Mathematical equations for first semester of MSI

[coolness]

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high test scores is proportional to (.20)(comprehension) X (.80)(memorization)

high test scores is not proportional to intelligence

high test scores is not proportional to becoming a good physician

 

[lilmo]

high test scores is proportional to (.20)(comprehension) X (.80)(memorization)

high test scores is not proportional to intelligence

high test scores is not proportional to becoming a good physician

high test scores is proportional to being a GUNNER!

 

[peehdee]

depends.

definitions first:

intelligent: being able to integrate ideas, come up with new ways of looking at thing.

smart: knowing FACTS. does not imply being creative or able to come up with the facts on their own

(take everything with grain of salt, these are generalizations, so always not perfect)

if you wanna know who does well in med school, i think its about personality. if you were a gunner you most likely will be one in med school. its hard to change who you are. i hate to say it but high test score is about MEMORY period. when you initially learn the material, yes it helps to COMPREHEND, but you see it so many times over the years that it comes down to how much you REMEMBER. plus if you didn't understand it, you can go home and read about it again and again. as you all know students learn to LEARN what they need for exams. there are books written about USMLE, specific courses and wards and everything else you can think of for medicine. even the dumbest one in the end will 'catch' up and know as much as the next person (if they passed everything). so in the end its really hard to say based solely on test scores who is really intelligent and who was just smart. bc if you see the material over and over again that you'd be stupid to not know them. 2 ways to get high scores; have exellent memory or study ALL THE TIME. neither of these is a measure of intelligence. there's nothing really that med students have to 'think' about. everything is already been thought of. most likely your question was already asked or the answer is not known (otherwise it would be in a book somewhere and you could have seen it). we're here to absorb FACTS.

test scores in not proportional to intelligence. its proportional to how much you remember. now if the questions were not multiple choice and you were required to synthesize materials (like in graduate school) you might be able to correlate. but in a multiple choice exam like ours, people memorize KEY words and those who remember more of those will do better. that is not intelliegence. that is being smart.

high test score is not proportional to being a good physician. those who tend to score high are in competitive specialties (optho, rad, ortho, neurosurgery) and they are not the 'good docs' you think of. they tend to be the nerdy, introverted, the not 'people-person' type. of course these are generalizations. but my point is that a 'good physician' is the one who makes the patient feel and be better. i think alot of that has to do with personality and not so much knowing lots of facts. especially today where everything you wanna know about something is available to a physician, its easy to find out these facts.

high test scores is proportional to (.20)(comprehension) X (.80)(memorization)

high test scores is not proportional to intelligence

high test scores is not proportional to becoming a good physician

 

[phoenixsupra]

depends.

definitions first:

intelligent: being able to integrate ideas, come up with new ways of looking at thing.

smart: knowing FACTS. does not imply being creative or able to come up with the facts on their own

(take everything with grain of salt, these are generalizations, so always not perfect)

if you wanna know who does well in med school, i think its about personality. if you were a gunner you most likely will be one in med school. its hard to change who you are. i hate to say it but high test score is about MEMORY period. when you initially learn the material, yes it helps to COMPREHEND, but you see it so many times over the years that it comes down to how much you REMEMBER. plus if you didn't understand it, you can go home and read about it again and again. as you all know students learn to LEARN what they need for exams. there are books written about USMLE, specific courses and wards and everything else you can think of for medicine. even the dumbest one in the end will 'catch' up and know as much as the next person (if they passed everything). so in the end its really hard to say based solely on test scores who is really intelligent and who was just smart. bc if you see the material over and over again that you'd be stupid to not know them. 2 ways to get high scores; have exellent memory or study ALL THE TIME. neither of these is a measure of intelligence. there's nothing really that med students have to 'think' about. everything is already been thought of. most likely your question was already asked or the answer is not known (otherwise it would be in a book somewhere and you could have seen it). we're here to absorb FACTS.

test scores in not proportional to intelligence. its proportional to how much you remember. now if the questions were not multiple choice and you were required to synthesize materials (like in graduate school) you might be able to correlate. but in a multiple choice exam like ours, people memorize KEY words and those who remember more of those will do better. that is not intelliegence. that is being smart.

high test score is not proportional to being a good physician. those who tend to score high are in competitive specialties (optho, rad, ortho, neurosurgery) and they are not the 'good docs' you think of. they tend to be the nerdy, introverted, the not 'people-person' type. of course these are generalizations. but my point is that a 'good physician' is the one who makes the patient feel and be better. i think alot of that has to do with personality and not so much knowing lots of facts. especially today where everything you wanna know about something is available to a physician, its easy to find out these facts.

Interesting reply. I'm not sure that the terms "intelligent" and "smart" are really all that precise or distinct though. We all have tremendous potential and from years of tutoring I know that what holds most average students back is the BELIEF that they are not smart. Also, they tend to really believe that the A-students are actually learning all their $hit in class rather than stewing compulsively at the books when they get home. I treat tutoring like training an athlete for an event. Some people do the 100 meter sprint. Our event is the 1000 hour sit. Sure some folks have actual brain damage but with the proper training I know that the vast majority of folks can do what we do. If you took an olympic sprinter and forced him to sit around all winter eating cheetos and drinking beer with no physical exersize at all he'd probably run a pretty crappy time on the track when he got back to it. I'd love to actually run an experiment measuring the results of an A-student on an academic course if you could ensure for definate that he couldn't study outside class. I bet he'd be no star.

So "intelligence" is more of a condition than an inate fact about a person. Sure, we're all academic 'champions' here relatively speaking. But IMHO we're really not any "smarter" than the average bod on the street. That's my view. I respect that many will disagree with it. That's fine by me. I'm just putting it out there as food for thought. 🙂

 

[ishaninatte]

I dunno, I've certainly met some pretty dense people on the street....

I've met people who study their ass off for the MCAt, just can't seem to do well. Bottom line, there are many different kinds of intelligence, and a lot of it is not a matter of putting the hours in.

 

[peehdee]

of course there are many types of intelligence, but with med school, we're talking about academic. being "street smart", 'creative', or being able to dunk a basketball won't help you at all in radiology or doing a delicate CT surgery. you have to KNOW the facts about anatomy physiology to do those. now if you're talking about psy or other therapy, yes, it might help you. medicine offers the chance for every type of person out there. we need people to be nerdy, sit in a lab somewhere and work on research. we need people to talk to patients and be good at it. we need people to be politicians to change the way we practice medicine. there is no ONE right reason to go into medicine. people have many reasons to go into it.

what i don't like is for some med student to think that we're so special or above others. we're very bright people, but so are people in other fields. it is not a right for any intelligent/sharp people to become a medical doctor, instead it should be viewed as an honor. all the things we will learn in med school has been worked out by others, tested. sure not everything is known but the things that we are expected to know have already been known. we're here to remember them and pass it on. so i don't think it takes that much of a sharp person to do that. just dedication. if you're talking about doing general practice where you see the same common stuff most of the time, yes, you can teach that to many people. e.g., the common cold, a physical exam, allegy medicine, mono, strep throat. etc... after doing it for years, you become good at.

anyway, my point was that being a medical doctor doesn't mean you're super smart in other ways (you could be, but not neccesarily) except in the field you spent years.

Interesting reply. I'm not sure that the terms "intelligent" and "smart" are really all that precise or distinct though. We all have tremendous potential and from years of tutoring I know that what holds most average students back is the BELIEF that they are not smart. Also, they tend to really believe that the A-students are actually learning all their $hit in class rather than stewing compulsively at the books when they get home. I treat tutoring like training an athlete for an event. Some people do the 100 meter sprint. Our event is the 1000 hour sit. Sure some folks have actual brain damage but with the proper training I know that the vast majority of folks can do what we do. If you took an olympic sprinter and forced him to sit around all winter eating cheetos and drinking beer with no physical exersize at all he'd probably run a pretty crappy time on the track when he got back to it. I'd love to actually run an experiment measuring the results of an A-student on an academic course if you could ensure for definate that he couldn't study outside class. I bet he'd be no star.

So "intelligence" is more of a condition than an inate fact about a person. Sure, we're all academic 'champions' here relatively speaking. But IMHO we're really not any "smarter" than the average bod on the street. That's my view. I respect that many will disagree with it. That's fine by me. I'm just putting it out there as food for thought. 🙂

 

[phoenixsupra]

Yeah, I agree. You get good at what ever you put the effort into. Problem about those two terms is that people use them interchangably. And unfortunately the matter won't ever be cleared up any time soon because both ter,s have a powerfull rhetorical effect and are a tad feared. The liberation comes when you get stamped by as intelligent by the worlds finest institutions and are considered smart by the public (like doctors are) but still know just how dumb you are. 😉 That's pretty much where the illusion ends.