need some help

[thecalccobra]

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For some strange reason, I still haven't found what works best for me in terms of studying. I spend too much time and gain little. Maybe somebody can help? Here's what I do:

Physio- Special senses: read Guyton page to page highlighting the important facts.
Come back the next day or day after and read again. I repeat this process 4-5x concentrating on the highlighted text. I do not take notes or draw any diagrams/charts. I come back to the material 2 weeks later and I have forgotten a lot of the details despite going over the material 4-6x. Is this normal?

Biochem- metabolism: I read from kaplan 2-3x, watch the video lectures, skim through lippincott. Again, I do not take notes. Only highlight. Only after going over the material 5+ times does it start to stick for good. Very inefficient.

Also, I'll be taking Step 1 in two years so would it be a good idea to use kaplan lectures notes/video lectures from now onwards?

 

[Aphtalyfe]

For some strange reason, I still haven't found what works best for me in terms of studying. I spend too much time and gain little. Maybe somebody can help? Here's what I do:

Physio- Special senses: read Guyton page to page highlighting the important facts.
Come back the next day or day after and read again. I repeat this process 4-5x concentrating on the highlighted text. I do not take notes or draw any diagrams/charts. I come back to the material 2 weeks later and I have forgotten a lot of the details despite going over the material 4-6x. Is this normal?

Biochem- metabolism: I read from kaplan 2-3x, watch the video lectures, skim through lippincott. Again, I do not take notes. Only highlight. Only after going over the material 5+ times does it start to stick for good. Very inefficient.

Also, I'll be taking Step 1 in two years so would it be a good idea to use kaplan lectures notes/video lectures from now onwards?

Do your lecturers not give lecture notes??

 

[thecalccobra]

No. We are allowed to take their powerpoint presentations though.

 

[Funky]

If they don't give you a comprehensive syllabus with everything you need to know for the exams that would be pretty rough. If they only give you the powerpoint slides, I suggest you try to know every detail in those slides and look at the textbooks as a reference. I found textbooks to not be too helpful so I stay away from them.

 

[bambi]

Do most US med schools give a full syllabus?

 

[imagined space]

Your study technique should change with the subject material, because different subjects are more more or less amenable to varying study techniques. I could suggest some books that you could read on study technique but the highest yield advice is:

1) Make sure you study every day. Make a schedule that includes a set amount of study hours for each day and week.
2) Find some method that enables you to know what material will be tested on the exam and gain familiarity with the material (going to lecture, looking over lecture notes, watching the lecture video or looking over the powerpoint, of course you do not have time to do all).
3) Create a set of high yield, personalized, self-testable study materials that enable you to learn the material.
4) Devote time to periodic, interactive, reviews of the material. It can be every weekend or (even better) 30 minutes before and after each day's study block.

For biochem and physio the best study method is probably concept mapping along with doing MCQs. You are dealing with relationships in each discipline so drawing out and making clear those relationships is high yield. You can test yourself by blocking out steps in the pathways or simply redrawing them until you feel you have actually over-studied. Biochem also has some discrete pieces of information that may lend itself to flash cards (I use quizlet.com for my flashcards).

Unfortunately, highlighting is a passive learning activity (helps you focus during lecture and make your high-yield study materials, but not much else). Good luck!

 

[shreypete]

Well I can tell you how I studied in the 2nd year (we have Physiology and Biochem in the 2nd year):

Physio: Read once from the Big Guytons and then memorize the stuff from the Pocket Guyton. I also annotated my pocket Guyton with notes from Big Guyton's and BRS. But with topics like Neurophysio (which is very extensive), I followed the same approach but did less annotating and also tried drawing out the diagrams/tables etc. Towards the end of the year, I focussed more on the Pocket Guyton and I studied 2-3 chapters per day and wrote it all down on a piece of paper without looking...just a brief outline to consolidate the facts. This really helped me get an excellent score in Physio.

Biochem: I used Lippincotts and Harpers (for diagrams). Our exams are different because we have practicals, written and oral components so we also had to learn tons and tons of structures...which is where Harpers helped. Lippincotts will definitely suffice. It looks a bit detailed (and it is to a certain extent) and might be hard to read in the beginning, but as you go over the stuff twice or 3 times, you will have no problem recollecting the stuff. I used to do 4 chapters per week. I would study 1 chapter in the evening and then review it the next day (either in the morning or afternoon) and then start the next chapter on that evening and continue the same routine throughout that week. Our biochem course was a lot more intensive because here in Europe, it's actually an integrated medical chemistry-biochemistry course (where we had the former in the 1st sem. and the latter in the 2nd.)

On the weekends, you can just skim through the Kaplan/BRS notes to make sure you keep up with your preparation for the Step 1. These notes can really clarify a lot of points that you might not have understood when reading from the big texts. They also facilitate the whole memory consolidation process.

 

[thecalccobra]

I find Harper's way too difficult. I find lippincott great for carbohydrate metabolism but for lipid metabolism, not so much; Fatty acid synthase complex is way too detailed and so is cholesterol synthesis. That's why I like Kaplan. I'm not a big fan of drawing diagrams, charts, writing stuff from memory and maybe that's what I need to start doing for better consolidation and retention?

 

[shreypete]

Yup that's exactly what you need to do for better consolidation and retention....Bottom line: repetition is the key to doing well (I'll let you read all the finer details about consolidation and memory in Guyton under the Neurophys section).

Harpers is actually not that bad. It is, however, loaded with very detailed low yield stuff. But you don't really need to use it for studying per se (In Europe, most of us have no choice but to use this text or the other big tests); you can just skim over the diagrams/structures. Lippincotts was and will always be a godsend for me. Granted, it's detailed too but the diagrams/flowcharts/structures are illustrated very well. Once you get familiarized with the book, you'll then be able to appreciate how good a job the book does in trying to integrate the concepts (and they repeat a lot of the stuff in every chapter with reference to previous chapters -- makes it easier for a student. But as I said, it takes some take to get used to the format and to pick the important stuff from each section etc.

In your case (as an AMG), I don't think you guys have a component in the exam where you are tested solely for the 125 structures or so (like we had), so I wouldn't worry about drawing diagrams if I were you. Tables and flowcharts are nevertheless, very helpful (especially in Lippincotts). Without drawing flowcharts or some other way of organizing information, I think it would be very hard to consolidate stuff (unless you're the kind of a guy who can retain all the stuff after having read once or twice or reading the stuff like 4-5 times, which is very time-consuming too.)

Kaplan is unfortunately too easy. It's best used as a review book and nothing more than that. Reading a good, decent text (like Lippincotts/Devlin/Montgomery with BRS/Goljan etc.) will really help you retain stuff well and will also help you make correlations and integrate concepts as you go along (and this is really needed for the Step 1). Lippincotts has a mixture of both high yield and low yield questions, so it can't only help you do better (whether in class of the Step 1).