Does anyone else feel like they are constantly cramming for exams?

[Noirukiddingme]

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Maybe it's cuz i'm used to rehashing material over and over again in undergrad... but, I am constantly behind in med school, which forces me to wait to fully focus on things until it is sorta near the exam. This would be called cramming for me in undergrad, but I think it's the norm in med school, just not sure? Anyone else have this happen all the time?

 

[Deferoxamine]

Welcome to the jungle.

(We've got fun and games.)

 

[deleted263296]

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[sunset823]

yep, it's been 2-3 weeks since the last set of exams and about a week and a half away from the next set, and I've been extremely unproductive - I have 9 classes and it's taken me two weeks to just do anatomy, and even then I feel I know nothing for the skills exam. I know I will kick into high gear the week before each exam, but I know this is not a healthy way for me to approach med school.

 

[FrickenhugeMD]

That's pretty much par for the course.

On the plus side, you will eventually get used to it and it won't feel as bad as it does now.

 

[unsung]

Yeah, I hate it. I feel like I'm just getting a superficial knowledge and remembering buzzwords.

And the funny thing about that is, once I resigned myself to rote memorization of buzzwords, my scores shot way up. Ooh look, CN IV palsy = difficulty walking down stairs. The time I had spent really trying to understand stuff was a waste of time (in terms of test taking, at least). I WANT to understand... but honestly, I don't feel like they are trying to teach the material in a way that ALLOWS me to understand. For ex, the way our courses are structured, we are required to know things that we have not been taught yet. Do you guys know what I mean? It would get very frustrating if I got too hung up on all the details I have no way of understanding at this pt in time. That's why buzzwords are great. I feel like they want me to memorize buzzwords. At least at this pt in time.

Someone on here once said it's funny that I seemed to have some "philosophical objection" to rote memorization... which I found amusing. Not anymore.

I'm half assuming my current buzzword rote-memorization will turn into a more completely (at least somewhat) picture by next year... right? Right?

 

[Sol Rosenberg]

I'm half assuming my current buzzword rote-memorization will turn into a more completely (at least somewhat) picture by next year... right? Right?

Sorry, no. It's just that the material that you are rote-buzzword-memorizing is a lot more interesting second year.....

 

[AlexMorph]

Sorry, no. It's just that the material that you are rote-buzzword-memorizing is a lot more interesting second year.....

lol, thats disappointing

 

[weightyheart]

Here's the flip side.

What happens when the question is phrased in a way that doesn't utilize buzz words or buzz thoughts? How about the difficult questions that require you to think through a process, figure out what is affected and think about how varying one variable would affect the other responses? etc, etc. You know what I'm talking about.

I assume resigning yourself to never scoring a 90 or above on an exam goes along with the territory.

And the funny thing about that is, once I resigned myself to rote memorization of buzzwords, my scores shot way up.

 

[deleted263296]

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[DrJD]

You are the reason I wonder why I even bother to come to this site. So full of arrogant people. The point was not that you remember buzzwords per se but facts. You can't spend your time reading for concepts like you did in college where almost every question was conceptual. Now the vast majority of test questions are factual recall in one form or another. Even the supposedly conceptual questions usually hinge on recall of a very important fact.

I was under the same impression, but be prepared for the NBME. I felt like, compared to our in class exams, it very much tested your understanding. I've only taken the Biochem one, but most of the questions required an extra level of reasoning. For example... You are reading the vignette and you think in your mind, Thiamine deficiency... On our med exams you'd go to the answers and select thiamine deficiency. However, on the NBME, that wouldn't be an answer choice, they'd be asking something else about thiamine deficiency.

Anyways, all that to say at the very least, it seems to me that the NBME really wants us to understand stuff too.

 

[weightyheart]

Virie, from your post, I totally get that you are not like the rabble who visit this site; you are a paradigm of humility. Don't be a fool too.

You presume...
that you know what everyone else should be doing.
that you know what can/can't be done - and it is not possible to both memorize and understand the facts.
that whatever it is I am saying can't possibly be right.

I agree with you that the majority of exam questions are fact recall. "Here is the flip side", on average 90% of your class is going to get less than 90% on the exam. Contributed in part because 10% of questions require a greater depth of study and thought process than solely fact recall.

Let's take it beyond medical school. So when the patient comes in to you with symptoms, you will have memorized facts, but you will have missed out on implications and the why of contraindications and exceptions, things that seem trivial but are actually quite important. Will you be a glorified technician, practicing rote medicine? Or will you actually be a competent physician?

Lets talk about education. Will you simply memorize facts that anyone can wiki on an iphone? Or will you leave medical school with a grasp of the how and why? You cannot just google understanding into your head. You have to actually work at that.

You are the reason I wonder why I even bother to come to this site. So full of arrogant people. The point was not that you remember buzzwords per se but facts. You can't spend your time reading for concepts like you did in college where almost every question was conceptual. Now the vast majority of test questions are factual recall in one form or another. Even the supposedly conceptual questions usually hinge on recall of a very important fact.

 

[AlexMorph]

Virie, from your post, I totally get that you are not like the rabble who visit this site; you are a paradigm of humility. Don't be a fool too.

You presume...
that you know what everyone else should be doing.
that you know what can/can't be done - and it is not possible to both memorize and understand the facts.
that whatever it is I am saying can't possibly be right.

I agree with you that the majority of exam questions are fact recall. "Here is the flip side", on average 90% of your class is going to get less than 90% on the exam. Contributed in part because 10% of questions require a greater depth of study and thought process than solely fact recall.

Let's take it beyond medical school. So when the patient comes in to you with symptoms, you will have memorized facts, but you will have missed out on implications and the why of contraindications and exceptions, things that seem trivial but are actually quite important. Will you be a glorified technician, practicing rote medicine? Or will you actually be a competent physician?

Lets talk about education. Will you simply memorize facts that anyone can wiki on an iphone? Or will you leave medical school with a grasp of the how and why? You cannot just google understanding into your head. You have to actually work at that.

Here we go again...

Apparently, there is a sale going on at Walmart for soap boxes...

 

[engineeredout]

I was under the same impression, but be prepared for the NBME. I felt like, compared to our in class exams, it very much tested your understanding. I've only taken the Biochem one, but most of the questions required an extra level of reasoning. For example... You are reading the vignette and you think in your mind, Thiamine deficiency... On our med exams you'd go to the answers and select thiamine deficiency. However, on the NBME, that wouldn't be an answer choice, they'd be asking something else about thiamine deficiency.

Anyways, all that to say at the very least, it seems to me that the NBME really wants us to understand stuff too.

Speaking of this, anyone got any tips for the NBME anatomy shelf? We've got it coming up in less than two weeks. Its the day after our head and neck exam so there really isn't a lot of time to spend going through old material. Reading the clinicals from BRS enough (enough for what can get done in a day anyway...)?

 

[Depakote]

Maybe it's cuz i'm used to rehashing material over and over again in undergrad... but, I am constantly behind in med school, which forces me to wait to fully focus on things until it is sorta near the exam. This would be called cramming for me in undergrad, but I think it's the norm in med school, just not sure? Anyone else have this happen all the time?

I know it's hard but the biggest key to my success second year over first year was making sure I stayed caught up with the material. This meant making sure I'd seen it in lecture and a second time that day, then using the weekend for catch-up/review/etc. It's a tough schedule, but you really wind up retaining a lot more if you can pull it off. Once that starts happening, the grades go up and the stress goes down, despite the longer hours.

Stick with it. Good luck.

 

[MilkmanAl]

Speaking of this, anyone got any tips for the NBME anatomy shelf? We've got it coming up in less than two weeks. Its the day after our head and neck exam so there really isn't a lot of time to spend going through old material. Reading the clinicals from BRS enough (enough for what can get done in a day anyway...)?

Use the chapter summaries and practice questions in the BRS. I rocked the NBME last year with that formula.

 

[ChiDO]

Use the chapter summaries and practice questions in the BRS. I rocked the NBME last year with that formula.

If you've done the BRS questions before your other exams and know all the pink boxes, you should be able to recall a lot of info. I did 0 studying after the head & neck final and scored 600.

 

[MilkmanAl]