Advice how to memorize and overall improvement

[bluelover656]

Hi Lovely People of SDN!
You guys are my go tos when it comes to advice on studying.
So I am fortunate enough to be in medical school, but need some help for studying my classes and wondering if you guys had any advice.
When I made friends with many of successful/honored second years (I am a first year medical student), a lot of them told me to look at the information over and over again and that you'll do well because of it. So I set a strict schedule for myself (but sometimes it would not be completely consistent) with waking up early, previewing the lecture, going to lecture (as I am a more auditory learner and it helps me) and reviewing and understanding the lecture. The overall schedule seemed to be working for me as I kept up with all of the material and understood it to a good extent.
However, when exams came, I was at a loss as even though I had passed all of my exams it was at a bare minimum. When looking back at my study strategy, I mainly looked at understanding the conceptual about the lectures versus memorizing the little details. I was completely caught off guard by the amount of little details that each professor asked. In general, my memorizing skills are pretty weak, and it takes a lot of repetition for something to stick in my head. So I am asking if there is any advice for you to help me improve my memorizing skills and if there are any books or outside resources to buy in order to help me improve. When I was in undergrad I used to be a person who spent on a lot of time on a concept but would go really indepth with it. Therefore, even if it was memorizing it didn't feel like it to me. Now, I don't have as much time so would really like to know what helped successful students to both conceptually understand AND memorize at the same time because although they go hand in hand, they are still different.

Thanks in advance!

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[halodos]

In undergrad, I was hitting around average for a lot of classes, but after my first round of exams in med school, I did extremely well. I liked this video the most for going into "how to study"

I like that he disregards the 3 types of learning (aud, vis, kines) because it is extremely class dependent. And I do a majority of memorizing because if I can get the basics down, the concepts follow pretty easily.

 

[FourniersGreenGang]

The biggest advice I can give is to make connections in the material. I've found that that has helped me remember the little things. How do they connect to the bigger picture? And make stupid mnemonics for yourself that are ridiculous but you'll remember the material. Create them yourself so that when you first glance at the material its the first thing that pops into your head. Hope that helps!

 

[sholamd]

Two words: Memory Palace! Great for learning the minutiae, especially if it's a lot of material in a short amount of time. I'll PM you about it.

 

[Affiche]

I'm not an auditor learner at all so our study methods might not work for each other, but I usually read through the ppt once for understanding then throw everything into Anki and move on. Later I go through the flashcards for each lecture and then hammer home concepts with practice questions. Seemed to work well enough on our first round of midterms. Good luck!

 

[sovereign0]

I'll offer my opinion. I'm a first year med student, a couple months in. We've only had a handful of exams but I've been in the top 5-10% so far. The key to memorization is repetition. You need to see the material several times to memorize it. To understand it, you need to be able to see it in different contexts and applications.

What I'll do is either attend lecture or watch the recording, and make notes based off of what the professor says about what's important/not important. Sometimes, the lecturer will verbally summarize something clearer than they have it on the powerpoint, or phrase something in a way that makes sense. These are the only situation that I will take notes. I avoid adding to the material already on the powerpoint unless it is emphasized to be important.

Then, either a few hours or they next day, I'll review the lecture by Anki'ing it. It's helpful to quantize the things you need to know based off of the information given to you.

The important thing is that you do all of this on a regular basis such that you have adequate time to actually review the study material you made (Anki, in this case). Friends of mine have done poorly because they've been outlining lectures until the day before the exam. While making a study material (outline, anki) is helpful to learn things, I've found that actually reviewing that material is important to retention, long term and otherwise.

 

[Foot Fetish]

I'll offer my opinion. I'm a first year med student, a couple months in. We've only had a handful of exams but I've been in the top 5-10% so far. The key to memorization is repetition. You need to see the material several times to memorize it. To understand it, you need to be able to see it in different contexts and applications.

What I'll do is either attend lecture or watch the recording, and make notes based off of what the professor says about what's important/not important. Sometimes, the lecturer will verbally summarize something clearer than they have it on the powerpoint, or phrase something in a way that makes sense. These are the only situation that I will take notes. I avoid adding to the material already on the powerpoint unless it is emphasized to be important.

Then, either a few hours or they next day, I'll review the lecture by Anki'ing it. It's helpful to quantize the things you need to know based off of the information given to you.

The important thing is that you do all of this on a regular basis such that you have adequate time to actually review the study material you made (Anki, in this case). Friends of mine have done poorly because they've been outlining lectures until the day before the exam. While making a study material (outline, anki) is helpful to learn things, I've found that actually reviewing that material is important to retention, long term and otherwise.

How do you know you've been in the top 5-10% ? My school only gives us the low, mean, and high for each exam. You can't deduce your percentile rank from that (unless you scored 100% on everything).

 

[WedgeDawg]

How do you know you've been in the top 5-10% ? My school only gives us the low, mean, and high for each exam. You can't deduce your percentile rank from that (unless you scored 100% on everything).

Maybe their school gives them more detailed statistics (we get standard deviation for some exams)

 

[psychhopefull2016]

How do you know you've been in the top 5-10% ? My school only gives us the low, mean, and high for each exam. You can't deduce your percentile rank from that (unless you scored 100% on everything).

At my school 2SDs from the mean was our fail line. So we always had the mean and SD.

 

[neusu]

Making tables or charts helps.

For memorization of lists/tables of information, I learned a technique wherein you visualize whatever the word sounds like to you. Then you associate/link that with whatever the next word you're trying to memorize in the most abstract way you can think of. Namely, you create a movie in your head that only you know the code for. Then, I'd play the movie and write down the table or list and be able to use it as needed. This works until you actually understand the material at a fundamental level.

 

[sovereign0]

How do you know you've been in the top 5-10% ? My school only gives us the low, mean, and high for each exam. You can't deduce your percentile rank from that (unless you scored 100% on everything).

Maybe their school gives them more detailed statistics (we get standard deviation for some exams)

WedgeDawg has got it right. We get the low, mean, high, and standard deviation for each exam. Admittedly, we also have other things that contribute to our grade, so I really can't deduce my percentile rank in the course or as a whole. Plus, my school is true P/F without internal ranking. I can only draw an assumption from my exam scores.

Regardless, that was hardly the point of my post. I was trying to offer my study strategy to OP, not brag.

 

[Jordan95]

Two words: Memory Palace! Great for learning the minutiae, especially if it's a lot of material in a short amount of time. I'll PM you about it.

Hello,

I'm having some trouble applying the Memory Palace technique to anything really: topics, concepts and definitions. I've gotten to the point where I can memorize a list of well over 100 words in order within a few hours but thats basically it. Am I doing something wrong or is Memory Palace just not cut out for science type material?

Thanks,

 

[Azete]

Lots of good advice here, but just want to add exercise to the list. On days I don't exercise (or sleep well), it takes me literally twice as long to learn/memorize lectures.

 

[Jordan95]

Lots of good advice here, but just want to add exercise to the list. On days I don't exercise (or sleep well), it takes me literally twice as long to learn/memorize lectures.

I can definitely attest to the exercise!

Lately, I've been going for an early morning run way before lecture or any sort of studying, and I have noticed major improvements in my focus, retention, and overall cognitive ability. It's almost to the point where I feel like an entirely different person.

 

[sholamd]

Hello,

I'm having some trouble applying the Memory Palace technique to anything really: topics, concepts and definitions. I've gotten to the point where I can memorize a list of well over 100 words in order within a few hours but thats basically it. Am I doing something wrong or is Memory Palace just not cut out for science type material?

Thanks,

The memory palace definitely works for medical school - it's how I survived and matched into Derm! The thing is, you have to change the approach slightly from the way the memory champs do it. They are doing things like trying to memorize a deck of playing cards in order as quickly as possible. That's not quite helpful for science/medicine. We need to be able to recognize associations and keep similar groups of facts separate. For example, I have a palace for the different anti-arrhythmic medications. I don't need to keep anything in order, I need to be able to tell how verapamil is different from procainamide. So rather than a linear walk through a mental palace, it's more of an organized space with different loci for the different fact groups. It takes some practice and is a little too long to explain in one forum post, but I have a podcast that explains some different aspects and a video series that goes into more detail. Message me and I can send you links.

Oh, and one last note that is really important to me, that I tell all my students. Memory Palace doesn't work for concepts. To be a good doctor you need to understand the underlying mechanisms and concepts (and to navigate questions and beat the curve on board exams too!).