Anybody have a good way of studying/taking notes for upper level biology courses

[MikeB14]

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I am a junior in college and have taken most of the pre med courses. I got into a groove of studying calc, and chem, but never really found the best way of studying bio. For organic chem i would read the chapter, take some notes, and then the best part of my studying was just practicing the problems non stop at the end of the chapters. Then method worked well for me for that class.

This year i am taking Neurobio and Human Physiology....and as i read the chapters i feel like i need to take notes on every single line because every single line seems important. I am taking pages and pages and pagessss of notes while reading and it is soo time consuming and i feel like i am over-doing it but then if i dont write down everything that i feel is important (which is like everything) then i feel like im cheating myself....

Then i tried to just read and highlight the book and then go back and form some notes from the highlights...but i found that i was just highlighting everything also so that didnt really work...

ive also tried typing all the notes while i read but its a pain in butt to have the computer in front of you.


any suggestions on what worked for you? i need something that isnt so crazy lol i feel like im re writing the textbook

 

[TallScrubs]

For me, I just review my notes--anything I am unclear with, I just refer to my book to clarify things.

Then, the majority of my studying involves me constantly quizzing with other people...getting the concepts down instead of just memorizing facts. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things you have to memorize but there are a ton of recurring themes in physiology

 

[Janieve]

Assuming the instructor DOES lecture, I'd head to lectures for these classes. Book reading in biology is really only useful to supplement the lectures themselves.

If you absolutely MUST take notes from the book, my recommendation is to break the chapters into chunks (especially if they have headings). Read straight through one chunk - don't take any notes. Once you reach the end, do a brain dump. You open your notebook and write what you remember from the reading you just did. Key points, questions it brought up, etc. Then move on to the next chunk. Lather, rinse, repeat. At the end, go over everything you wrote. Look in the text for answers to your questions, fact-check what you're not sure about, and then just clean up the notes and put them in whatever format is easiest for you to review later (Cornell, outline, etc.).

It takes less time than taking notes line by line, and usually you get more important things down. But taking notes from the book is really inefficient. Most of what you need to know (and what the teacher cares about and will put on the test) will be covered more extensively in lecture. Like I said, book notes should only supplement lectures in biology classes.

Hope that helps!

 

[dillydally]

memorize lecture slides = easy A

 

[Prof Chaos]

Yeah uppder division Bio was pretty easy for me once I figured out I just needed to review the lecture slides both before and after class and then several times before quizzes or exams. I would also print the slides (6 per page) and just take notes on them in lecture if anything new was presented that wasn't on the slides.

I honestly found my textbooks to be more useful as a reference or supplementary material rather than my primary learning resource. If I felt like I was lacking understanding on a particular subject, I would look that subject up in the book and read the few paragraphs discussing it carefully. I rarely read straight through an entire chapter.

The big study habit I've learned is that going over my notes or re-reading the book after I've already done so once or twice really has quickly diminishing returns. The best way to make what you learn stick is to be tested on it, be fuzzy on the answer but give it your best shot, then look it up and find out for sure. So make sure you find ways to "test" yourself before the real tests! Flashcards, study groups, etc. all work really well. For example, if you need to memorize 10 different cell signaling pathways, go buy yourself a cheap whiteboard and just draw it 5 times for each one until you can do it without looking. Then when you read about it in the book it will make much more sense and you'll remember little details much better.

Like the other poster said.. just memorize the slides. Then open up a new powerpoint, make a slide for each objective you need to know, and write all the stuff you know off the top of your head, then go to your book/notes/slides and add the stuff you couldn't remember. Then delete the slide and come back later and try to do it again, but this time see if you can remember more than you did the first time before you look. The point is to close your book and notes and push your memory to its limits as often as possible.