Help me with my studying methods?

[SillyGenius]

Alright, so I'm in a bad spot right now. I failed the first year of med school and my school has asked me to remediate M1 year. I failed a final exam by 2.7% for just one class. I know that if I can't get past M1 again or if I fail a board exam or screw something else up, then I'll be kicked out. I really don't want that to happen. And yes, I know my dream of becoming an anesthesiologist is probably dead. But I'm fine with FM or IM.

My new goal is to hopefully match a categorical position at some mid-tier FM or IM program. Hopefully, this is achievable?

My school mainly uses NBME question banks. Profs will usually insert some of their own questions but it tends to be a very small portion of the exam. Our exams tend to be 90-95% NBME and 5-10% prof made questions.

My studying usually goes like this:
- I go to class and take notes on the big concepts.
- I stay at school for a few more hours and put those notes into an anki deck I create. I then go home and eat lunch and run through the deck.
- I don't really do any practice questions as our school doesn't have any quizzes or any other practice questions they give us. I'm also not sure where to get practice Qs from.
- I know about the Anking deck. I haven't been using it because a lot of the info feels like overkill. Our profs don't go over a lot of the info on those flashcards. I'm not sure if I should be doing them. I know that a lot of students on Reddit and on SDN have been grinding Anking. I'm not too sure how to even use the Anking deck. some of the topics have like thousands of cards with many of the cards not covered in lecture.
- I'm kinda worried that I'll be in a bad spot for board exams. I know that the info covered in M1 is very foundational and is high yield on Step 1. I'm just not sure how I can study for my exams and Step 1. basically, I kinda wanna kill 2 birds with 1 stone

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[Billiam95]

My new goal is to hopefully match a categorical position at some mid-tier FM or IM program. Hopefully, this is achievable?

Absolutely.

- I go to class and take notes on the big concepts.
- I stay at school for a few more hours and put those notes into an anki deck I create. I then go home and eat lunch and run through the deck.

This is a huge time sink for in-house questions that only make up 5-10% of the test.

- I don't really do any practice questions as our school doesn't have any quizzes or any other practice questions they give us. I'm also not sure where to get practice Qs from.

Not doing qbanks before a test is a huge mistake. Running through practice questions will show you what and how material is tested. The best qbank is uWorld, followed by Amboss, followed (distantly) by USMLE Rx.

- I know about the Anking deck. I haven't been using it because a lot of the info feels like overkill. Our profs don't go over a lot of the info on those flashcards. I'm not sure if I should be doing them. I know that a lot of students on Reddit and on SDN have been grinding Anking. I'm not too sure how to even use the Anking deck. some of the topics have like thousands of cards with many of the cards not covered in lecture.

Anking v12 has low/medium/high yield tags. At minimum, consider completing the high yield tags, as well as the tags for the associated boards and beyond videos, pathoma videos, and first aid pages.
I can personally attest to the utility of the Anking deck - I matured 29k cards out of 32k for step 1, as well as most of the tags for step 2 during MS3. After committing to using anking, I improved from average to above average on (NBME) organ system exams during M1-2. Additionally, I entered dedicated for step 1 with above passing scores, and eventually ended up with a 270 on step 2.
The Anking (on YouTube) is the best place to learn how to use the app and the deck. Link to his tutorial is here: .

- I'm kinda worried that I'll be in a bad spot for board exams. I know that the info covered in M1 is very foundational and is high yield on Step 1. I'm just not sure how I can study for my exams and Step 1. basically, I kinda wanna kill 2 birds with 1 stone

By using high-yield outside resources - UFAP (uWorld, First Aid, Pathoma), along with BnB and Sketchy micro/pharm.

 

[SillyGenius]

Absolutely.


This is a huge time sink for in-house questions that only make up 5-10% of the test.


Not doing qbanks before a test is a huge mistake. Running through practice questions will show you what and how material is tested. The best qbank is uWorld, followed by Amboss, followed (distantly) by USMLE Rx.


Anking v12 has low/medium/high yield tags. At minimum, consider completing the high yield tags, as well as the tags for the associated boards and beyond videos, pathoma videos, and first aid pages.
I can personally attest to the utility of the Anking deck - I matured 29k cards out of 32k for step 1, as well as most of the tags for step 2 during MS3. After committing to using anking, I improved from average to above average on (NBME) organ system exams during M1-2. Additionally, I entered dedicated for step 1 with above passing scores, and eventually ended up with a 270 on step 2.
The Anking (on YouTube) is the best place to learn how to use the app and the deck. Link to his tutorial is here: .


By using high-yield outside resources - UFAP (uWorld, First Aid, Pathoma), along with BnB and Sketchy micro/pharm.

Thanks so much, this is very helpful!

 

[Goro]

Go read my post on success in med school.

WIth ANKI, I get the sense that you're memorizing, but not learning. It's important to be an active learner.

Go visit your school's learning or education center for advice on study styles and mastering what works best for you.

 

[Billiam95]

WIth ANKI, I get the sense that you're memorizing, but not learning.

A lot of the information in pre-clinical, unfortunately, is simply rote memorization - biochem (eg, G-protein receptor subtypes), cell bio (vesicular coatings of the trans-golgi network), microbio (gram + vs -, aerobic vs anaerobic, pharm (MOA, pseudomonas coverage, side effects), etc.

 

[Hippocratesintraining]

Practice questions are a must. Even over anki. Amboss would be aswesome. Save uworld for step.

 

[Billiam95]

Save uworld for step.

I see this said a lot, and I did this myself for step 1 but would not personally recommend it. Use the best qbank for your NBME exams during preclinical & max out your class rank/quintile, and I guarantee you will not remember 99% of questions by the time step1 dedicated rolls around.

Edit - additionally, I think that making a first pass through uworld during step1 dedicated is borderline undoable. I think there were about 3,600 questions for step1 when I was going through it 1.5 years ago, and I'm sure it has only grown since then. Throw in NBME practice exams, and you're approaching 4,200 questions for an 8 week period, in addition to time to review content.

 

[Hollow Knight]

If your school uses NBME exams, AnKing is the way, period. It sounds like they don't though.

How are your successful classmates studying? Sometimes there is a code you can crack (this professor it's the powerpoints, that professor it's the textbook, etc)

Do you do all your anki everyday?

Do you have classmates who use AnKing? Do they get good grades?

 

[SillyGenius]

If your school uses NBME exams, AnKing is the way, period. It sounds like they don't though.

How are your successful classmates studying? Sometimes there is a code you can crack (this professor it's the powerpoints, that professor it's the textbook, etc)

Do you do all your anki everyday?

Do you have classmates who use AnKing? Do they get good grades?

My school’s exams are like 90-95% NBME and the remaining 5-10% is prof made questions.

My method so far has been to kind of understand the concept by going to the lecture. I will admit that understanding the concept in class is kinda hard since they don’t really lecture. It’s PBL and there isn’t much teaching done. A lot of my classmates find it useless.

I initially started with Anking but quickly got overwhelmed with the thousands of cards on there. A lot of the info on the Anking deck wasn’t discussed during the PBL sessions at my school. So, I decided to stop using Anking as I thought it may be kinda useless. I ended up making my own Anki cards and studying those daily. It kept me afloat for the first couple exams as I scored in the low 70s. But, I failed the final by the thinnest of margins and ended up failing the class meaning I need to restart M1 year.

I’m the kind of person that likes reading textbooks and maybe watching the occasional video for clarification. But, our profs don’t assign any textbooks.

Some of my friends who have done well are grinding out Anking and watching a bunch of YouTube lectures. I don’t mind doing this, but I would prefer to really understand the concept or at least have the concept taught to me.

Sigh, it’s frustrating

 

[2020NonTrad]

The reason you're doing poorly is because you're not doing practice questions. It's that simple. How can you expect to effectively apply what you've learned on tests if you haven't ever practiced applying that knowledge? QBanks will reinforce content and reveal gaps in understanding. UWorld is the gold standard but AMBOSS is also great. Even practice questions at the end of chapters in textbooks have value, but the explanations of right and wrong answers in UWorld and AMBOSS make them far more effective uses of time.

Anki works for some people and not for others. If it works for you, then great. I never used it (I tried it early and didn't like it) and did extremely well on course exams and step exams. That is to say, if it doesn't work for you then don't waste time on it because it isn't 100% necessary.

 

[Goro]

The reason you're doing poorly is because you're not doing practice questions. It's that simple. How can you expect to effectively apply what you've learned on tests if you haven't ever practiced applying that knowledge? QBanks will reinforce content and reveal gaps in understanding. UWorld is the gold standard but AMBOSS is also great. Even practice questions at the end of chapters in textbooks have value, but the explanations of right and wrong answers in UWorld and AMBOSS make them far more effective uses of time.

Anki works for some people and not for others. If it works for you, then great. I never used it (I tried it early and didn't like it) and did extremely well on course exams and step exams. That is to say, if it doesn't work for you then don't waste time on it because it isn't 100% necessary.

1000% agree. You can never do enough practice questions.

Failing that, one can ask one's classmates to pimp you. It's very important to find the holes in your knowledge base.

You can't escape brute memorization as mention, but still, that won't be enough.

 

[operaman]

The specific resources don’t really matter much so long as you use them, but I agree with all the others that you simply must do practice questions. Lots of them.

The fact is that there are a finite number of concepts to learn and honestly not as many as it may seem when starting out. There are also only so many ways to ask a question in a given topic. A professor or nbme question writer can dress it up every which way, but the underlying concept stays the same.

Doing many questions lets you learn both what’s high yield as well as how it may be tested. Eventually you can begin to see through the questions and then you realize the right answer has literally been under your nose every time.

People scoring where you are usually failing to learn what’s high yield and/or failing to get adequate reps of the material. 80% of any medical exam is basic high yield material, so if you’re scoring below that you’re missing a lot of what should be easy questions. In your case, maybe because you’re spending most of your time trying to memorize that other 20% at the expense of the easier high yield stuff.

Since your school does PBL, you’d also be wise to find the relevant videos for your current topics from the various boards prep services out there now.

Also keep in mind: your real hurdle is M2, not your repeated M1 year. Since it’s all old material I expect you’ll do quite well. Don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security. Hone your methods this year, aim for beating the class average every time so when you hit new material you’re ready.

In short:
1) start doing lots of practice questions

2) quit wasting precious time making anki cards and use a good public deck

3) start layering in videos and other online resources to flesh out the high yield stuff as well as underlying concepts.

4) make sure you’re scheduling in comprehensive reviews as you go along. Weekends are great for this. Just get as many passes at the material as you can.

 

[Hollow Knight]

If your school is 90% NBME, you should be using AnKing. Don't do all of the cards, find a pathoma/sketchy/boards and beyond video that matches what you're studying, and do those cards.

I've had test questions on exams at my school that were straight off AnKing cards. My professors may not have even mentioned it, but it wound up on my final, because it was an NBME exam. And because I did the AnKing cards, I knew it.

Logistics are hard; talk to your classmates. But the material you should be focusing on is step-prep style stuff if you want to pass your school's tests. Think UFAPS

Edit: also obviously what everyone else said

Edit: I also find PBL pretty useless (sorry faculty on here, I love you, I think it's my personality). Do Anki/practice questions during PBL sessions, just don't pay attention if possible. If that works for you. If PBL works, that's great, but you have to find what works, keep doing that, and cut out everything else.

 

[Med Ed]

Not to pile on here, but you were using a very undergrad approach in medical school. About 1% of students are smart enough to get away with that. It looks like you're in the 99%.

The path through pre-clincial is very well worn. Pick your resources (Boards & Beyond, AnKing, Sketchy, Pathoma, whatever) and stick with them. Using too many resources isn't good. You're better exhausting a few resources than skipping around between a lot of them.

And yes, practice questions are key. In educational lingo the concept is called retrieval. You can try to stuff things into your brain until the cows come home, but taking an exam is really about pulling them back out. If you don't practice pulling them back out before you're tested, you will continue to circle the drain.