improving on lab practicals

[epsilonprodigy]

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Anyone have luck significantly raising their lab practical scores? Apprarently, I SUCK at practicals. I have done poorly on 4 of the 6 we have had this semester. I tend to make up for it with high scores on my written exams, but am awful at visual recognition tasks. This is true in all subjects, neuro, anatomy and histo.

For those who were horrible at them but improved, how did you study? (I should also mention that all our practicals are online, including anatomy....this makes it even harder!)

 

[Ghost22]

How much time do you spend in the lab? Some folks aren't as good at being able to use an Atlas and still ID stuff and may need to just spend more time with actual bodies.

Alternatively, Rohen's Atlas could be helpful if all you've been using up til now is something like Netter's.

 

[tantacles]

4 practicals in a semester? Wow. We just had one big one. That sucks.

 

[Porfirio]

Anyone have luck significantly raising their lab practical scores? Apprarently, I SUCK at practicals. I have done poorly on 4 of the 6 we have had this semester. I tend to make up for it with high scores on my written exams, but am awful at visual recognition tasks. This is true in all subjects, neuro, anatomy and histo.

For those who were horrible at them but improved, how did you study? (I should also mention that all our practicals are online, including anatomy....this makes it even harder!)

Just aim to pass. You will forget most of it anyways or you will continue to learn more about it. A dead body looks very different from a live one.

If you are passing, keep up the hard work.

Suggestions:
1) Talk to your TAs more to get "hints."
2) Always look at where things are going. If something is tagged and you have no clue what it is, try to ID stuff around it to get a better idea of what it could be.

 

[VenusinFurs]

Yeah I'd say just try to look at as many things as you can in as many bodies as you can until you're sick.

This strategy works way better in neuroanatomy though.

 

[KLycos]

Another bump for Rohen's atlas...omfg it was so amazingly awesome in getting me high scores on the lab practicals. The only practical I had a bad time with was head and neck which really necessitates time with your cadaver to do well.

 

[MedBound1]

4 practicals in a semester? Wow. We just had one big one. That sucks.

We have 4 in a semester as well. My advice would be to make sure you spend time at other groups bodies too, don't just look at your own. Vasculature especially is so variable from person to person, as well as the general amount of fat and look of the tissue. Make outlines of the things you need to know and make sure you can walk up to a new body and still ID everything. Basically get yourself out of your comfort zone of only looking at the stuff you've spent hours dissecting through. Other than that, get a good atlas and learn 'relationships' aka this nerve should be laying anterior to x muscle, lateral to x, and look for those relationships int he practical (professors test the relationships as they ideally should be).

 

[jerris2011]

For Anatomy I use Acland videos and practically live in the lab. For Histo ,I look at least 500 images before each exam with programs like Histotime. Repetition is the key!

 

[CuttingCorneas]

UMich's anatomy website is the reason I got full credit on every practical. It lays out special relationships between structures as well, which helps on the written exams.

It also helps if you do the exercises before going to lab that day.

 

[Planes2Doc]

I pulled a bunch of Rohen's images into Modality Body on my iPad, and made quizzes out of them. It took a couple of days, but definitely worth it! Helps out a ton in gross lab.