Hello,
I'm a first year med student and I'm really been struggling performance wise in a systems based school. I've taken Cancer Bio (essentially biochem and genetic basics) and MSK, Neuroscience, and I'm currently in my Cardio/ Pulm block. I just barely passed the first course with a 77% and I thought it was due to using immature study techniques of basically just rereading and rewatching lectures and trying to make Quizlets but never really reveiwing them. I started making summary sheets for my lectures for Neuroscience and doing more practice questions and I did significantly better on the professor written exams at a comfortable 80-85% range but then I didn't pass the Neuro NBME. I believe this was due to not doing NBME style practice questions.
Now in this Cardio/Pulm block I'm back to struggling on the professor written exams, scoring a 69% and 73% on the last two. I used the same technique as I used in Neuro which was going to class and taking notes as my first pass, making summary sheets for each lecture as my second pass, and then review the summary sheets, making flashcards, and practice questions as my 3rd pass. I met with our learning specialist after the first test (69%) which helped slightly; I struggle alot with anatomy and she suggested I draw out the anatomy when studying and spend more time reading the test questions. We just had the second test which I scored the 73% which is an improvement from the last one but still not passing.
Now I have two weeks lecture and new material before I have to take the cumulative anatomy practical, test 3, and the NBME final which counts for 20% of our grade and we must get a 70% on to fully pass the course (which was my issue with the Neuro Block-- I had like a 82% average in the class but did not get the 70% on the NBME so I have to retake the NBME for the neuro block in the summer).
Essentially, I'm trying my best to not freak out and have a self fulfulling prophecy which is unfortunately kind of common for me in these situations. But I'm really at a loss as to how to effectively improve my studying. I'm the type of person where nothing sticks or I don't memorize things until I've seen it 3 times or more but this takes alot of time and each lecture has so much material. I go into the exams knowing alot of information but never being very confident and always feeling like there are a few lectures that I just barely have a grasp on. These are usually the embryo, anatomy (especially blood supply questions) and radiology lectures since they're not so much conceptual but brute memorization. When reviewing exams I seem to miss more recall questions
I'm really sorry for this incredibly long message, I guess my main question is How can I study more efficiently and make the most of my time? The 3 pass technique mostly works but it takes a lot of time and its harder to do with the anatomy lectures. Should I just make flashcards for these lectures and keep the summary sheets for the more conceptual lectures? I haven't really been able to get into Anki but I recently purchased Firecracker. I usually just use Quizlet when I want to make flashcards since its simpler to me than Anki but I don't always review the flashcards that much after making them. I also think I learn better by writing so my 3rd pass usually also involves me writing things I still haven't memorized from each lecture or explanations for questions I'm getting wrong.
I know I wrote basically my whole life story but I really just wanted to provide as much information as I could in terms of how I'm currently studying. Thank you in advance!
It's very hard to say exactly what will work for you; everyone's study style is different, and different things help different people with retention.
I'm sorry to give vague advice, but ultimately, you have to figure out what works
for you. Clearly, whatever you were doing before is
almost working, as you are coming close to passing your exams. It's hard to give advice without literally seeing what you are doing. Are you getting distracted by things during studying, for example? Are you signing on to reddit during a study session and sitting there for a half hour and calling that studying? That can be unhelpful, and sometimes, just unplugging for an hour is helpful for people.
On the other side of things, are you sitting there with no distractions for eight hours at a time and grinding your teeth? A break every hour, even for as little as ten minutes can make a big difference.
Do you have test anxiety? That can also be a cause of poor testing performance independent of study habits.
It sounds like you've already identified one problem - that you need to do more practice questions to be successful. However, many students find that simply writing down the explanations isn't helpful, particularly because questions aren't necessarily always repeated, and figuring out another way to encode information is important. Perhaps just writing things down isn't the answer; would a visual representation of the information, like a flowsheet, help? If you make those yourself, particularly for molecular pathways or nerve pathways, it may help you.
Ultimately, these are just a few tips I've found in my time as a student, and I hope they are helpful.
