Anyone else like me?

[Gourd]

Current first year medical student. I believe I have a different way of studying and retaining material and was wondering if it will be conducive come time for board prep. At my school, we usually have exams every two weeks. The only resource needed to do well on these exams is reviewing the lecture slides. Most of my classmates take notes or some variation of this while studying for exams. What I do is literally just look at the slides until I memorize them. That is all. No notes or rewriting of any material at all. I say the slides content out loud to myself and am able to get around 4 passes up until exam time. I consistently score around >90% on exams. Is anyone else like this? Has it served you well for boards? Thanks.

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[Goro]

Current first year medical student. I believe I have a different way of studying and retaining material and was wondering if it will be conducive come time for board prep. At my school, we usually have exams every two weeks. The only resource needed to do well on these exams is reviewing the lecture slides. Most of my classmates take notes or some variation of this while studying for exams. What I do is literally just look at the slides until I memorize them. That is all. No notes or rewriting of any material at all. I say the slides content out loud to myself and am able to get around 4 passes up until exam time. I consistently score around >90% on exams. Is anyone else like this? Has it served you well for boards? Thanks.

This is very uncommon with my students. We've found just the opposite...that students who try to memorize the PPTs do poorly. It's one thing to memorize, you also have to be able to apply. BUT, if this is working for you, do NOT change. And there is published data that students who do well on Boards use a variety of resources, and I *think* tend not to use PPTs..a little hazy on the latter point, though.

I trust other SDNers can give you insight as to how this might work for Boards. I am also looking forward to hearing about this.

 

[Crayola227]

Dunno about boards.

Your method is how I passed med school. I wouldn't say excelled. For now, what works for class works for class. As far as boards, I did what was typical and got a respectable score for my time.

 

[J ROD]

For Boards, it depends on your school. Some schools are better at teaching for the Boards for others. My school was not one of those. So, if I had it to do again, I would read sources like Pathoma in 2nd year of whatever the new next best thing is. I am past all this now and up to date on all. First year is low yield for Step 1. Just try and remember what you learn. That is the key. It is great to memorize it for the test but the "real" key is the ability for long term success is to remember it and be able to apply later on. So, depending on your school, you may need to study for classes and boards come second year. First year just do the best you can in classes ans try and learn the material.

 

[ortnakas]

I’d recommend adding in some boards-style questions (review books suffice first year, don’t go spending your money on UWorld yet) to make sure you’re putting it all together and not just regurgitating facts. But if what you’re doing is working, don’t change anything too dramatically too quickly.

 

[mehc012]

For Boards, it depends on your school. Some schools are better at teaching for the Boards for others. My school was not one of those. So, if I had it to do again, I would read sources like Pathoma in 2nd year of whatever the new next best thing is. I am past all this now and up to date on all. First year is low yield for Step 1. Just try and remember what you learn. That is the key. It is great to memorize it for the test but the "real" key is the ability for long term success is to remember it and be able to apply later on. So, depending on your school, you may need to study for classes and boards come second year. First year just do the best you can in classes ans try and learn the material.

Just a caution about generalizing first year and second year when a very large number of schools no longer do the 'traditional' normal 1st year, 'pathologic' 2nd year. I know what you mean, but a lot of people may not.

For example, my first year included all I am ever going to see or learn about renal, cardio, pulm, and vascular. I think I'd be in big trouble if I didn't emphasize those at all in my board prep!

 

[Strider_91]

I do the complete opposite and disregard my schools lectures. Who cares, do what works. We perform about the same.

It seems there are multiple ways to succeed at medical school just do what works.

 

[J ROD]

Just a caution about generalizing first year and second year when a very large number of schools no longer do the 'traditional' normal 1st year, 'pathologic' 2nd year. I know what you mean, but a lot of people may not.

For example, my first year included all I am ever going to see or learn about renal, cardio, pulm, and vascular. I think I'd be in big trouble if I didn't emphasize those at all in my board prep!

Good point. I went to a traditionally structured program. Basically, Gross Anatomy was not high yield....lol

 

[mehc012]

Good point. I went to a traditionally structured program. Basically, Gross Anatomy was not high yield....lol

Unfortunately, knowing this is true is making it REALLY hard to motivate myself to study for my last-ever anatomy practical of M2...my brain is screaming "Step is around the corner, why are you wasting your time on the retromandibular vein?!?" Ah, well...2 more days until I no longer care about gross anatomy or nitty gritty histopath slides!!

 

[Jojos]

it doesn't sound like it will work too well on the boards. The whole point there is to know how to apply the information you learned. There is no way you will be able to memorize all the details for the step but if you know how to apply the physio, biochem and pathophys you should be able to resolve questions even if you are not entirely familiar with the disease or process....so no, start understanding instead of memorizing.

 

[Entadus]

Your board prep will center around question banks like UWorld. Keep doing what works for now, and when the time comes you will transition to answering questions

 

[mistafab]

I would add some non-school question banks to your study methonds. Just to gauge yourself and see if your school studying alone is leaving you with any holes.

 

[DetroitDoc1993]

Is this really a good method??? Is there a way to incorporate this with more traditional studying like drawing things out and making flow charts? I'm interested because you say that you consistently score >90% which is awesome.

 

[ConfusedChemist]

Works for me-grades have gone up since doing this. I do make (brief) summary sheets, usually a topic list basically, sometimes.

For me it's more active. re-writing perfectly good notes never really made sense to me anyways, yet everyone seems to do it.

 

[Vrachika]

I say you do you, esp as M1 as long as you feel like you understand the info you are memorizing. How you study in preclinical to how you do on boards is going to be very school/curriculum as well as personal preference dependent though.

I actually do something similar to you, and score similarly, though I only do 3 passes. 1st pass lecture, 2nd pass very deep study w/ understanding (including googling or looking stuff up, but no notes), 3rd pass get in all the little details before the test. Depending on the topic I sometimes use "board resources" (like sketchy, pathoma, etc) either after the 1st or 2nd pass, so maybe that would count as 4 passes for those topics.

If you really want to make sure you aren't behind for boards you could try 3 passes instead of 4 and use that extra time to do stuff like pathoma, FA, questions, etc. But if something is working so well for you, be careful changing it up too much too fast.

It also might be a good idea to ask some upperclassmen if they felt the curriculum prepared them well for boards or not. That will give you an answer nobody on here can.

 

[operaman]

I’d chime in with one word of caution: don’t overlook the “low yield” stuff for step 1 either. Over the last ten years, the advice to focus on the high yield during dedicated study time has gradually seeped into the rest of the preclinical years. Don’t forget that there are many small low yield topics that, taken together, add up to real points. While probably not worth much time during dedicated prep, it’s probably worth learning them at some point during your preclinical education. You’ll see this refrain frequently from the 260+ crowd as they mention some rando questions they answered with class knowledge.

At the same time, boards prep sources are getting better and better. You would be hard pressed to find a pathology lecturer as good or better than pathoma. There is a proliferation of massive anki decks and picture based memorization sources that probably do a much better job helping you remember random facts than a PowerPoint slide would.

I guess the moral of the story is be careful how early you transition into a high yield for boards mode only, especially if you’re aiming for an extremely high score.

 

[MudPhudHopeful]

Current first year medical student. I believe I have a different way of studying and retaining material and was wondering if it will be conducive come time for board prep. At my school, we usually have exams every two weeks. The only resource needed to do well on these exams is reviewing the lecture slides. Most of my classmates take notes or some variation of this while studying for exams. What I do is literally just look at the slides until I memorize them. That is all. No notes or rewriting of any material at all. I say the slides content out loud to myself and am able to get around 4 passes up until exam time. I consistently score around >90% on exams. Is anyone else like this? Has it served you well for boards? Thanks.

That is how I learned in medical school, and the same approach worked for boards, though admittedly by board scores are not sky high. Do whatever works for you. See my most recent post in the Step 2 CK scores and experiences thread for how I prepared for boards.

 

[Aerus]

I do something similar. I haven't taken any notes since the first month of med school and am able to score well on the exams. I find notes to be a waste of time. You're going to have to know it eventually and it's not like the lectures aren't video recorded with the slides if you happen to forget a detail that was mentioned. The most writing I'll ever do is to draw out pathways or arrows connecting ideas on a white board just so I can test how well I retained that information and whether I understand how everything connects.

 

[mehc012]

I do something similar. I haven't taken any notes since the first month of med school and am able to score well on the exams. I find notes to be a waste of time. You're going to have to know it eventually and it's not like the lectures aren't video recorded with the slides if you happen to forget a detail that was mentioned. The most writing I'll ever do is to draw out pathways or arrows connecting ideas on a white board just so I can test how well I retained that information and whether I understand how everything connects.

This. I've never retained as much info writing notes as I have just truly engaging in the material. I've realized that I constantly ask myself questions - how would I tell this apart from that, could you see this one feature without the other, or whatever, a small proportion of which I ask the lecturer (if I'm there in person) or Google on my own, and I end up learning better overall than if I just write things down and use up my mental energy deciding whether to indent or change pen color. I do the same when reading textbooks, though, so sometimes I just do that and it feels more comprehensive/better organized than dealing with lecture.

 

[Gourd]

Is this really a good method??? Is there a way to incorporate this with more traditional studying like drawing things out and making flow charts? I'm interested because you say that you consistently score >90% which is awesome.

My very first medical school exam, I followed the standard and took notes...drew some pictures.. and that exam was pretty disappointing for me. It hard to change what youre doing because straying away from the general consensus in such a competitive environment like medical school can bring about a lot of anxiety. After some thinking though, I changed my strategy to what I am currently doing and it has served me very well in terms of classes. Personally, I have many friends who take notes and do great...but it wasn't for me. If you think about it, medical school exams are a test of information recall....I figured that if I "rep" out lectures out loud and in my head instead of wasting time taking notes it would be a much more effective use of my time. In my opinion, if you are capable enough of getting into medical school, and you are able to get a SOLID 4-5 passes on lecture materials, there is no way you can't score great. No notes needed. But then again...n=1. Everyone learns differently and I understand that.
To answer your question, of course you can integrate notes and drawing but realize that this will take away from potential time of completing more passes on the lectures. And I think it sort of defeats the purpose of this strategy, which is to save time from writing things out and instead just "rep" out and get as many passes as possible.

 

[Gourd]

I say you do you, esp as M1 as long as you feel like you understand the info you are memorizing. How you study in preclinical to how you do on boards is going to be very school/curriculum as well as personal preference dependent though.

I actually do something similar to you, and score similarly, though I only do 3 passes. 1st pass lecture, 2nd pass very deep study w/ understanding (including googling or looking stuff up, but no notes), 3rd pass get in all the little details before the test. Depending on the topic I sometimes use "board resources" (like sketchy, pathoma, etc) either after the 1st or 2nd pass, so maybe that would count as 4 passes for those topics.

If you really want to make sure you aren't behind for boards you could try 3 passes instead of 4 and use that extra time to do stuff like pathoma, FA, questions, etc. But if something is working so well for you, be careful changing it up too much too fast.

It also might be a good idea to ask some upperclassmen if they felt the curriculum prepared them well for boards or not. That will give you an answer nobody on here can.

The pass algorithm that you described is exactly how I structure my passes. As of a couple weeks ago I integrated firecracker so I guess im getting 5 passes..