do you feel that you keep 'forgetting' the material you just read?

[j_sde]

so i'm finishing up my 3rd out of 5 weeks usmle study.. and i dont know, but every week or so i go back to review the stuff i read earlier and it seems like i've forgetten nearly all of it... even stuff i've learned thruough the year... like two weeks ago i did pharm, and today i'm reviewing it and i cant even remember what the mechanism of Ribavirin is. and the basic toxicites of grisefulvin. i get this feelin that the more new materail i try to pound into my brain, the more the old stuff just leaves and makes way. i think the only way i'ma pass this test is if i sit down and try to cram everything in first aid down the last week.... i mean, essenitally these past 2 weeks have only helped me in terms of 'refreshing' the material in my brain.. but i really dont have it down at all. is anyone else feelin this way? guess i'm sorta worried bout... i'm kinda suprised the pass rate is so high for us allopathetics.. 90% or so? i definity dont wanna be one of the 10%...

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[sacrament]

One of the things that will help is that the test is multiple-choice. You may feel like you've "forgotten" a lot of material, but on a multiple-choice test the right answer is sitting there in front of you and helps to jog your memory.

 

[j_sde]

yea .. i really hope so.. because its really damn frustrationg.. its like i take 3 steps forward and then 2 back.

 

[1Neuro1]

If you're using 1st Aid, I can relate to your problem. Its so incredibly easy to just sit there and read it, there's something about the way its written that makes the material very forgettable within seconds. To avoid that, I started covering up the right side of the page and just looking at the topic heading, trying to regurgitate everything I remembered about that particular subject, then checking to see what I missed. Keep doing that over and over again until you can recall most of whats there.

It takes a lot more energy to do, and about 15 minutes per page, but you'll see how much better it sticks. Good luck.

 

[Jaded Soul]

I found that doing a bunch of practice problems helped with cemeting some things into long term memory.

 

[Sabre_DO]

I agree. Doing problems seems to help cement the info. I do about 8 hours of questions and 4-5 hours studying 1st aid. It seems that i'm the type of learner that needs clinical presentations to make the info "interesting".