M2 Advice

[compstomper]

Long story short: Started M2 year 3 weeks ago and bombed the midterm with a 64. Used flashcards for M1, but there's so much material that flashcard making seems too time consuming for it to be useful, same goes for making my own notes. I was wondering how you guys handled/are handling M2 year and what are your studying strategies? P.S. My school uses in house exams made by PhDs only.

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[TBV]

Long story short: Started M2 year 3 weeks ago and bombed the midterm with a 64. Used flashcards for M1, but there's so much material that flashcard making seems too time consuming for it to be useful, same goes for making my own notes. I was wondering how you guys handled/are handling M2 year and what are your studying strategies? P.S. My school uses in house exams made by PhDs only.

Depends on what class you are taking. I'm feeling the Lecture w/ pathoma and FA on the side to drive home points and hit up Uworld on the weekends to review concepts.

 

[Psai]

M2 is about applying knowledge not just memorizing. Flashcards don't cut it
read the material as many times as you can actively. Means trying to recall what you just read

 

[Kaustikos]

Wait. .
What's the average on the exam? A 64 is relative. If the average is 50, then you're golden.

 

[sloop]

Read the notes multiple times. Here was my system:

I think I would read through notes on my iPad 3-4x before the test. As I was studying daily I would change the paper color in notability with each read so that usually white meant I hadn't read it, red was 1x through, yellow was 2-3x and green was 3-4x.

1-1.5wks prior I would start to do as many questions as I could fit in for each course while getting enough reads through the material.

A few days before the exam I would take 30-45min to honestly assess what topics I was weakest on and would make a comprehensive list. I often wouldn't even get to everything on this list, but would get to the most important things on it. I'd read through those notes an extra time, paying attention to the details that I knew I was shaky on.

Finally, I would make a cheat sheet of crammable material the night before, go to sleep at a decent hour, wake up at like 4:30-5am and review that before the test.

Great results really are possible with this system. I honored all of my second year classes. I really just think doing well in second year is about having a system and putting in the time.

 

[Entadus]

Wait. .
What's the average on the exam? A 64 is relative. If the average is 50, then you're golden.

Not so in medical school. Pretty sure most schools have a minimum score to pass (no relevance to the mean and SD). At my school it's 70 and I hear some have higher (75, maybe 80?)

 

[tvelocity514]

What was your first class? We just had our exam for the first class of second year (micro) and it is completely different than studying for all the other course (eg we are in heme onc now and I study differently for it). I translate it to first year how anatomy was straight up memorization (made flash cards on everything in ppt and what was said in class to get an A) and then went to reading costanzo and ppts for physiology etc.

In the same way, micro is a memorization course - see this buzzword, symptoms, etc ... Diagnose... What is treatment etc. heme onc I'm reading ppts, doing pathoma, and glancing at first aid . I am planning on doing some usmlerx and Robbins questions also before the exam. You just need to transition and learn a different way of studying. I honestly really like sloops way of studying. I more or less do the same thing without the effort of the colored pages and the making a cheat sheet for the morning of (I actually just write on a notecard everything I need to look at when I wake up at 5 am for the exam which is the same thing he does pretty much).

Don't worry- I know it was tough getting that grade back, but honestly it's just about brute force and reading the information as much as possible. Good luck!!

(Sorry if there are errors but I'm typing from my phone)

 

[Kaustikos]

Not so in medical school. Pretty sure most schools have a minimum score to pass (no relevance to the mean and SD). At my school it's 70 and I hear some have higher (75, maybe 80?)

... Did you just make a statement hinting that I don't know how medical school is? Believe it or not, but mean and SD does play a part in medical school. I'm not saying in all courses, but you're wrong assuming a 64 is failing all the time in every course. That's why I asked. If the class average is a 70, then a 64 isn't failing. You want proof? Look at NBME shelf exams.

 

[W19]

Since my school uses NBME, this statement below is what we get on our score report:

"The summary statistics and percent correct scores shown are preliminary and may be subject to change on the final score report as a result of quality control analysis. "

My school usually make no major adjustment when average is above 75%, which is probably 90% of the time. Lol

 

[Entadus]

... Did you just make a statement hinting that I don't know how medical school is? Believe it or not, but mean and SD does play a part in medical school. I'm not saying in all courses, but you're wrong assuming a 64 is failing all the time in every course. That's why I asked. If the class average is a 70, then a 64 isn't failing. You want proof? Look at NBME shelf exams.

First of all, the OP made it clear that the exams are in-house NOT nbme shelves. I have taken both and was referring to in-house exams set by PhDs.

Secondly, I was just sharing my experience. I should have made that more clear, sorry! I only attend one med school, so it could be different at other schools. Things were that way in undergrad with harder classes (engineering, physics/pchem, etc) but I had thought things were different in med school.

If a school accepted a 50 or even a 64 as passing, that would be news to me. Was your school that way? I'm not saying it's impossible but it seems a little strange. What kind of a school has averages below 70%? (Or what class would that be for?) At that point, either the exams are badly designed or the students are seriously slacking. It would be a real morale-crusher to the whole class, too.

Besides, the OP seemed upset with their results on the first exam (64 was "bombing") ..... so I highly doubt the OP is "golden". Sorry for derailing the thread, I don't know what advice to give other than that if flash cards are not working, maybe it's time to drop them in favor of something else.

 

[Kaustikos]

First of all, the OP made it clear that the exams are in-house NOT nbme shelves. I have taken both and was referring to in-house exams set by PhDs.

Secondly, I was just sharing my experience. I should have made that more clear, sorry! I only attend one med school, so it could be different at other schools. Things were that way in undergrad with harder classes (engineering, physics/pchem, etc) but I had thought things were different in med school.

If a school accepted a 50 or even a 64 as passing, that would be news to me. Was your school that way? I'm not saying it's impossible but it seems a little strange. What kind of a school has averages below 70%? (Or what class would that be for?) At that point, either the exams are badly designed or the students are seriously slacking. It would be a real morale-crusher to the whole class, too.

Besides, the OP seemed upset with their results on the first exam (64 was "bombing") ..... so I highly doubt the OP is "golden". Sorry for derailing the thread, I don't know what advice to give other than that if flash cards are not working, maybe it's time to drop them in favor of something else.

Right
I'm not saying 64 is a good score or to even be happy with it. I'm saying that even in-house exams can be curved. I'm not saying its likely but it's possible. Coming from dealing with anatomy where the average score on the exams was, in fact, a 70 percent. I can only say that it's best to get an idea of where the op stands relative to the average.
Normally I wouldn't ask that question. But, after dealing with this bull****, I kind of have to ask.
Yes, a 64 on my "in-house" pathology exam would beyond failure since the average was a 90. But sometimes courses aren't that clear-cut.

 

[michiganpsych08]

First of all, the OP made it clear that the exams are in-house NOT nbme shelves. I have taken both and was referring to in-house exams set by PhDs.

Secondly, I was just sharing my experience. I should have made that more clear, sorry! I only attend one med school, so it could be different at other schools. Things were that way in undergrad with harder classes (engineering, physics/pchem, etc) but I had thought things were different in med school.

If a school accepted a 50 or even a 64 as passing, that would be news to me. Was your school that way? I'm not saying it's impossible but it seems a little strange. What kind of a school has averages below 70%? (Or what class would that be for?) At that point, either the exams are badly designed or the students are seriously slacking. It would be a real morale-crusher to the whole class, too.

Besides, the OP seemed upset with their results on the first exam (64 was "bombing") ..... so I highly doubt the OP is "golden". Sorry for derailing the thread, I don't know what advice to give other than that if flash cards are not working, maybe it's time to drop them in favor of something else.

fyi...i go to a school that varies with each class the minimum pass level (MPL) per exam and per class. so for example, our histo tests were really hard (or as you say badly designed...) so the MPL for one exam was a 48! the MPL for the class was a 50. so its possible...just wanted to point it out

 

[jqueb29]

i haven't made a single flashcard, drawn a single diagram, or anything of the nature thus far in med school. i just listen to the lectures then re-read as many times as i feel necessary before the test (varies from class to class). we have online weekend quizzes in most of our courses that we are allowed to access again later for practice, and i make sure i understand everything related to each question. i have my first M2 test Monday so we'll see if my process still works/if my brain survived the summer, but it worked swimmingly last year

 

[cbrons]

Long story short: Started M2 year 3 weeks ago and bombed the midterm with a 64. Used flashcards for M1, but there's so much material that flashcard making seems too time consuming for it to be useful, same goes for making my own notes. I was wondering how you guys handled/are handling M2 year and what are your studying strategies? P.S. My school uses in house exams made by PhDs only.

1. Stop going to lectures
2. Watch pathoma
3. Don't make mindless flashcards with facts to memorize if you have no idea what it actually means. Try to understand things by reading textbook/watching youtube videos/whatever
4. Stop memorize bad powerpoints
5. Ask TA what you actually need to know for in-class exam
6. Do a ton of practice problems from USMLERx, Pre-Test, Purple Robbins (the new version of Red Robbins). Do UWorld in Spring. Do practice problems every single day but especially prior to exam.
7. If your class exams are written by faculty as opposed to USMLE-style test question bank: Ask TA what useless factoids they will ask about on exam, memorize 2-3 days before.

 

[PhillyMed777]

good points from all...Only thing from above that i found not helpful is question banks because class exams are based on what was taught and it is in greater detail for us...those banks wouldn't be specific enough for our test prep

getting material from different sources helps hammer it down better for me. At the very least, the ppts, rapid review path, FA, and Pathoma.