How are you annotating in FA?

[Proverbs31]

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Ok so sorry for the ignorant question, but I seem to be taking forever annotating either the RR Path notes into my FA (so I can remember the "mechanism" ) or writing in the Qs I missed on UW.
Is that what everyone else is doing because its making me sooo slow! I have my FA in a binder and hole punched, but its taking like hours to go thru 20 UW qs into my FA and even longer trying to write in extra details I think Goljan stressed in his RR book. Am I writing too much? I dont want to forget the mechanism when I review my FA, but it shouldnt take this long right? What is everyone else dpoing? Im having a real hard time trying to finish all the reading and get the material written in my FA. 3 weeks till USMLE...suggestions please!!!

 

[Helo]

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[InternationlDoc]

I personally DO NOT annotate FA. I have 24 days left and really, If I spend time annotating and writing all the stuff from qbank or other books, then am I really going to be going through all of that? if yes then would I have time? if yes then would I retain it?

for me the answer is no to all. Hence, last week would comprise of 2-3 FA reviews (in its own "bare minimum") form + SOME notes made from qbank or other source before.

my suggesstion: unless you really don't understand a concept/detail, write it - else, you most likely missed it due to lack of recall/stress/just weren't feeling it and thus move on after a read. My 2 cents.

 

[doctorFred]

the only things i'm annotating into first aid are helpful remarks from both the goljan audio files and the board review lectures from our own pathologist, dr. jones. for BRS physiology or BRS pathology, if i see a particularly useful diagram or chart, i will print out specific pages and actually insert them into the binder in the relevant section.

for USMLEworld questions, which i haven't started yet, i'll have a separate .doc file on my computer where i'll write 1-2 sentences per question if it's something i haven't seen before/am struggling with, and if it "feels" like it'll be high yield (similar to goljan's answer keys in his printed notes.) i'll then print out this document, which really would only be a few dozen pages at most, and insert it at the end of my binder.

 

[45408]

I'm not writing hardly anything into First Aid. I'm just highlighting the facts that made me go "Oh, now I get it."

 

[Hurricane95]

I hear you...im doing a similar tactic, and it takes a VERY long time. It can be really agonizingly slow. I'm doing UW and annotating pretty much everything that's missing into first aid, or highlighting parts of first aid that were directly addressed in UW. I'm not doing this for RR path, or I would really be killing myself. That's overkill I think. You have the book (RR), so just review from there...don't make a second copy of the high yield notes.

So far i've completed all the Q's for path, pathophys, physio, micro, immuno and biochem. I've got about 690ish Q's left and am hoping to be done by sunday night at about 130-140 Q per day. I'm working about 10-12 hours a day for the rest of the week to finish. That puts me at 3 weeks til exam time.

In the last 3 weeks, I plan to do 100 random UW Q's a day (2 blocks), and digest and memorize my "bible" (fully annotated FA). I'm also planning on skimming high yield facts in my supplementary sources, like margin notes in RR path and biochem, running through microcards and pharm cards over and over, and BRS physio. I would also do NBME 6 and maybe 3 no later than 2 and 1.5 weeks pre-test date. Judging by how the UW Q's are going, this should work out pretty well.

 

[drjhana]

Hi,

Am Gonna Have Rr,fa N Uw Qbank For Final Revision

I Am Not Annotating Fa But Rr With D Points Fronm His Lecture Audio

Qbank I Got This Word Files In Which SOMEONE HAS TOOK ALL THE PAIN TO TYPE THE QUESTIONS IN Word Format,i Have Taken Printouts N Do Highlights N Add Points To It Doing Retro Reading In From Kaplan Books So Am Using D Qbank More As A Learning Than A Testing Tool


But Anyway How U Annotate On This Glossy Papers Of Fa N Rr?i Made A Mess On 2 Pages N Quit After That.

 

[DragonWell]

Ok so sorry for the ignorant question, but I seem to be taking forever annotating either the RR Path notes into my FA (so I can remember the "mechanism" ) or writing in the Qs I missed on UW.
Is that what everyone else is doing because its making me sooo slow! I have my FA in a binder and hole punched, but its taking like hours to go thru 20 UW qs into my FA and even longer trying to write in extra details I think Goljan stressed in his RR book. Am I writing too much? I dont want to forget the mechanism when I review my FA, but it shouldnt take this long right? What is everyone else dpoing? Im having a real hard time trying to finish all the reading and get the material written in my FA. 3 weeks till USMLE...suggestions please!!!

With 3 weeks left, I would seriously consider limiting the annotation to the absolutely essential. If you're annotating from books, you might try just popping some of those little plastic page flag things on particular pages or tables, etc. to remind yourself to look over them again. I did this with many of my review books and it was much faster than annotating.

As far as UW goes, many things come up again and again, so you might spend time annotating something that is pretty obvious to you by the time you get to the end of world. It's a tough call, but my annotations weren't really as useful to me as I thought they'd be. There's definitely a huge volume to get through and you don't want to get bogged down in minutiae...

 

[Proverbs31]

Agreed. Thanks....Im gonna only write the Educ Object then for a UW ques I absolutely didnt know and focus on finishing UW Qs asap ans reviewing and rereviewing FA....RR path is taking so long to go over....Ugh...
Thanks for the sugg/advice...all.....
Good luck w studies

 

[tfom08]

One thing you could try is just writing the RR page number in the section of FA so that you know where it is if you want to look it up and remind yourself. I think too much annotating becomes counterproductive because it takes 2-3x as long to read the book and then when are you actually going to be able to read it? I think I am better off just reading RR twice in the time it would take me to annotate into FA and then review everything.