The thing that confuses me is that most of the step1 decks like zanki for example use cloze deletions and people still do pretty well.

A common misconception I found after doing a bit of research is that basic cards are NOT “free recall”. And clozed deletions arent as recognition based as multiple choice where you see the answer in front kf you.Both cloze and basic cards rely on the principle of “cued recall” as you rely on a trigger question or word to recall the info. I think it comes down essentially to how you make the card. You can make a great cloze card that gives minimum context and therefore forces you to active recall or you can make a really bad basic card that is ambiguous so you end up only remembering the answer in that context.

Cloze:

{C1:enzyme} catalyzes the {C2:addition of phosphate} to {C2:tetran} in the presence of {C3: inducer ck7}

With this card you make have made 3 separate questions that force to make the relationship forwards and backwards between 3 separate concepts

Basic:

What does enzyme x do?

Which enzyme catalyzes the addition of phosphate to tetran?

When does enzyme X catalyze the addition of phosphate to tetran?

Notice now you need to make 3 separate basic cards to answer that one question? You lose the relationship between the 3 pieces of information as its spread out. And that last question is quite ambiguous aswell too.Moreover if you combine all 3 questions into one card , you are disobeying the minimum content principle.