How to Turn MCAT Practice Questions into Powerful Anki Cards

April 7, 2025 · San Diego, CA

One of the smartest moves you can make in your MCAT prep is to leverage your mistakes—not just review them. If you’re doing practice problems but not capturing your weak spots in a system like Anki, you’re losing half the value of those questions. Let’s fix that.

Learn More About How to Use Anki to Study For the MCAT here

When Should You Make Your Own Anki Cards?

Most students think Anki is just for memorizing content—and yes, it's great for that. But where Anki really shines is in locking in insights from practice questions. When you get something wrong and actually take the time to reflect, process, and encode that learning into a flashcard, you're building long-term mastery.

The golden rule: Create a card every time you realize you don’t understand something during practice.

Don’t just copy the question and walk away. That might feel productive, but it’s not going to help you in the long run. Instead, you need to figure out why you got the question wrong. What was the exact piece of knowledge—or misunderstanding—that tripped you up? That’s the insight you want to capture in a card.

If your Anki cards are just screenshots of UWorld questions, you’re missing the point. Make your cards teach you what you didn’t know. Focus on reasoning, not rote repetition.

How to Make Effective Cards: Step-by-Step

  1. Review your incorrect answer and read the explanation carefully.
  2. Ask yourself: What is the core concept I misunderstood or didn’t know?
  3. Phrase that concept as a flashcard. Make it general enough to help on future questions, not just that one.
  4. Use simple language and include logic, diagrams, or contrast items where helpful.
  5. Optional: Make multiple cards if the question revealed more than one weakness.

Example Breakdown: Vmax and Enzyme Kinetics

Let’s walk through a sample question and how to turn your mistake into a solid Anki card:

From our MCAT Practice Library

Question: Which of the following is most likely to increase the Vmax of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction?

Choices:

  • A. Adding a competitive inhibitor
  • B. Increasing substrate concentration ❌
  • C. Adding more enzyme ✅
  • D. Decreasing pH

Let’s say you picked B. That’s a super common trap answer.

What Went Wrong?

If you chose B, you probably misunderstood what Vmax really means. You may know it’s the “maximum rate” but didn’t realize you can only change it by changing the amount of enzyme present.

Cards you Could Make:

  • Card 1 (Conceptual Understanding):
    Front: What does Vmax represent in an enzyme-catalyzed reaction?
    Back: Vmax is the maximum reaction rate when the enzyme is saturated with substrate. It is represented by: Vmax = kcat [E]
  • Card 2 (Clarification of Effect):
    Front:Enzyme concentration effect on Vmax
    Back: Vmax increases proportionally to the concentration of enzyme according to Vmax = kcat [E]
  • Card 3 (Clarification of Non-effect):
    Front: How does increasing substrate concentration affect Vmax?
    Back: It doesn’t! Once the enzyme is saturated, adding more substrate has no effect—Vmax is already reached. Only adding more enzyme can increase it according to Vmax = kcat [E]

You could link to this Khan Academy explanation in the “Extra” field if you want a reference.

Quick Recap

Here’s the streamlined version of how to turn a practice question into a killer Anki card:

  1. Find your error.
  2. Reflect on what you didn’t understand.
  3. Create a flashcard that fixes that gap in your knowledge.
  4. Keep it general, clear, and reusable for future questions.

WozPrep: Personalized MCAT Prep That Actually Works

At WozPrep, we believe test prep should be as unique as the student. Our mission is to replace cookie-cutter strategies with personalized guidance that meets you where you are. Through 1-on-1 mentorship, flexible plans, and a deep commitment to your individual growth, we’re redefining what MCAT tutoring can be—intelligent, compassionate, and tailored entirely to you.

Click here to learn more about our MCAT tutoring services and how we can help you turn your mistakes into mastery—one flashcard at a time.