Generate USMLE Step 1 & Step 2 Flashcards from First Aid, Pathoma, and Your Class Notes
Upload First Aid, Pathoma, Sketchy notes, or your medical school lectures and our AI USMLE flashcards generator builds personalized cloze, basic, and image-occlusion-ready cards — exportable to Anki, FSRS-friendly, and tuned for boards-style recall.
Free to start · No credit card · Anki export · FSRS-ready
From First Aid to flashcards in minutes
Three steps from your Step prep stack to a personalized deck that fills the gaps AnKing doesn't.
Upload First Aid, Pathoma, or lectures
Drop in PDFs from First Aid, Pathoma, Sketchy, BootCamp, or your medical school's lectures. Scholarly reads the actual material — no copy-pasting.
AI writes a personalized deck
The generator produces cloze cards, basic Q/A, and image-occlusion-ready slides — scheduled with FSRS, tagged by topic, and cited back to the source.
Drill on web, iOS, or Anki
Study in Scholarly's apps with built-in FSRS, or export to Anki and merge with AnKing. Your choice, no lock-in.
Built for the way medical students actually study
Cloze quality, image occlusion, FSRS, Anki export — everything you'd want, generated from your own material.
Cloze cards from First Aid
High-quality cloze deletions from First Aid pages and Pathoma chapters — the workhorse card format for boards prep.
Image-occlusion ready
Drops in diagrams from your slides and auto-detects labeled regions, producing one card per label — the format that owns anatomy and histology.
Anki export, no lock-in
Export any deck as an .apkg file and merge into your AnKing collection. Tags carry over so subdecking still works.
FSRS scheduling built in
Cards use the FSRS algorithm by default — the same modern scheduler the AnKing community moved to. No add-on needed.
Step 1, Step 2, and MCAT
Works for USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 prep, COMLEX, MCAT, and shelf exams. Use the same tool from MS1 through dedicated.
Source-cited every card
Every card is tagged with the page or slide it came from, so you can trace a card back to First Aid or your lecture in one click.
AnKing is necessary. It's not sufficient.
AnKing v12 has roughly 35,000 cards. It's the spine of Step prep for a reason — it covers the high-yield material and most students who finish it do well on boards. We're not here to replace it. We're here to fill the gap between AnKing and your specific rotation, your specific professor, and the chapters you happen to be weakest on.
The honest truth: AnKing is a generic deck. It doesn't know which lectures your school assigns extra weight to, what your shelf exam is going to emphasize, or which First Aid pages you've already mastered. It can't make you a 30-card deck on a specific Pathoma chapter you struggled with last week. That's what Scholarly does.
Upload First Aid, Pathoma, Sketchy, BootCamp.com notes, or your own lecture PDFs, and Scholarly's AI USMLE flashcards generator writes a personalized deck — cloze cards for high-yield facts, basic Q/A for pure recall, and image-occlusion-ready slides for anatomy and histology. Every card is scheduled with FSRS (the same algorithm AnKing users rely on) and exportable to Anki if you want to merge it with your main deck.
The other thing AnKing can't do: real-time. Hit a topic you don't understand mid-rotation, drop the relevant chapter in, and have a focused deck on your phone before your next case presentation. Pair this with a practice exam from the same material for a complete study loop.
Sample cards generated from First Aid
Pharmacology · Beta blockersA snapshot of three card formats Scholarly produces from a single source.
Cloze
Selective β1 blockers include [...metoprolol, atenolol, esmolol...] and are preferred in patients with asthma or COPD.
FA p. 251 · "Beta-1 selective antagonists"
Image occlusion ready
Auto-detects labeled regions and creates one card per label.
Basic Q/A
Front
Which beta blocker is used for thyroid storm and why?
Back
Propranolol — non-selective, also inhibits peripheral T4 → T3 conversion.
FA p. 252 · "High-yield clinical correlations"
Scholarly vs. AnKing — an honest comparison
AnKing is the gold standard. Scholarly is the supplement. Most successful Step students will use both.
AnKing v12
Where it shines: ~35,000 community-vetted cards covering the full Step 1 and Step 2 high-yield content. The literal standard for Step prep flashcards.
Cards are tagged by resource (First Aid, Pathoma, Sketchy, BootCamp) and by USMLE-RX/UWorld question, so you can dynamically subdeck off your QBank performance.
Generic by design — it doesn't know your school's emphasis, your specific lectures, or which chapters you've already mastered.
Onboarding is heavy: add-ons, tagging conventions, and FSRS configuration take real effort before you're studying.
Scholarly
Where it shines: personalized cards from your material — First Aid pages you're weak on, your school's lecture decks, that one Pathoma chapter you keep getting wrong.
Cloze, basic, and image-occlusion-ready cards from a single upload. FSRS-scheduled by default, no add-on required.
Export to Anki when you want — merge with AnKing or keep your supplementary deck separate.
Best used alongside AnKing: AnKing for breadth, Scholarly for your school's specifics and your personal weak topics.
AI USMLE flashcards — frequently asked questions
Can I export Scholarly's USMLE flashcards to Anki?
Yes. Any deck can be exported as a standard .apkg file and imported into Anki on desktop or mobile. Tags carry over, so if you organize cards by First Aid chapter or Pathoma module, that structure is preserved in your AnKing collection.
How good are the cloze cards?
Cloze quality is the thing we obsess over for medical prep. The generator targets high-yield facts — drug classes, mechanisms, side effect profiles, classic associations — and avoids low-value cloze deletions of throwaway words. Every cloze cites the source page so you can verify accuracy in seconds.
Does it generate image-occlusion cards?
Scholarly produces image-occlusion-ready slides — it detects labeled regions on diagrams and prepares one card per label. When you export to Anki, these work seamlessly with the standard Image Occlusion Enhanced add-on. Inside Scholarly's apps, image-occlusion review works natively.
Can I import AnKing into Scholarly?
You can import any .apkg file into Scholarly, including AnKing. Once imported, AnKing cards live alongside your Scholarly-generated cards in one FSRS schedule, so you can drill both in a single session.
Does it cover MCAT as well as USMLE?
Yes. The same generator works for MCAT prep — upload Kaplan, TBR, or UWorld passage explanations and it produces personalized cards. Most premed users use Scholarly for MCAT content review and switch to USMLE prep once they start medical school.
Is FSRS supported?
Yes. FSRS is the default scheduling algorithm in Scholarly — no add-on or configuration needed. If you export to Anki, the exported deck preserves FSRS-compatible review history.
Is there a free tier?
Yes. Scholarly has a permanent free tier with daily generation limits. Premium plans unlock higher daily limits, longer uploads (entire First Aid sections in one shot), and larger image-occlusion batches.
Is this an AnKing replacement?
No, and we won't pretend it is. AnKing is the gold standard for Step prep and most students should still use it as their core deck. Scholarly is the supplement — for your school's specific lectures, your weak chapters, and the topics AnKing's generic coverage doesn't emphasize the way your professor does.
Keep exploring
More ways to study with Scholarly
Pair your USMLE flashcards with the rest of the Scholarly platform.
AI Flashcard Maker
The full flashcard feature — cloze, basic, image occlusion.
PDF to Flashcards
Turn any PDF into a spaced-repetition deck.
AI Practice Exam Generator
Mock USMLE-style exams from your study material.
AI Lecture Summarizer
Structured summaries of First Aid and lecture material.
AI Podcast from PDF
Listen to First Aid chapters on the way to the hospital.
All AI Study Tools
Every Scholarly study tool in one place.
Build your supplement deck this week
Upload First Aid, Pathoma, or your lectures and get personalized USMLE cards. Free to start.
Free
- 3 AI Chat messages per day
- 3 AI creations per day
- 1 file upload per day (8MB)
- 1 research report per day
- 5 quiz questions per day
- 1 exam attempt per day
- 15 voice minutes per day
- 8-page PDF to flashcards
- 500 autocomplete words per day
Use it to generate flashcards, improve a deck, make a podcast, create a video lecture, build slides, or process a recording.
Ultimate
$144 billed yearly
Everything in Free, plus:
- Unlimited AI Chat messages & autocomplete
- Unlimited AI creations
- Unlimited file uploads (up to 300MB)
- Unlimited study sessions
- Unlimited exams & quizzes
- 1,000-page PDF to flashcards
- Export to Anki
- Priority support
Pricing in USD. Local currency available in app.
Compare plans
Feature
Free
Ultimate
AI Chat
3 messages/day
Unlimited
AI Creations
3/day total
Unlimited
Deep Research
1 report/day
Unlimited
Creation Tools
Flashcards, deck edits, podcasts, videos, slides, recordings
All unlimited
File Uploads
1/day (8MB)
Unlimited (300MB)
PDF to Flashcards
8 pages
1,000 pages
Practice Questions
5/day
Unlimited
Practice Exams
1/day
Unlimited
Voice Mode
15 min/day
60 min/day
Autocomplete
500 words/day
Unlimited
Export to Anki
—
Included
Support
Standard
Priority
What students say
Scholarly has been a valuable tool for my studies. The AI-generated flashcards and intuitive features make organizing and retaining information much easier.
Briana
Student
This app is great for studying for big test. Drop your PDF's in the system and it'll do the trick. You can organize it specifically for your needs.
Kelvin
Student
I am currently preparing for a test that covers a substantial amount of material, and I've found that not having to physically write out my flashcards has been incredibly beneficia...
Isabelle
Student
Scholarly is great for students. I am enrolled in online university and my classes are all PDF based. All I do is upload the PDF and it creates flashcards decks for me. The greate...
Alexandra
Student
Your questions, answered
Is Scholarly free to use?
Yes! The free plan includes core study tools with daily limits: AI Chat messages, 3 AI creations per day, research reports, file uploads, quizzes, practice exams, and manual flashcard creation. Upgrade to Ultimate when you want unlimited AI creations and higher limits.
What uses my daily AI creation?
Generating flashcards, improving a flashcard deck, making a podcast, creating a video lecture, building slides, or processing a recording each use the same daily free AI creation allowance. AI Chat messages, uploads, quizzes, and exams have their own separate daily limits.
Can I cancel anytime?
Absolutely. There are no contracts or commitments. You can cancel your subscription at any time from your account settings, and you'll keep access until the end of your billing period.
What payment methods do you accept?
We accept all major credit and debit cards through Stripe. Pricing is displayed in USD by default, but local currency is available in the app.
Do you offer discounts for educators?
Yes, we offer special pricing for educators and educational institutions. Contact us at [email protected] for details.
What happens when I hit a free plan limit?
You'll see a prompt to upgrade. Your existing work is never lost — limits only apply to new daily actions like AI Chat messages, uploads, quiz questions, and new AI creations. Limits reset every day.
For Educators or Schools
Contact us for special pricing at [email protected].