent, you can supplement nicely because it's well-tagged. This means it allows you to unsuspend (unlock cards for review) as you go through a wide variety of common learning content, including Kaplan book chapters, UWorld book chapters, IFD High Yield book chapters, UWorld Questions, Khan Academy videos, Pixorize, and AAMC content outline concepts. Its regular updates and organizational backing are also without equal in the MCAT Anki community. What's also nice is that although its mostly a cloze deck, it often includes additional pictures or context that aren't part of getting the card "right," so you can go harder with it if you want.

Jack Sparrow (own P/S deck): Open-ended. Generally seen as the most comprehensive option of the open-ended decks out there, and covers more than AnKing does, but it's riddled with long explanations, and it’s been a few years since it was updated (2020 release). Many very high scorers swear by this one because it includes a lot of both high AND low yield info. But fair warning, it will be a massive drain on your time if you're doing it right. Not really connected to other resources in terms of tags. Has its own P/S, but many end up substituting its P/S with Mr. Pankow's deck (cloze). Alternatively, you can sub with MCATalysts recent P/S deck, which is open-ended, to achieve a similar style as the overall deck.

Captain Hook (includes Pankow P/S deck): Open-ended. An awesome Jack Sparrow deck user built this one. It's a modified JS deck with trimmed explanations, some trimmed/added/updated cards, plus Mr. Pankow P/S instead of JS’s regular P/S. Will still take you a lot of time, just less, and still covers the high and low yield topics. IMO, the most practical “comprehensive” deck. It has occasional KA links, but I wish it was resource-tagged like AnKing is. Like JS, if you like the open-ended style, you can sub out Pankow P/S (cloze) for MCATalysts recent P/S deck. CH was released in 2025, but is based on a 2020 deck. This is the one I use, but I still often add my own additional explanations to the back because some of the cards are briefer than I'd like.

MileDown (own P/S deck): Cloze. The advantage here is low time investment with its low card count focused on the highest-yield topics. Many opt to sub out this deck's P/S for Pankow (will be a significant card addition relative to this deck size btw). If you hate Anki and want to get through it ASAP, Milesdown may be your best bet. Fair warning though, it’s a bit outdated (2019 release), and the things it omits aren't necessarily fluff! I would recommend supplementing with UWorld error cards you either make yourself or unsuspend through AnKing. You should definitely supplement this deck with other learning methods like Khan Academy videos, Kaplan, etc., which is a good idea anyway, but especially if this is what you choose. It includes some links, but lacks resource tagging. Fun fact, the current AnKing deck traces much of its lineage to the original Milesdown deck, and pays homage in its tags accordingly. That said, AnKing MCAT now has a LOT more than Milesdown.

Aidan v2 (own P/S deck): Cloze. Probably the most comprehensive major deck available, but that comprehensiveness comes with a massive workload. The community-built 2026 v2 trimmed its card count to roughly 12,000 by removing genuinely out-of-scope material, correcting many reported errors, removing unsolicited AAMC spoilers, and adding newer P/S terms. For context, AnKing MCAT is ~6,400 cards, and MileDown is almost 2,900. The science sections generally follow Kaplan chapters, while P/S follows Khan Academy/the 300-page document, but it lacks AnKing’s extensive resource tagging. This is best suited to someone with a long study period, probably 5–6+ months, who enjoys Anki and wants to minimize content gaps. Many users instead pull from it selectively for weak subjects. V2 receives occasional community corrections through AnkiHub, but not with AnKing’s update frequency, and occasional errors may remain. I’d strongly recommend v2 over the original.

As for the P/S-specific decks mentioned above:

Mr. Pankow: Cloze. Offered independently or as part of AnKing or Captain Hook. Up until a couple weeks ago, basically the undisputed gold standard P/S deck, and may still be. It's the most battle-tested P/S across several years of MCAT-takers, and most who have completed it swear by it. The fact that other major MCAT decks include it by default should tell you something. It’s based on the Khan Academy MCAT outline for P/S and follows its videos/sheet closely. It’s a grind (definitely a bigger deck), but worth it according to many. Also the dude who made it is funny. Many of those cards have sneaky jokes, and that’s awesome when you're on a long grind.

MCATalyst P/S: Open-ended. The new kid on the P/S block (2026 summer release). Credits Pankow for forming the core of its content, but restructures and re-organizes the deck to be in an open-question format, reformats the cards themselves, and trims and adds some things according to the builder’s idea of what’s more/less important and current to the test. I’m using this personally, but know that this deck is new and therefore largely untested. Still, the fact that it’s grounded in Pankow and its association with the MCATalyst brand offers some reassurance. If you see this post months or years from now, search to see what the latest conclusions are.

GENERAL STRATEGY EXAMPLES THAT INCLUDE ANKI:

Note: I didn't include AAMC full lengths and Q packs here, but they are widely considered to be an essential, late portion of your test-date ramp. Don't neglect this!

The default catch-all “standard” and my general recommendation: AnKing MCAT (includes Mr. Pankow p/s!) with learning supplement and UWorld

1. Read Kaplan/Uworld Book chapter or watch Khan Academy MCAT video according to preference
2. Unsuspend related AnKing cards via tag by your choice of "learning phase" material you just covered.
3. Grind for a bit. Once comfortable with a beginning knowledge base (which doesn’t mean completing the deck/chapters/YT videos!), start doing UWorld Questions
4. Unsuspend Anki cards associated with your UWorld questions that aren't a part of your rotation yet (UWorld Qs also tagged in AnKing). Make your own cards for errors/AnKing gaps.
5. Grind until AnKing deck is mature and UWorld is complete. Note: DO NOT NEGLECT UWORLD IN THIS STRATEGY OR ANY OTHERS! IT IS GOLD STANDARD!

Anki load: medium (cloze style)

Overall time investment: medium-high (can modify to low-medium if your base is strong and you skip books/videos etc. and go straight to practice Qs and cards, though you may have gaps)

Comprehensiveness: medium-high

The mega-comprehensive maniac: Captain Hook (I replaced Mr. Pankow p/s with MCATalyst for P/S since it’s open-ended) with UWorld/Anking and optional learning supplement.

(my approach, but warning… MASSIVE time sink. Not for everyone, or even most. I was a non-trad so I felt I needed to.)

1. Optional: Read Kaplan chapter and unsuspend related cards (note: Captain Hook's subdecks are largely organized by Kaplan chapter, the deck does not have actual tags for Kaplan or any other learning resource like UWorld). If you do this, it will take even MORE time than CH does already. From someone in the middle of that grind... just be warned. This isn't a quick jam.
2. Grind for a bit, unlocking P/S too as you go, and spot-examining topics that come up in your cards that are unclear to you. Once comfortable with your knowledge base, which doesn’t mean completing the deck, start doing UWorld.
3. Unsuspend AnKing cards associated with your MISSED UWorld questions for extra, cheaper reinforcement, and/or make your own.
4. Grind until CH, UWorld, and error AnKing complete.

Anki Load: Large (CH: open-ended, Pankow (default p/s): cloze, MCATalyst (personal replacement p/s): open-ended, AnKing: Cloze)

Overall time investment: high (+higher w/ Kaplan chapters)

Comprehensiveness: high (+higher w/ Kaplan chapters)

CONCLUSION

Hopefully this was useful in demystifying the Anki resources that are out there and how they can be applied! Please share your support/critiques/thoughts below so folks searching this stuff up can get the right context and perspective! GOOD LUCK FUTURE DOCTOR!

Hey, everyone! My exam is coming up in 2.5 weeks, much like some of you, and I'm really struggling with improving my CARS score. I keep getting a 125-126, and I'm aiming for at least a 128. I notice that I usually only miss around 2-4 questions on the first 4 passages but then miss 10 or so questions on the remaining five due to timing and the 2 or so really difficult passages they tend to throw in. Does anyone have any tips for improving? I review my answers and don't struggle much with comprehension, but I just can't seem to improve on timing/accuracy on this section. Thanks for any help/advice!

Is there another MCAT deck I can sync into anki that doesnt require oayijg money for it but is as good as the AnkiHub the Anking MCAT deck?

For those who took the MCAT what are the must pay for resources to be successful in the mcat and what are the free must use resources that are helpfull?

Hello all, I'm testing 9/11 and now (officially?) a month out.

FL1 Split: 130/129/129/129 (517)

FL2 Split: 131/127/128/128 (514)

I'm super overwhelmed right now because there's so much to do and not a lot of time to do it, and I feel like my commitment to work is completely screwing up my ability to study for this exam. I'll come home and be so exhausted that I don't want to do anything, or only have a couple of hours to get stuff done before going to sleep, which is not enough to complete all my priorities.

Currently, I'm working on refreshing on content because although I learned it all, I was not able to keep up with flashcards while doing my practice month (UWorld) and ultimately forgot a lot of it. For my last FL, a lot of my B/B mistakes were super dumb content gaps that would have been easily solved by not abandoning my responsibilities, so I've decided that needs to be solved ASAP.

That being said, I also have all of the AAMC materials to get through, which I've heard is such a huge part of exam prep that will singlehandedly boost your score by a bunch.

I have also heard that you need to thoroughly review your FL exams and SBs, Qpacks, etc.

That leaves me with 3 priorities that need to get done within a month:

1. Finish catching up on all content review (Bio Chapters 1-4 and 6-9, Biochem 9-12), including finishing Pankow (450 cards left).

2. Finish all SBs, CARS Qpacks, QBanks.

3. Review all questions from FLs as well as the practice materials I do.

With only about 4 hours maximum a day to dedicate to all this, I really wanted to hear some feedback on what I should focus on the most in the coming weeks. I've found that having all these priorities and not knowing which one to focus on has led to me being super inefficient with my time because I'll end up hopping back and forth between each one, ultimately leading to none of them really getting done.

For the content review, I'm not learning it from scratch. I usually just set a YT video at 2x speed (35 min) and then do the corresponding Anki (1hr) and then set the FSRS to 80% so it doesn't eat too much of my time to actually keep up with the cards this time. In the past weeks, I've been able to get about 2-3 chapters w/ their Anki done per day, as well as been pretty successful in keeping up with the stacking reviews this time around. So, I estimate that about one week should be enough to fully catch up on all B/B content review because C/P has been pretty much finished for me so far as reflected by my pretty decent score on the last FL.

Any advice?

Thanks!

Retaker here, unless you are scoring under 500, most of your time should be spent doing practice problems. Anki should be used for the concepts you continually get wrong.

I’ve noticed a huge score increase from applying the concepts more often than just grinding out cards.

Anki is helpful, but the MCAT is a passage based exam and needs practice that reflects that.

Edit: Yes Anki is still important! No denying that especially for brute force memorization topics or any weak areas.
I’m saying that people can put too much emphasis on it, over getting through practice questions. Each time a practice question is attempted you are testing your remembrance of a concept (like Anki) while simultaneously practicing stamina, passage analysis, and MC elimination tactics.

Anyone have a good deck that’s purely psychology and sociology? I don’t have time before my exam to review a 2500 card deck and skip past hundreds of cards. I don’t particularly need any review on brain structures or sensory organs. (I’m also new to Anki so maybe there is a way to filter that out?)

I just need to review the theories and concepts specific to psych/soc. Especially Name-Based theories that aren’t intuitive just from the name.

I plan on testing either in late March or early April of next year.

For anki what would you recommend for the go to deck? I hear good things from all and feel like I have enough time to truly mature each deck.

testing 9/3 and really behind in my studying, have several content gaps that i havent learned yet in physics and bioc, barely touched uworld. aamc unscored i got 178/230, fl1 511 but i'm sure those are flukes because they just so happened to test the material i'm already familiar with. i am also aiming for 515+.... on top of that, i am working full time + part time as well this summer, which reduces the time i have left.

what materials should i focus on at this point? i'm planning on doing sb1 and sb2 as well as all the CARS aamc material, but should i still do some uworld?

also, in going through the section banks, i've been doing like 2-3 passages at a time. do you guys usually just grind through it in one sitting?

SOS!!!

Need help with content review as I have a big gap in content. 481 score. How would you go about content, watching Yousef Hasan on YouTube, anki, and uworld?

I am planning on applying to medical school next cycle (April 2027). I currently work as a medical scribe in a clinic since March of this year. Is this considered paid patient care experience???

I have heard so many different things about medical scribing so please help out!! If you have experience in this let me know how it went for you!! or if you know of someone let me know their experience!!

Did you scribe for your patient care hours and get into medical school??

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!

I know that people say medical assistant is better for applying to medical school but i’m not sure!!

Anyone know of any remote study groups? Like jumping on a Zoom with others, muting our mics, and studying to hold each other accountable and then ask questions and discuss content when needed?

I already graduated, so I'm studying in a silo, and feel like I need a study group whose also studying from home. Anyone know of any groups or want to form one? If so, DM me.

I’ve just started using Jacksparrow for Bio/biochem review and does anyone have a strategy to doing the cards without burning out? I’ve been doing content review by watching Yusuf Hassan videos and unsuspending the corresponding chapters in Jack-sparrow however, this leads to like 150+ new cards at times😭😭. I’m also using Pankow for P/S and have that at a steady 40 new cards a day (which has accumulated to around 200 reviews per day). For chem/orgo i’ve been using miles down and it’s not too bad. With all the subjects it’s just getting wayyy to much and i’m curious as to how other people are getting through the Jacksparrow deck

I was supposed to take the MCAT in August but on my last AAMC FL 3 I scored a 489. This led me to reschedule to a January test.

I need some help:

- I am a full time student

- Volunteering

- Work 6 hours per week

Is it realistic for me to study for next 6 months ( i have some solid hours of studying done these past 2 months in the summer as well). MY GOAL SCORE IS around 515+. I would be happy with a 514 lol.

IF YOU HAVE DONE THIS IN THE PAST OR HAVE ANY TIPS AND ADVICE WOULD BE APPRECIATED.

let me know how your experience was if your in the same boat!!

THANK YOUU

Looking for an affordable tutor who can help me with planning and strategy for test taking. Planning to start as soon as possible. I know the format of the test and what all materials to use.. I have kaplan, UW, and anki ready to go. Plz comment or DM ME!! If you can help we can do a quick chat to get set up. Thank you.