Exam Study Strategy

CigarTragic · Oct 14, 2007

Some big exams coming up for lots of us.

If you're getting plenty of sleep (~8 hrs/night) in the days before the exam, can you put your body thru the shock of a 3-4 hours of sleep the night RIGHT before a midday exam? I'm thinking one night just before is a final chance to shove as much in as possible...

What's more vital in the 24 hours before an exam if you've been well rested?
1) Study as much info as possible (sacrificing sleep), OR
2) Keep the optimum sleep schedule (sacrificing a few hrs of studying)

Thoughts?

WiscDoc · Oct 14, 2007

CigarTragic said:
Some big exams coming up for lots of us.

If you're getting plenty of sleep (~8 hrs/night) in the days before the exam, can you put your body thru the shock of a 3-4 hours of sleep the night RIGHT before a midday exam? I'm thinking one night just before is a final chance to shove as much in as possible...

What's more vital in the 24 hours before an exam if you've been well rested?
1) Study as much info as possible (sacrificing sleep), OR
2) Keep the optimum sleep schedule (sacrificing a few hrs of sleep)

Thoughts?

I think it depends. If the studying your referring to just review and "extra" than get your sleep. If it is the kind of thing where you haven't look at the material since lecture, you better look over it and plan to sleep afterwords.

My preference: Sacrafice sleep the week before the exam, such that the 2 days before you are feeling comfortable enough to just need to review and get enough sleep.

From what I was told in my MCAT prep course, the night before the night before (2 nights before the exam) is more important the night before. That is, if you have a monday exam, get plenty of sleep saturday night and sacrafice sunday night's sleep. Otherwise you'll crash during the exam.

Sean2tall · Oct 14, 2007

No, I did not forgo sleep pretty much at any time during the first 2 years of med school, unless maybe there was an assignment/project or something that I forgot about or put off till the last minute. If you have been studying a reasonable amount all throughout the year, there is no reason to cram at the last minute and lose sleep. There is actually some research that shows learning is better when you work on something then get a good amount of sleep, then look at it the next day.

GodoShingo · Oct 14, 2007

Well, about the sleep thing: I slept around 8 hours a day before the anatomy final exam, except for the day before. Our neighbours were having a party, which lead to 1,5h sleep for me that night.

I was desoriented the day after, and confused and TIRED. I managed to use 80% of the brain-energy I had left for the theoretical part and 20% for the practical.
I passed both of them with good grades. Keep in mind that I had a lot of discipline during that time, plus it was kind of a miracle that I could think at all.

When I had written the test, I couldn't even think regularly and answered questions like 30 seconds after they were asked. I had used my brain alot the week before, so I guess I was more or less burnt out.
After a good night of 12 hours of sleep I recovered.

SnowTown · Oct 16, 2007

I'll say sleep... since I probably lost a good 10 points or so due to stupid mistakes because I was... well, not awake. 🙁

Slide · Oct 16, 2007

Sacrificing sleep the night before the test is a really dumb thing to do...if you try to cram everything the night before and lose sleep, not only will you not retain it, but you'll be so disoriented for the exam that all your studying would be for naught because you can't focus. Best strategy is to always keep up and prioritize.

CigarTragic · Oct 16, 2007

Thanks for the opinions, everyone.

I tried my best to keep the sleep to ~8 hours... a very good plan, because I realized that it definitely takes a lot longer to fall asleep the night before exams :laugh:

. I also tapered off my studying a little yesterday. Today I was decently alert (even without caffeine), and was able to dodge some of the bullets on the test.

Katya00 · Oct 16, 2007

I never really realized how important sleep was until I got into med school. Now I try to get regular amounts of sleep and it seems to help a lot. In undergrad I used to stay up really late cramming, and even though I did well I was always so tired and would make some silly mistakes.

With the way our exams are set up in med school we have a whole day devoted to various exams (4-5) so I NEED rest just to get through the day. I don't think I could survive without a normal night's sleep. And I seem to remember stuff better to top it all off 🙂

Slide · Oct 16, 2007

We M1s are brutally learning the cold hard fact that no matter how much work there seems to be, you have to get adequate sleep at some point before you pay for that sleep debt in some fashion. For the unfortunate ones, we learn by doing and realizing how bad an idea it was to get 3 hours of sleep prior to the test.

sprinkibrio · Oct 20, 2007

CigarTragic said:
Some big exams coming up for lots of us.

If you're getting plenty of sleep (~8 hrs/night) in the days before the exam, can you put your body thru the shock of a 3-4 hours of sleep the night RIGHT before a midday exam? I'm thinking one night just before is a final chance to shove as much in as possible...

What's more vital in the 24 hours before an exam if you've been well rested?
1) Study as much info as possible (sacrificing sleep), OR
2) Keep the optimum sleep schedule (sacrificing a few hrs of studying)

Thoughts?

In college my answer was sleep but in med school it's definately study. Go to bed a few hours after your usual time, but wake up 3 hrs later. (Really as little as 1.5 hrs later) and you WILL be very able to concentrate and make it through the day. I always do way better than I would otherwise because I DO learn and don't make stupid mistakes during the test. But this could be because I usually sleep 9 hrs on other nights...

cofcemt · Oct 22, 2007

Actually, I came across some study from UC-Davis (i think) that did fMRI study of memorization. It stated that sleep is the fundamental factor in storing memory. People that received a "full" night sleep were able to regergitate information more readily. I would say that you could skimp more on the sleep the days before the test and the night before get a full night sleep. Always better to sleep more as you are less likely to make stupid errors.

Exam Study Strategy

CigarTragic

Read it backwards

WiscDoc

Full Member

Sean2tall

Pathology Resident

GodoShingo

Intern

SnowTown

SNOW BABY!!!

Slide

Finally, no more "training"

CigarTragic

Read it backwards

Katya00

Member

Slide

Finally, no more "training"

sprinkibrio

Full Member

cofcemt

CofCEMT

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