Notes as you study?

[bonoz]

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I just wanted to know if people who are studying individually for their MCAT (no plural =D) like I am (Examkrackers), do you take notes as you go from chapter to chapter? or do you just "read" and take the quizzes?

Should you take notes? if not for review but for mental solidification?

Just wondering. Regards.

 

[mfrizzo3]

I too am using EK. My method involves reading and then taking the quizzes. If I miss a question I will go back to that concept within the Lecture and write it down. This allows me to keep a list of my deficiencies and allows me to go over the concepts I miss more regularly than concepts that I know very well.

 

[xiaoyi666]

I just tried to memorize as much as I could when I went. If there's something very important or something I had trouble memorizing, I wrote it on a small notepad (fit in my pant pocket) that I carried with me wherever I went. Whenever I had time, I reviewed over those notes.

 

[Vihsadas]

It all depends on what works well for you and what type of a learner you are. One of my really good friends can learn facts cold by writing them down once or twice. For me, that doesn't seem to work. I tend to zone out or just simply not be able to fully absorb what I'm writing. Instead I use visual and auditory repetition. I might recite the process or fact that I'm trying to memorize and then visualize a cartoon or movie that highlights that process. If I'm really having trouble memorizing something (Biochem pathways), I'll write them out on a piece of paper, but as I'm writing or afterward I'll go through it verbally or visually again.

 

[bozz]

I just wanted to know if people who are studying individually for their MCAT (no plural =D) like I am (Examkrackers), do you take notes as you go from chapter to chapter? or do you just "read" and take the quizzes?

Should you take notes? if not for review but for mental solidification?

Just wondering. Regards.

I wrote a lot.... I made around 150-200 flashcards on concepts I needed to work on.. and specific stuff... like what happens if you add a resistor in parallel to a resistor in series.. how does this affect overall current? What does adding a light bulb do? In series? In parallel?

Charging a circuit.. what happens to current? Voltage?
Gases... what happens to solubility if you increase temp? Decrease? What about solids/liquids?

That's like 5-10 flashcards right there.
After a certain point, you just kinda know what to do and don't have to waste time thinking and doing math on the real deal.

and maybe 10 pages worth of notes from practice tests

 

[Poiu86]

I've gone through my material once fairly in-depth. I did some review quizes here and there, but mainly concentrated on getting the concepts down pat.

Now, starting quizes/tests, I'm going back through it again much less in-depth making notes (just a word file) on things I don't have committed to memory. Really really brief and to the point. When I take a test and find something that I'm having trouble with I add it to the file and use that for review. I think so far it is helping... it saves time and helps cut through a lot of the things I feel like I have down