Is it necessary to take notes for UWORLD?

[swiftjab]

I've done about ~70% of Uworld and am wondering if I should've taken notes since the beginning. I decided not to take notes in the beginning because just reading through all the explanation was time consuming enough for me. Also, I plan to do it the second time during dedicated, that's also one of my excuses for not taking notes. Should I be taking notes? If so, I'll start now. How many of you were taking notes?

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[NotaCop]

In my opinion you should have been making anki cards for each Q you got wrong and all those you got right for the wrong reason/guessed (~1 card per Q). Not sure what you can do about it now other than start doing that now or with your start to dedicated. Passive learning is almost never as effective as alternative models where you incorporate an active component (creating card) and periodic reviews

 

[OrgoCoop]

Cant agree more with above^ its what separates a 260 from a 230

 

[sahell]

Active recall and spaced repetition ftw. Painful but effective.

 

[intubesteak]

I did not take notes first pass (did not have time doing it alongside classes). Second pass I would type out, in my own words, what important information I was missing regardless of getting the question wrong. I felt like that was helpful to get the information deeper into my brain. However looking back over the stuff I ended up writing down, most of it was either really obvious by the end of dedicated, or frankly unimportant minutiae.

IMO its hard to separate what is important enough to write down/make a card on, and what things you missed but will be really obvious by the end of dedicated. The most important thing is to fully engage your brain and extract all of the concepts. Try some things and see what works best. All of the important details/facts are easily found in other sources...use Uworld for the concepts/understanding.

 

[GEToutLADYits6AM]

Do you guys think uworld is enough to pull off at least a 230+ ? (If done multiple times)

 

[siliso]

To me it was perfectly productive to read over the explanation briefly and just flag to do again (and again, and again). Making notes may be active learning for you -reading and rereading notes tends to be a passive learning time waster compared to doing more qs (active).

 

[Samuel88]

I tried to take notes for all the Qs I'm doing....it just seems to take forever.
Eventually, it gets boring and slows learning down.

I definitely do spaced learning (at least 350 pre-made anki cards per day), but when it comes to questions I feel like doing more questions >> taking notes on questions.
Obviously, if its a critical error (ie missed a key cardiovascular concept) I will write it down. Also, when watching Pathoma, Boards and Beyond, etc I will take notes too.

 

[The_Sunny_Doc]

UWorld alone? No
UWorld in combination with Pathoma and gang, Yes
@OP -- definitely take notes on UWorld, whether manually or online in a deck

What is gang?

 

[The_Sunny_Doc]

I tried to take notes for all the Qs I'm doing....it just seems to take forever.
Eventually, it gets boring and slows learning down.

I definitely do spaced learning (at least 350 pre-made anki cards per day), but when it comes to questions I feel like doing more questions >> taking notes on questions.
Obviously, if its a critical error (ie missed a key cardiovascular concept) I will write it down. Also, when watching Pathoma, Boards and Beyond, etc I will take notes too.

Do you use your own deck, or a premade one?

 

[Samuel88]

Do you use your own deck, or a premade one?

Premade, zanki and the rest from medchool reddit. I tried to make my own deck but it took too long and my cards were poor quality. Learning to make anki cards takes time too.

I do add to the premade decks when needed. For example, I made my own mnemonics for lysosomal diseases since premade anki had none. Also, I make my own anki decks for lab values

 

[pbrocks15]

Premade, zanki and the rest from medchool reddit. I tried to make my own deck but it took too long and my cards were poor quality. Learning to make anki cards takes time too.

I do add to the premade decks when needed. For example, I made my own mnemonics for lysosomal diseases since premade anki had none. Also, I make my own anki decks for lab values

Are there new updates to the Zanki?