M1 questioning how to do this?

[IntoTheNight]

Not in need of encouragement because I know that panicking isn't really going to do anything.

However, I'm mostly looking for how to solve this situation. I couldn't really get Anki going until a few days ago and am already behind on first week lectures. Maybe like 2/5 days behind.

The main problem is that pretty much every study strategy I have from undergrad was focused on big picture, and I really pretty much never forced myself to memorize stuff. This can be worked on obviously and I can only start where I'm at, but I'm in a big mess of not knowing what resources to use/what information to prioritize/how to manage the fact that I'm already a few days behind.

Should I reach out to someone from the school? I have an upperclassman friend who says that only 70-80% of exam questions are on 3rd party resources.

So, knowing that I am more or less a week behind with no clue where to start, what do you recommend I do? I can put in the work, but my memory currently is really really bad.

Thanks

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[TragicalDrFaust]

Disclosure, I started school as a low-performing student and have ended up a low-mid-performing one. My advice is for how to dig yourself out of the hole, not maximize your grades.

Memorization is a technique and skill. You'll learn your preferred technique and then hone your skills, as all of us do!

Definitely make an appointment with an academic counselor. Their quality varies but you may get key insight for 30mins of your time.

Don't overload on resources and maybe don't use any at all depending on quality of in house lectures - most third party resources are passive learning videos and will not serve as well as active learning strategies. Pick 0-2 resources that are engaging to you and stick with them. Decision fatigue and time spent searching, skipping and switching come into play here, from experience. Mitigated by just having one resource that you like.

For your current predicament, it's possible to catch up on anki but a lot of people's eyes start to cross after about 4 hours of reviews in a day, which means either won't finish or will reach point of marginal return. If you're comfortable with anki, I would do as much anki as you can handle, going lecture by lecture, and then review the remaining lectures however you were doing it before you had anki. If that was reading over the lectures and trying to memorize them, I would consider using the Feynman technique because it's basically that, but turned into an active learning technique and you can gauge your progress instantly. If you're a "big picture" learner (like me), I think Feynman works especially well because you can start big and then hone in on details.

For pre-clinical the only third party resource I used consistently was Sketchy for microbiology. Pathoma and Boards and Beyond are also popular. It would be a waste of time to use both for the same topic though. I found anki mind-numbingly boring and had better results switching to the Feynman method after my first year. Everyone is going to be a little different; the only constant is using active learning and choosing something you can do consistently, which will likely be something you're "bought into" and naturally enjoy.

 

[Goro]

Yes, you should reach out to your school's learning or education center for help with learning techniques. Some people swear by yankee, but for others it's a waste of time

While repetition drives learning, the best way to learn things is to be an active learner

And yes you should be reaching out not only to your classmates but upperclassman, and your faculty. Sitting around and doing nothing is the strategy used by the most problematic students

 

[Esmolol]

Reach out to your school. There's got to be someone who can guide you.

Personally, I did not use Anki until it was too late to make it really meaningful. However, if I could redo it (not that I want to!!!), I would pair UWOrld and Anki. I am not affiliated in any way or shape with Anki. When I subscribed to AnkiHub and the newest Anking deck with almost all UWorld questions tagged in it, I noticed a huge improvement while preparing for Step 2. Do a question, read the explanation (rights and wrongs), and unsuspend corresponding Anki cards. IMHO this way you're maximizing both world - spaced repetition combined with NOT memorizing random facts as you have read the UWorld explanation. In this scenario, Anki is just helping you retain the knowledge.

 

[operaman]

Welcome to medical school! I basically felt behind or just barely caught up the entire time. I never felt fully ready for a test; I just studied my tail off and eventually a test happened. Then I’d keep going and start it all over again.

Some key thoughts that might help:

1) You are retaining more than you think. Big picture is still important too, don't forget that. Having a conceptual framework will help you retain more of the details because they will have meaning.

2) You need to focus on the high yield stuff. Those do tend to be the things emphasized on the third party sources, and the 70-80% show rate for your exams sounds about right.

3) Med school studying does display saturation kinetics such that if you have to study X hours to get 80% right, you'll probably need 2X hours for 90%, and 3-4X hours for 99%. That first 80% also tends to be the lower hanging fruit and fairly predictable, and is often the same stuff that's tested on NBME exams. Many students struggle because they will focus a disproportionate amount of effort on that last 10% of material and neglect the other 90%. Don't do this. Once you've got the high yield stuff down cold, then and only then is it really worth memorizing the additional minutiae. And lets be real - this is how clinical medicine works. This is where we get the famous "when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." Focus on the high yield first.

4) Definitely meet with your school's learning center. Get all the tips you can get, and especially if they have any kind of tutoring from upperclassmen available, use it. These are people who just took your exam a year or two ago. They know what was on it and what wasn't. That's a very valuable resource when they can point to a slide and say "yeah this was tested pretty heavily last year." You will eventually get used to your faculty and how they test -- by the end of M2 I could generally predict about 90% of the question on a given exam almost verbatim, to the point my friends would tease me and say I must have hacked the dean's office computer or something. Until you get there, rely on upperclassmen to help you focus on the highest yield material.

5) Study with an eye toward how you would ask a question. Remember that whoever writes your exams cannot change the truth, but they can dress it up 100 different ways. The underlying concepts are finite, and you can learn them all. The Krebs cycle or the brachial plexus are not cosmic mysteries - you can learn to draw them yourself in a few minutes of repetition. And while you can dress up all sorts of clinical or scientific vignettes about these - test patients are going to fall off many ladders on your behalf and injure their upper extremities in so many different ways - you can't change the underlying concepts and you should be able to work through and figure out the answer to anything they throw at you.

6) Do your best to stay caught up. And make time to review everything you've seen ( I usually did this on weekends for the preceding weeks). Personally I needed to see material 4-5x to feel good about it, so just make sure you're getting something close to that with whatever system you use. Anki is nice with repetition, but so is pre-reading the lecture, going to lecture, studying it again afterwards that afternoon, reviewing it that weekend, and reviewing again before the test (that's 5x already). You'll find what works for you - just keep looking and exploring and keep what feels right and toss what doesn't work for you. Like for me, I hated First Aid for Step 1. Couldn't stand it, so never even bought one. Aced the steps anyhow doing it my own way. So try the things that work for most, but don't be alarmed if you find something else works better for you.