Vocabulary

Science & Medicine flashcards

8 decks · 280 cards · built into Willys · free samples below

Written against: 150 words of health and science news; not medical advice. Updated 2026-10-10.

What's in it

Every deck follows the course outline, with tags you can study or suspend topic by topic. Open a deck to study its free sample right here.

Learn · 4 decks · 200 cards

Concepts, mechanisms and the questions a course or exam asks about them.

Set 1: Meanings The 75 most common of the 150 Science & Medicine words, from vaccine and genome to black hole and half-life: pronunciation, a plain definition and three example sentences, the most common use first. 10 free · 75 cards in the app Set 1: In Context Fill the blank: 25 of the Set 1 words, each in a new sentence from clinics, labs, field studies and outer space, whose clues point to one word of the pack (where a second also fits, the back says so). 10 free · 25 cards in the app Set 2: Meanings The 75 less common of the 150 Science & Medicine words, from artery and quarantine to permafrost and exoplanet: pronunciation, a plain definition and three example sentences, the most common use first. 10 free · 75 cards in the app Set 2: In Context Fill the blank: 25 of the Set 2 words, each in a new sentence from clinics, labs, field studies and space missions, whose clues point to exactly one word of the pack. 10 free · 25 cards in the app

Drills · 2 decks · 50 cards

Short answers and cloze blanks for the facts you simply have to know cold.

Set 1: Quick Drills Meaning to word: 25 of the Set 1 words, from a fresh one-line definition back to the word itself, with one example of it at work. 10 free · 25 cards in the app Set 2: Quick Drills Meaning to word: 25 of the Set 2 words, from a fresh one-line definition back to the word itself, with one example of it at work. 10 free · 25 cards in the app

Practice · 2 decks · 30 questions

Multiple-choice practice questions, one best answer each, with the reasoning.

Set 1: Practice Fifteen sentence-completion questions on the Set 1 words, set in clinics, labs and observatories: four choices, one blank, and why the tempting wrong answer fails. 6 free · 15 questions in the app Set 2: Practice Fifteen sentence-completion questions on the Set 2 words, set in clinics, labs and observatories: four choices, one blank, and why the tempting wrong answer fails. 6 free · 15 questions in the app

Study guide

Topics covered

The decks follow the order of the course outline. Numbers are cards per topic.

Body & Health 35
Disease & Infection 38
Diagnosis & Treatment 35
Research & Technology 37
Genes & Life 33
Matter & Energy 34
Earth & Climate 33
Space 35

A study plan

10 new cards a day covers everything in a month, leaving the last weeks for review.
5 new cards a day covers everything in two months, leaving the last weeks for review.

Willys schedules reviews for you (FSRS spaced repetition), so the daily number above is only for new cards; reviews of what you have learned come back on their own. Study a topic's cards right after you meet it in class, suspend topics you have not reached yet, and use the app's quiz mode in the final two weeks.

How to get these decks

Install Willys on your iPhone, iPad or Mac — App Store. 14-day free trial, then $14.99 a year.
In Willys, tap Exam Library at the top of your Decks (or Browse Exam Library… under the + button), find the exam on its shelf or by search, tick it and tap Add.
Study. The exam comes in as its own collapsible folder, every card scheduled by FSRS spaced repetition. Nothing you already have is changed.

Every deck is built into Willys

All 8 Science & Medicine decks (280 cards), with FSRS spaced repetition, quizzes and mock tests, on iPhone, iPad and Mac. 14-day free trial, then $14.99 a year.

Get the app

In Willys, tap Exam Library at the top of your Decks (or Browse Exam Library… under the + button), find the exam on its shelf or by search, tick it and tap Add.

About these cards

Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.

Checked against:

Senses, parts of speech and pronunciations checked against Merriam-Webster.com, the American Heritage Dictionary and the Oxford Learner's, Longman and Cambridge learner's dictionaries; all definitions, notes and example sentences are original.
Word selection is our own, from general-reader news, textbooks and frequency data (wordfreq, CC BY-SA 4.0); no publisher's list is reproduced.
Senses and parts of speech checked against Merriam-Webster.com, the American Heritage Dictionary and the Oxford Learner's, Longman and Cambridge learner's dictionaries; all definitions, notes and example sentences are original.
Also checked against NASA Science's Titan and Mercury fact pages, the UCAR Center for Science Education, NOAA's Climate.gov, the CDC and WHO measles pages, NIDDK and MedlinePlus on gallstones, NHGRI's Talking Glossary, the axolotl genome papers in Nature (2018) and Genome Research (2019), Maughan et al. in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2016), the University of Oklahoma Libraries' exhibit on Redi, NobelPrize.org and the University of Toronto's insulin collection, and the University of Sydney's physics tutorial on the vacuum flask (reference only; no text copied).
Facts in the question sentences checked against NASA, the USGS, the CDC, the NIH (Office of Dietary Supplements, NCCIH, MedlinePlus), the eCFR (21 CFR 314.126), the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, the University of Hawaii's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, the Cleveland Clinic, the Atomic Heritage Foundation, Physics Today and peer-reviewed papers; used for reference only, with no text copied.

These are independent study notes written for Willys. They are not official exam material, may contain mistakes, and are no substitute for your course, your teacher or the exam owner's own publications. Found an error? Tell us — corrections ship as a new version of the deck.

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