Rezory Blog / Study Methods

Spaced repetition for the MCAT: how to stop forgetting what you already learned

A practical guide to spaced repetition for MCAT prep — what to put on cards, how many to review daily, when to make your own vs use premade decks, and the traps that waste hours.

Study Methods · 9 min read · Published 2026-05-09

The forgetting curve and why most review fails

Hermann Ebbinghaus's 1885 work on memory established a basic and brutal truth: without active review, we lose information roughly exponentially. Most of what you learn in week one is gone by week four if you do not see it again. For a 6-month MCAT cycle, that means month-one biochemistry is mostly forgotten by month four — exactly when full-length tests start to expose the gaps.

Spaced repetition counteracts the forgetting curve by spacing reviews at increasing intervals — typically 1 day, 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, 30 days, 90 days. Each successful recall extends the next interval. The algorithm is designed to make you review each fact just before you would have forgotten it, which is when the review is most efficient.

Software implementations like Anki use variants of the SM-2 algorithm. The math is not magic, but the discipline is the point: you have to actually do the reviews every day. Skip three days and the algorithm cannot save you, because the backlog compounds.

Spaced repetition only works as a daily habit. Skip a week and the algorithm cannot rescue you.

What goes on a card (and what does not)

The biggest mistake in MCAT Anki is putting entire passages or paragraphs on a single card. Cards should be atomic — one fact or one association per card. If you cannot recall the card in 10 seconds, it is too complex and should be broken into smaller cards.

Good MCAT card targets: discrete biochemical facts (enzyme + cofactor pairs, hormone + tissue + effect triplets), high-yield psychology and sociology terms with one-sentence definitions, mnemonic anchors for sequences (the Krebs cycle order, the cranial nerves), and discrete equations with what they apply to.

Bad MCAT card targets: full reasoning processes, multi-step problem solutions, anything that requires a passage to make sense. Those belong in your written notes or in passage practice review, not in your daily SRS deck.

  • One fact per card.
  • 10-second recall target.
  • Build cards from your own missed questions, not just premade decks.
  • Skip cards for anything you must reason through rather than recall.

How many cards per day actually works

Most MCAT students should aim for 15 to 30 new cards per day and a daily review queue under 200 cards. New cards build the deck; reviews maintain it. Once you cross 200 cards per day in reviews, the time cost starts to outweigh the retention benefit.

If you fall behind, do not add more new cards until your review queue is back under control. The fastest way to ruin a spaced repetition habit is to keep adding new cards while your reviews pile up — the queue grows, the daily session gets demoralizing, and eventually you stop.

Time-box your daily SRS session. 20 to 40 minutes a day is the typical sustainable range. If your session is creeping above an hour, the deck is too big for your bandwidth and you need to either drop low-yield cards or reduce new card volume.

Sustainable cadence beats heroic cadence. The deck you actually keep doing is better than the perfect deck you quit on.

Premade decks vs your own cards

There is a real debate about whether to use premade community decks (like AnKing for MCAT) or build your own from scratch. Both approaches work, but they work for different students.

Premade decks are faster to start, broader in coverage, and have been refined by many users. They are good for students who do not have time to build cards from scratch and want a comprehensive deck to start reviewing immediately. The downside is that you are studying someone else's prioritization, which may not match your weaknesses.

Self-built cards are slower but more targeted. The act of making a card from a missed question forces you to articulate why you missed it, which itself is high-value review. If you have time, a hybrid approach works best: start from a premade deck for broad coverage, then add your own cards for personal weak spots.

Three common SRS traps that waste hours

The first trap: making cards from material before you understand it. Spaced repetition rewards retention of information you already comprehend. If you have not yet understood why an enzyme works the way it does, making a card about it just means you will keep failing the card. Understand first, then card.

The second trap: prioritizing the SRS habit over practice questions. Spaced repetition is a maintenance tool. The actual score gains come from passage practice and review. If your SRS sessions are pushing your passage time below 90 minutes a day, you have the balance wrong.

The third trap: over-tweaking the algorithm. Resist the urge to spend an hour adjusting Anki settings to maximize 'efficiency.' Defaults work. The thing that matters is showing up every day. Optimization beyond defaults yields diminishing returns and consumes time that should go into reviewing cards.

  • Understand first, then card. Never card material you have not learned.
  • SRS is maintenance. Practice questions are still the main lever.
  • Use default settings. Stop optimizing the tool and start using it.

Spaced repetition is a force multiplier on understanding, not a substitute for it.

Sources