I keep on failing my quizzes. Help!! I don't want to get dismissed

[SuzukiofJapan]

I'm a M1. New to the forum and I really need help/advice. About 6 weeks in and 3 quizzes later, I haven't passed a single one. A passing grade for my school is 70%, and my average for the first three quizzes has been 57%, while the class average is around 85%. I am so embarassed by my scores that I usually say I get in the upper 70's when I talk about the quizzes with other med students. I don't even like to attend socials or clubs anymore, as I automatically get negative impression when I internalize that everyone else in the room did better than me on the quiz.

When I study, I take notes in lecture, ask for extra tutoring from my school's learning enrichment center, attend review sessions, and even make one on one appointments with my professors for office hours, something less than 20% of our class probably does.

I was especially distraught over the last quiz. The first 2 quizzes, I had time management issues which I had thought I had rectified. But on the third quiz, I still got a 58%. After some analysis, here is what I found things I can improve

I would have gotten a 65% if I hadn't made two silly mistakes. One was complete flop, another was an easy question I missed cause it was the last one and I ran out of time

I would have gotten a 74% if I hadn't missed 3 easy questions that I wrote down in my notes but just didn't have time to make anki cards for and study off of.

I would have gotten a 77% if I didn't miss a question where you had to select multiple answers and all correct answers must be chosen for you to get it right. That question was also a clinical rather than basic science question.


I also don't know if I may have ADHD. I do realize it is very hard for me to focus. Like I would institictively type in instagram, cnn, check my email, check stocks, in the middle of studying. I've tried studying in my car without wifi and that seems to be helpful, but I would still find my mind wandering off. I also tend to be very disorganized, including in what to study (like I would have word documents all over the place, while I would study for a consistent time, I usually study whatever I feel like, I also missed a couple questions on material I did not cover because I forgot that material was on the quiz. This also goes for my life. My room was a mess until I spent 2 days cleaning it, my. car is a mess inside, my refrigerator shelf is a mess compared to my roommates, I'm always losing keys, phone chargers, laptop chargers, I'm always forgetting items at home, forgetting things I need to buy at the grocery store, forget to submit required forms, miss mandatory meetings, etc.
I will be seeing a psychiatrist in 2 weeks so hopefully, I can maybe get that addressed.


Also, my exams are unproctored (my camera is off) and i take them in my bedroom, but I really want to stick to the honor code. I'm wondering if my classmates are cheating by using outside resources. I know the ramifications are huge if the school finds out, but had I pulled up my notes or the lecture slides (which I have predownloaded) on my other laptop, I can easily have gotten an additional 5-10 questions right. There is absolute no way to trace this, not even if my school tries to get the police involved since I don't even have to connect my other laptop to the internet.

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[stickgirl390]

1) Never cheat in medical school. It is not worth it. You could completely lose your opportunity to be a doctor and potentially be stuck with a mountain of debt.
2) Schools keep track of student performance on individual questions. It isn’t just about having a camera on. If you start to get a bunch of questions right that historically, only 10% of students get right, they’re going to suspect foul play.

I suggest you begin a new study strategy that promotes active learning. Watching lectures and listening to reviews, even writing notes, is a very passive bystander approach to learning. You need to engage your brain by answering practice questions and doing spaced repetition, like Anki. I recommend getting a subscription to Boards and Beyond. They have excellent lecture videos that aren’t very long (10-20 min) and practice questions after. You can also get the Lightyear Anki deck which supplements Boards and Beyond.

 

[SuzukiofJapan]

1) Never cheat in medical school. It is not worth it. You could completely lose your opportunity to be a doctor and potentially be stuck with a mountain of debt.
2) Schools keep track of student performance on individual questions. It isn’t just about having a camera on. If you start to get a bunch of questions right that historically, only 10% of students get right, they’re going to suspect foul play.

I suggest you begin a new study strategy that promotes active learning. Watching lectures and listening to reviews, even writing notes, is a very passive bystander approach to learning. You need to engage your brain by answering practice questions and doing spaced repetition, like Anki. I recommend getting a subscription to Boards and Beyond. They have excellent lecture videos that aren’t very long (10-20 min) and practice questions after. You can also get the Lightyear Anki deck which supplements Boards and Beyond.

I currently use Osmosis. I made the anki cards, but haven't really had time to review them.
I"m debating between getting boards or Sketchy. I tried pictorize to remember some diseases and really liked it, as I can memorize the pictures and their symbols a lot better than I can memorize words presented in lecture format. I just never have time to review. After each lecture and finishing writing the notes, its time to move on to the next lecture

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I like osmosis, but get boards and beyond. It really is the best. Watching school lectures is a waste of time. You can get the same information in a better format with boards in half the time. And using a premade deck and just supplementing my skimming school powerpoints and adding 3-5 cards per lecture will save you even more time.

And don’t cheat. Even if your camera is off, it’s not worth it because they can still figure it out and you’ll just be even less prepared for the exam.

 

[deleted1005514]

I currently use Osmosis. I made the anki cards, but haven't really had time to review them.
I"m debating between getting boards or Sketchy. I tried pictorize to remember some diseases and really liked it, as I can memorize the pictures and their symbols a lot better than I can memorize words presented in lecture format. I just never have time to review. After each lecture and finishing writing the notes, its time to move on to the next lecture

Explain “writing the notes” please. Are you rewriting the entire PowerPoint/lecture into notes or outlines?

 

[SuzukiofJapan]

Explain “writing the notes” please. Are you rewriting the entire PowerPoint/lecture into notes or outlines?

There are specific objectives the professors post at the top of each lecture. I basically answer these questions. Most are general, so I would basically type the whole slide as the answer to the objective and put them into a word document. I then pull things from the word document and put it into my anki deck.

I've been mainly studying from the lectures, because the lectures is where professors pull questions from. Should I also put more attention into outside resources like B&B and Zanki? I have the Zanki deck but it seems to cover things beyond what was covered in class. It may be good for USMLE studying, but I'm just trying to pass the next in class quiz/exam.

 

[SuzukiofJapan]

@pagingdoctormom

Here is a sample of white my "outlines" look like

 

[deleted1005514]

There are specific objectives the professors post at the top of each lecture. I basically answer these questions. Most are general, so I would basically type the whole slide as the answer to the objective and put them into a word document. I then pull things from the word document and put it into my anki deck.

I've been mainly studying from the lectures, because the lectures is where professors pull questions from. Should I also put more attention into outside resources like B&B and Zanki? I have the Zanki deck but it seems to cover things beyond what was covered in class. It may be good for USMLE studying, but I'm just trying to pass the next in class quiz/exam.

Ok, so let me ask you...what do you do with these notes once you finish them? Basically you’ve created a document that you can passively re-read, instead of using the time you spent doing that using an active learning method that will benefit you for the exam. If feels very productive and satisfying to have these documents full of notes, but they don’t offer you any proof that you actually know the material...all they prove is that you spent a lot of time re-organizing the material by learning objectives.

It doesn’t matter if you use board resources, flashcards, etc that “everyone else” on SDN uses, because you’re missing a fundamental concept: active over passive. If you want to use your school’s LOs and PPTs that’s fine, and that’s actually what I would recommend in the beginning until you get on solid ground with studying, but instead of creating this document, use your study time to see if you can answer the LOs out loud or on a whiteboard, check your answers, make corrections, and do it again and again until the exam. It’s going to suck and make you feel stupid and you’re not going to want to do it, but that’s how real learning happens.

Set a timer and use the Pomodoro technique if you find yourself distracted. Use an app like Forest that locks your phone or makes your tree die if you get on your phone while your timer is running, and rewards you with a tree with every focused session you complete. Make lists and check them off...use them for everything (studying, cleaning, groceries, life stuff). Time to work on being a successful adult and doctor.

Sorry if I came off as harsh...that’s absolutely not my intention but it is my nature. I believe in your abilities and genuinely want you to succeed!

Edited to add: I saw the red comments in your notes where you were asking questions and indicating that something was weird/seemed off to you...those were the best things in your notes, and it showed and you were thinking about the material and trying to put the pieces together.

 

[SuzukiofJapan]

Ok, so let me ask you...what do you do with these notes once you finish them? Basically you’ve created a document that you can passively re-read, instead of using the time you spent doing that using an active learning method that will benefit you for the exam. If feels very productive and satisfying to have these documents full of notes, but they don’t offer you any proof that you actually know the material...all they prove is that you spent a lot of time re-organizing the material by learning objectives.

It doesn’t matter if you use board resources, flashcards, etc that “everyone else” on SDN uses, because you’re missing a fundamental concept: active over passive. If you want to use your school’s LOs and PPTs that’s fine, and that’s actually what I would recommend in the beginning until you get on solid ground with studying, but instead of creating this document, use your study time to see if you can answer the LOs out loud or on a whiteboard, check your answers, make corrections, and do it again and again until the exam. It’s going to suck and make you feel stupid and you’re not going to want to do it, but that’s how real learning happens.

Set a timer and use the Pomodoro technique if you find yourself distracted. Use an app like Forest that locks your phone or makes your tree die if you get on your phone while your timer is running, and rewards you with a tree with every focused session you complete. Make lists and check them off...use them for everything (studying, cleaning, groceries, life stuff). Time to work on being a successful adult and doctor.

Sorry if I came off as harsh...that’s absolutely not my intention but it is my nature. I believe in your abilities and genuinely want you to succeed!

I basically rewrite them into anki questions. Yeah, its very time intensive and I barely have any chance to actually study the cards. I also reread them occasionally. I guess I'm basically just transcribing notes from one medium to another to another, practicing my typing skills.

 

[deleted1005514]

I basically rewrite them into anki questions. Yeah, its very time intensive and I barely have any chance to actually study the cards. I also reread them occasionally. I guess I'm basically just transcribing notes from one medium to another to another, practicing my typing skills.

That’s exactly what you’re doing, but the red notes/comments you added asking where stuff comes from, this seems weird, etc were great, because it shows you were trying to put the pieces together and synthesize the material.

You could use anki to ask yourself a question then puta screenshot of the slide in the answer/extra section of the slide. Then anki is handling your spaced repetition for you.

 

[hmockingbird]

So I actually did/do well with handwriting notes once (not endlessly rewriting them) and I think there’s some evidence about how that process helps you remember things. However, it’s not working for you, so I would stop doing it.
I think one thing you could do is instead of making it a document, make it flash cards from the start. Put the learning objective (or part of it) on one side and the answer on the other. Then you skip the step of having to translate it into a deck and that can serve as your first pass through the material. Use the rest of your time to actively review the cards. The one nice thing about flash cards (or other active review methods like question banks) is you can just set a timer and come back to them, so just do maybe half hour then take a ten minute break etc.

 

[DrOngoGablogian]

OP, lots of people have given you a variety of advice so far so just adding my 2 cents specifically regarding your urea outline. If you don't feel comfortable jumping to another method of studying, I think you could make some subtle changes to what you're doing and be vastly better off without reinventing your wheel yet.

Yours is extremely verbose for an outline/study sheet, which makes it really difficult to efficiently study and lock down the info.
This:
Liver gets ride of the ammonia through the urea cycle. The urea and ammonium goes to the kidney, where it is secreted (70% of ammonia is turned into urea, remaining 30% turned into ammonium).

Is way more difficult to digest than:
Liver = removes ammonia >> urea cycle
Urea + ammonium >> secreted in kidney; 70% ammonia > urea, 30% > ammonium

Then you can bold the topics/major concepts, and underline the specific stuff.
IE instead of what you have for 3:

Transamination
a-keto glutamate >> glutamate in order to turn Amino acid >> a-keto acid
AA passed safely until >> urea cycle
glutamate then returns >> a-KG
Alanine aminotransferase = alanine >> pyruvate
Aspartate aminotransferase = aspartate >> oxaloacetate

It might take getting used to transcribing info like that, but once you've got it down it makes taking notes quicker, makes your thoughts shorter and more direct, and your product is a really nice study guide that is actually helpful come study time. You can quickly look over information and the important stuff pops out at you. You can also quickly copy to a new doc, replace some stuff with _________, and you've got a quick practice test to run through and hammer stuff in.

Transamination
_____________>> glutamate in order to turn Amino acid >>____________
______________ = _________ >> pyruvate
______________ = _________ >> oxaloacetate

Highlight what you miss so it pops out even more on successive study repetitions. 100x better than reading through big chunks of text over and over. Good luck.

 

[stickgirl390]

Don’t bother wasting your time with Anki if you spend all your time making cards and not actually reviewing them. Actually completing your Anki reviews every day is what makes the app work so well. Just making cards is just another passive learning situation: reviewing them is the active part.

 

[Goro]

OP, read this:

• Goro's Guide to Success in Medical School (2018 edition)

 

[SuzukiofJapan]

Thanks everyone for the tips. My system exam is coming up in 10 days. Here is what I plan on doing.

Use Zanki/ a premade anki deck some upperclassmen made. Since I already am familiar with the material. There are about 2500 cards total for this system. I will be doing around 400 cards a day.

Supplement with Boards and Beyond And/or sketchy for each inidividual lecture topic. Answer the questions at the end. Use osmosis (which is passive learning) only if I absolutely don't understand a topic.

Originally, I was going to go back and rewatch all the lectures but thats not the best use of my time.

For the future, I plan on

Doing all the necessary prework before lecture
Watch/attend lecture. Take notes on the slide. Answer the learning objectives while the lecture is going on and answer what I can't immediately after lecture
Watch the boards and beyond and/or sketchy videos for that lecture material. Read first aid for that material (while reading first aid is passive, they often give some very good mnemonics or other ways that help Answer the questions. Osmosis if I have time/don't get the material.
Complete the premade anki deck


A quick question about resources. I have first aid. I signed up for AMA and can get either 9 months of Boards and Beyond or 6 months of sketchy.

I tried pixorize before, and I really liked it. I also was able to learn the specifics and nitty gritty, which is an area I usually have the most trouble with on exams. Sketchy also provides questions at the end. I feel like boards and beyond is kind of like Osmosis, which is free through my University, as it just reteaches you lecture material. The cartoons can probably also keep me on track better.

Also, a 9 month B&B subscription costs $149 while a 6 month sketchy costs $229, so the sketchy is better value.

 

[deleted1005514]

Sketchy is only micro, path and pharm, so if you’re not covering that until next year it’s a waste to have it now. If it’s covered within your blocks (my school does this), you can choose it now and get BnB on your own if you want. Both sketchy and BnB have quizzes after the videos, and both have pre-made anki decks that follow their videos. BnB is all of first aid in video form, so it’s more comprehensive than sketchy.

 

[deleted480308]

Don’t cheat

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Also, a 9 month B&B subscription costs $149 while a 6 month sketchy costs $229, so the sketchy is better value.

Sketchy costs more for a shorter amount of time. How is that a better value?

Also sketchy is just mnemonics for micro, pharm, and path. And honestly most people don’t like it for path because it’s not very well suited for that topic. If you’re only going to get one, BnB is by far the better value. You will actually learn the material. Sketchy is just for memorizing details.

 

[stickgirl390]

Thanks everyone for the tips. My system exam is coming up in 10 days. Here is what I plan on doing.

Use Zanki/ a premade anki deck some upperclassmen made. Since I already am familiar with the material. There are about 2500 cards total for this system. I will be doing around 400 cards a day.

Supplement with Boards and Beyond And/or sketchy for each inidividual lecture topic. Answer the questions at the end. Use osmosis (which is passive learning) only if I absolutely don't understand a topic.

Originally, I was going to go back and rewatch all the lectures but thats not the best use of my time.

For the future, I plan on

Doing all the necessary prework before lecture
Watch/attend lecture. Take notes on the slide. Answer the learning objectives while the lecture is going on and answer what I can't immediately after lecture
Watch the boards and beyond and/or sketchy videos for that lecture material. Read first aid for that material (while reading first aid is passive, they often give some very good mnemonics or other ways that help Answer the questions. Osmosis if I have time/don't get the material.
Complete the premade anki deck


A quick question about resources. I have first aid. I signed up for AMA and can get either 9 months of Boards and Beyond or 6 months of sketchy.

I tried pixorize before, and I really liked it. I also was able to learn the specifics and nitty gritty, which is an area I usually have the most trouble with on exams. Sketchy also provides questions at the end. I feel like boards and beyond is kind of like Osmosis, which is free through my University, as it just reteaches you lecture material. The cartoons can probably also keep me on track better.

Also, a 9 month B&B subscription costs $149 while a 6 month sketchy costs $229, so the sketchy is better value.

I should clarify: passive learning is not completely without value. You will have to passively learn the first/second time you see the material, but you should be doing all active strategies beyond that. I would watch B+B first, then watch my lecture on 2x speed, and then do active learning for that material until test day (Anki, practice questions, learning objectives, group study)

 

[TragicalDrFaust]

If you think you have ADHD, get thee to a psychiatrist. I'm close with four extremely bright people who have ADHD. The two who are taking meds are killing it, in successful careers making upper middle class salaries or more in their 20's. The two who are not taking medication seem to struggle with basic executive function which, because they're so bright, didn't catch up with them until after undergrad.

And I agree with what others are saying- it will pay dividends in the future if you invest the time now to figure out what time-efficient active learning strategies work for you.

 

[LunaOri]

I like osmosis, but get boards and beyond. It really is the best. Watching school lectures is a waste of time. You can get the same information in a better format with boards in half the time. And using a premade deck and just supplementing my skimming school powerpoints and adding 3-5 cards per lecture will save you even more time.

And don’t cheat. Even if your camera is off, it’s not worth it because they can still figure it out and you’ll just be even less prepared for the exam.

Also, it's UNETHICAL AND WRONG.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Also, it's UNETHICAL AND WRONG.

I mean yeah but no one thinks cheating is ethical. If they’re cheating or want to, they just don’t care.

 

[Osteosaur]

Have you went to your school's learning center? And are these major exams are small quizzes?

It seems like organization is a big issue.

Use alarms. Never rely on a professor's 'word of mouth' to see if something is on a quiz. You need to always be looking what you need to do to complete an assignment or pass a test. Look at everything on the course page and set a schedule.

The most important issue is don't study 'whatever' or you will invariably study what makes you feel good, which is what you know. Anki cards are nice because the SCHEDULE is laid out for you. You could try Zanki and do the preclinical physio/biochem. But right now you need to figure out how to pass the school requirements. You need to figure out what each day is going to be like.

"I studied 8 hours" is meaningless if you spent the whole day learning about marfan syndrome when most of the test is on bone formation.