Note taking?

[Eye see you]

I got the newest Kaplan set and plan to start studying soon. Normally, I like handwriting notes or typing them out in a word document (normally how I do it during lecture). People say that's not ideal cause it takes too long and reviewing it becomes a hassle. So what's the best way to store all the information I go through? Strictly Anki? Typing out my notes? I've never studied for such an immense test before and I feel like I just started college again and have to re-learn how to effectively retain information. I'm taking the test in January 2020 so I've still got a good amount of time. I've got all the AAMC materials as well as Kaplan 2020-2021 7-book set.

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[PapaGuava]

I would still suggest taking some form of notes, maybe not pages upon pages but if you aren't comfortable with the background material you will need some way to process it. The paragraphs from Kaplan won't be the best study guide since they flesh out a lot of things in-depth. I'm sure Anki would be helpful along with it to test some of your content knowledge. However, I didn't use Anki so I can't speak fully on that topic.

 

[Blueprint MCAT Tutor]

Hey! This is a very good question and I think you already have a general idea on the direction you need to head in. I always suggest to my students to go through the entire content review phase without taking notes strictly on reading. The thing is, you've taken a lot of classes pertaining to these topics, so there will be stuff you already know. As a result, it's inefficient to take notes over everything since you'll know some of it. What we want to have notes on are the things we don't know.

The way we do that is by doing practice problems and see what we miss and then take notes over that. So if I miss problems related to glycolysis, it's probably because I don't know it well enough, so when I review, I'll take notes down over that topic. During content review I suggest doing more discrete problems to better reinforce the material and then shift to passages as you finish more content. Make sure to periodically review your notes as well! I hope that helps and please reach out if you have any questions at all!!

 

[atm14834]

I initially just read over my material. The second time I went through I hand wrote notes. Things I had a better understanding of, I would just jot down a quick something. Things I was less comfortable with I made more detailed notes for. The third time through material I looked at the notes I had written and referred back to the books if anything looked unfamiliar or I was still having trouble with.

 

[PlsLetMeIn21]

I only took notes on homework questions and FLs when I reviewed them afterward. I kept a master list of tricks and short cuts that I got from the answer explanations. I reviewed those frequently. I also went ankicrazy on psych and soc terms.