Guys, I need a definitive answer about rereading and that's it

[alaaz]

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So i have an exam coming in 4 days
It's actually a small one compared to others which are extremly dense like at least 600 pages per test , this one is loke 150 pages max

I really want to ace this exam, i really need to so i hear that the best method of remembering is not by actually memorizing but by rerrading several times

So a couple of things bugs me about this :

1 - after i read something i really understand it but yet i can't like remember 5 % at most of what i have just read in my first pass.
2- i tried doing active recall everytime i read.i mean like read a paragraph than try to recall it from memory but it is time consuming and after i finish a chapter i still find myself forgetting a lot


So how do you approach studying ??

Sorry, i know i've been bugging you about this topic but i really need a definitive answer like a step by step breakthrough ( maybe it's my OCD ? )

 

[Lucca]

I find it helpful to pretend (or to actually do it, if I'm in a group setting) that I'm explaining a concept to someone else. Depending on the concept, this might take many forms. The important thing is trying to understand something without just regurgitating words. Its easier when someone else is there because they can ask questions and that usually proves whether u know something or not

 

[boogiecousins94]

I agree if you can explain it to someone else so that they get the general gist of it you should be fine as long as you do truly understand it.

From personal experience I took a biochem class that asked the most obscure questions and I ended up with a B-. Despite this, trying to figure out how to answer seemingly random, unnecessary questions made me truly understand the concepts to the point that I ended up with a 131 on the MCAT section regardless of my low grade in the class. Understanding the concept is key!

I think if you can explain something in a different way compared to how you learned it (like as above mentions don't just regurgitate words) you're good

 

[AttemptingScholar]

Agree. Reread and then do something that makes you think about it, preferably while not looking at the book. Read a chapter, explain that chapter.

 

[deleted480308]

If you can teach it, you can pass the test

 

[Medic741]

I'll read something... draw the 'workflow' on a big whiteboard and reproduce from memory the 'idea' until you can do it rote before moving into next 'idea'

Write on one side of board all the 'concepts' and periodically pick one and recall it by writing // drawing the 'workflow' to reinforce learning. Use different colors as needed. Really helped in biochemistry esp.

That and walk around juggling while you recite things... and make mnemonics & talk to yourself like your explaining idea to someone while doing something active... I'll do this on a long run // while juggling (weird, righ?) when you find you have a gap in your knowledge, stop and reread that chapter.

Bouldering gyms are phenomenal places to study. Read and recall and repeat mnemonics while you climb. It's magic.

I can't sit still and read for the life of me and remember everything. I need to be pacing while I read to have good recall of info. Might help, I dunno.

Doing the above really works for me. But you look ridiculous doing it

 

[alaaz]

Thanks guys but i don't know why this post have been changed to pre med
I am actually a 3rd year med student and the methods of teaching to someone else dies not really work in med school

 

[Jaigantic]

Thanks guys but i don't know why this post have been changed to pre med
I am actually a 3rd year med student and the methods of teaching to someone else dies not really work in med school

Probably because your status says "Pre-Health" and not "Medical Student"

 

[alaaz]

Probably because your status says "Pre-Health" and not "Medical Student"

THANKS

 

[deleted480308]

Thanks guys but i don't know why this post have been changed to pre med
I am actually a 3rd year med student and the methods of teaching to someone else dies not really work in med school

<----med student.....it does work for a lot of people

 

[alaaz]

<----med student.....it does work for a lot of people

Well if you want to master subject amonh 10 others, maybe it works before clinical rotations but after that ? Good luck teaching 600 pages per material x 9 materials and finding time to do that

Yes it does - people at my school do it all the time. And if you're not a group studier, you don't have to actually teach it to somebody else, just explain it aloud to yourself as though you were explaining it to someone else.

Nobody can give you a step by step breakdown of how to memorize. They can tell you what works for them, but that may or may not work for you. My way of memorizing pieces of information may be completely different than anybody else in my class, but still be equally effective. Similarly, my way of memorizing information about a particular disease is going to be different than memorizing a concept in physiology.

I know it's not what you want to hear, but no matter how many threads you make about this, there's no one magic bullet to memorizing. You need to do trial and error to figure out what works for you, for the material you're trying to memorize.

Well actually since you are not a med student you don't know how memory works exactly

Trial.and error are ok but can u have time to do that ?? Try a strategy that will help you remember for 6 months ahead ? And if it does not work try another for 6 months ?? Does that seems remotely efficient for yoi ??

Ok, again : learning styles ( little secret : does not exist ) we learn by all our senses not visual or auditory ...

Our hippocampus does not differ a lot from one to another so our ability to memorize is basically the same.

It's actually wrong to think that way that ''everyone learnq differently'' we basically learn the same way with some degree of variation

For example which can you remember best
If i showed you a picture of my house or if i told you where is my house ??

 

[AttemptingScholar]

We're trying to help, no need to snap at us. Sorry that we can't tell you a single way to do everything that will help you succeed, but if it were that easy I imagine a lot more people would be getting high grades anyways. And seriously, if you are in med school, did nothing help you remember stuff for 6 months in college? Did you just cram for every single class?

If you don't think there are different styles of learning I'm not sure what advice you are hoping to get from this thread, which asks people about what learning techniques they have done differently than you.

 

[deleted480308]

Well if you want to master subject amonh 10 others, maybe it works before clinical rotations but after that ? Good luck teaching 600 pages per material x 9 materials and finding time to do that



Well actually since you are not a med student you don't know how memory works exactly

Trial.and error are ok but can u have time to do that ?? Try a strategy that will help you remember for 6 months ahead ? And if it does not work try another for 6 months ?? Does that seems remotely efficient for yoi ??

Ok, again : learning styles ( little secret : does not exist ) we learn by all our senses not visual or auditory ...

Our hippocampus does not differ a lot from one to another so our ability to memorize is basically the same.

It's actually wrong to think that way that ''everyone learnq differently'' we basically learn the same way with some degree of variation

For example which can you remember best
If i showed you a picture of my house or if i told you where is my house ??

<---past precinicals.....but you do you bro/sis

 

[alaaz]

We're trying to help, no need to snap at us. Sorry that we can't tell you a single way to do everything that will help you succeed, but if it were that easy I imagine a lot more people would be getting high grades anyways. And seriously, if you are in med school, did nothing help you remember stuff for 6 months in college? Did you just cram for every single class?

If you don't think there are different styles of learning I'm not sure what advice you are hoping to get from this thread, which asks people about what learning techniques they have done differently than you.

I don't know why many peoole think that if you don't agree with them that also means that you are attacking them ??

Secondly, yeah there are no learning styles '' visual,auditory,kinesthetic etc...'' : those are what tou can call them learning styles while learning techniques such as practice question and spaced repition are '' learning techniques '' , we all remember better by repeating something over and over again spaced on many days , that's actually how we become better at sports , better musicians

The blurry point in studying is the method of repeating : is it reading , writing ? Active recalling every piece of info you know what i mean ??

 

[Dandine]

OP, what are you trying to memorize? A book? Notes? Are you synthesizing a bunch of things together?

I assume that in clinical years you have to re-learn a couple of things that you've learned in pre-clinicals so you have a foundation on which to build upon. But if it's something new I suppose it really doesn't matter that much what exactly you're using to learn. I have classmates that do spaced repetition with reading, watching online lectures, or flashcards.

EDIT: Assuming this is a med school post (give thread history) can we move this thread over to the Med Student forum? If it's applicable to pre-med and somehow I missed this ignore it.

 

[alaaz]

OP, what are you trying to memorize? A book? Notes? Are you synthesizing a bunch of things together?

I assume that in clinical years you have to re-learn a couple of things that you've learned in pre-clinicals so you have a foundation on which to build upon. But if it's something new I suppose it really doesn't matter that much what exactly you're using to learn. I have classmates that do spaced repetition with reading, watching online lectures, or flashcards.

EDIT: Assuming this is a med school post (give thread history) can we move this thread over to the Med Student forum? If it's applicable to pre-med and somehow I missed this ignore it.

Thanks,
Actually i made the thread in MD but i was moved to pre-MD

So about reading that's it what i want know
I have an OCD ( actually diagnosed not self diagnosed ) which makes me need to learn everything from the first pass

I know that a 1 hour lecture should not be more than 30 minutes of studying each pass with a total.like of 6 passes

But is it normal.to not remember anytjing after the first pass ???

 

[Dandine]

If you think it's your OCD I can't speak for that (that's more a medical/coping matter, at least from what it looks like you said). What's more important though is can you actually remember stuff as you've looked over it multiple times.

Some people here mentioned explaining it to other people which, while I know you said doesn't work for you, goes back to the repetition aspect for me. At least when I started studying with people I'd be able to remember a concept because I'd remember the context in which it was said (like, "oh yeah, so-and-so and I went over a similar question and we thought the answer was D but it was actually C because dadada..."). Re-reading, re-drawing, and doing questions do something similar. You remember the material in terms of time and space as well as what's being said.

Hope that helps somewhat. If not maybe someone else can give a better idea of what to do. Best to you!

EDIT: Give you have 4 days to study for this exam, it may help to try and look for outside resources for stuff you know you have to know but your primary resource isn't helping you understand (e.g. videos, etc.).

 

[gyngyn]

Thanks,
Actually i made the thread in MD but i was moved to pre-MD

So about reading that's it what i want know
I have an OCD ( actually diagnosed not self diagnosed ) which makes me need to learn everything from the first pass

I know that a 1 hour lecture should not be more than 30 minutes of studying each pass with a total.like of 6 passes

But is it normal.to not remember anytjing after the first pass ???

Have you spoken to the learning skills specialist at your school?
They have a vested interest in your success.

 

[alaaz]

Have you spoken to the learning skills specialist at your school?
They have a vested interest in your success.

Our college admenistration actually plots agianst its students , its like the dean wants to humilate students and make everything hard on them ( actually, it's about money and political power as by pleasing the upper guys by reducing the number of medical students he will get a cut in the new private med school )

So we don't have an administration that cares for us :

1- the library is full of people that does not even study medecine which make it hard to find a spot to study after 8 A.M , actually thieves started coming and sometimes robbing phones from the libraru
2 - about the material, we pay a fee to get printed lectures but funny thing we get them 1 month before the exams and often before 2 weeks
3- if you get below 10/20 you fail the exam and you can fail the year


It's hell here in tunisia

 

[gyngyn]

Our college admenistration actually plots agianst its students , its like the dean wants to humilate students and make everything hard on them ( actually, it's about money and political power as by pleasing the upper guys by reducing the number of medical students he will get a cut in the new private med school )

So we don't have an administration that cares for us :

1- the library is full of people that does not even study medecine which make it hard to find a spot to study after 8 A.M , actually thieves started coming and sometimes robbing phones from the libraru
2 - about the material, we pay a fee to get printed lectures but funny thing we get them 1 month before the exams and often before 2 weeks
3- if you get below 10/20 you fail the exam and you can fail the year


It's hell here in tunisia

I'm so sorry that you lack resources for your success.
Medical school is hard enough.

 

[alaaz]

I'm so sorry that you lack resources for your success.
Medical school is hard enough without support.

Tunisia is now a corrupt country after the revolution things have gotten a lot worse

They top 1% wants to become richer and richer and the others should like just go to hell.

Even in the residency test , the most difficult test in the whole country among 2000 med student only 300 get to be residents and not only that at least 50 of those have '' preditermined posts'' if they are a son of a minister, famous doctor, a general
They don't even study and then they get to be among the first 50 !

I really hate how my country turned out to be , so much corruption !!

 

[Dandine]

OP, I'm sorry to hear what's going on. Most of us here are US med so we don't know what your curriculum is like. Are you seeing patients (e.g. taking histories)? Are you taking mostly courses? Maybe some international med people can comment here.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

So i have an exam coming in 4 days
It's actually a small one compared to others which are extremly dense like at least 600 pages per test , this one is loke 150 pages max

I really want to ace this exam, i really need to so i hear that the best method of remembering is not by actually memorizing but by rerrading several times

So a couple of things bugs me about this :

1 - after i read something i really understand it but yet i can't like remember 5 % at most of what i have just read in my first pass.
2- i tried doing active recall everytime i read.i mean like read a paragraph than try to recall it from memory but it is time consuming and after i finish a chapter i still find myself forgetting a lot


So how do you approach studying ??

Sorry, i know i've been bugging you about this topic but i really need a definitive answer like a step by step breakthrough ( maybe it's my OCD ? )

For M1 and M2 you need to find a method of repetition that works for you. For me it was "quizzing" myself using flashcards. If you keep doing passive learning by re-reading, nothing will stick.

 

[wholeheartedly]

crossposted. closing.