Notetaking with review books?

[fizzbot]

How are you guys reading through your BRS or HY books? Do you take notes on every chapter? Do you divide notes into path, pharm etc? Do you just take notes in the margins? Notecards? What seems to be successful?
Just wondering, I am an M1 about to hopefully make a summer productive.

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[UCLAstudent]

I force myself to write notes in the margins. Sometimes it's adding things that I remember from class. Usually it's not adding anything new but rather summarizing whatever I just read. I feel like this makes it a more active learning process. I learn better if I write things down.

I don't know that there's anything you can do as an M1 over the summer that will stick with you until boards --- maybe just familiarize yourself with a few books, but don't bother memorizing at this point!

 

[fizzbot]

Ya I have a bad memory so I think it will help me to start now, sounds like notes in the margins is your fav? What about like notes per chapter, or notes divided by pharm, path etc, notecards? What do you think of those?

 

[UCLAstudent]

You'll just have to find what works best for you! I kind of like to keep everything in one place (don't like to have loose notes floating around), so I write in the margins.

 

[Law2Doc]

Ya I have a bad memory so I think it will help me to start now,

Actually if your memory is bad, you probably get more advantage if you don't start as early as the summer after first year. It will be sure to be gone in a year of studying other things. It's only the people with really really good memories who can get any benefit starting so early. So most people don't bother until later in the second year.

 

[fizzbot]

i c well has anyone studied M1 Summer for STEP 1? How did it turn out?

 

[ranmyaku]

Actually if your memory is bad, you probably get more advantage if you don't start as early as the summer after first year. It will be sure to be gone in a year of studying other things. It's only the people with really really good memories who can get any benefit starting so early. So most people don't bother until later in the second year.

Actually the opposite is true. If you want to memorize something then the key is to have spaced repetition. The earlier you start the more likely you are to consolidate those to long term memory. /shudder. brings back memories of LTP in the hippocampal neurons. Google the Spacing effect/memory.

Key is to have regular spacing intervals to review. This requires a lot of dedication however that other tasks can interfere with.

 

[mudphudwannabe]

I think the problem with starting to study before second year is that the review books are geared just toward that...review. It might be helpful to spend some time reviewing your first year coursework, but you might be kinda stuck when it comes to pathophys. From the way many review books are structured, it would be very frustrating for someone who didn't already have some understanding of the subject since you'd basically have to look up each word somewhere else.

As far as note taking, I think taking notes in the margins is a very popular approach, but I haven't decided what I'm going to do. I feel like the margins might not be sufficient, so I think I might taking notes in the margins and have a separate binder with more notes and some review materials from course notes.

 

[predodoc]

I started looking over things during my frist summer. But This is my advice:
Dont try to do subjects with lots of memorization, unless you just didnt learn it first year. Example, first year we had biochem and I never learned some of the less known pathways very well(purine, urea, ect.) So you can learn this. The only thing is, YOU WILL FORGET IT. So whats the advantage? Only that It will come back to you easier next time. I dont think the return for your time is as great. I am 5 wks from boards and 1 hour of study now is probably equil to 5 hours that I put in last summer. So you have to ask yourself is it worth it? If I were you, I would Get BRS Phys, and maybe Guyton as a reference and just Study the heck out of it. Get some Q's like Pretest or something and do all of them. If I could do it again, then I would have put all my time into PHYS. b/c you need a good foundation for path and its also important for Boards. Thats my opinion, but everyone will tell you something different.

 

[Law2Doc]

Actually the opposite is true. If you want to memorize something then the key is to have spaced repetition. The earlier you start the more likely you are to consolidate those to long term memory. /shudder. brings back memories of LTP in the hippocampal neurons. Google the Spacing effect/memory.

Key is to have regular spacing intervals to review. This requires a lot of dedication however that other tasks can interfere with.

Well, if I understood him right, he wasn't talking about regular spacing and repetition, he was talking about reviewing one summer and probably not looking at it again for a year. If your memory is bad, that will be wasted effort. It certainly has always been so in my own experience.

 

[ranmyaku]

Well, if I understood him right, he wasn't talking about regular spacing and repetition, he was talking about reviewing one summer and probably not looking at it again for a year. If your memory is bad, that will be wasted effort. It certainly has always been so in my own experience.

Hence, why I wrote "This requires a lot of dedication however that other tasks can interfere with."

There is no reason that one cannot use spaced repetition over a period of a summer and have benefit. You are consolidating those things you study to long term memory. You would just have to limit yourself to a smaller group of things to study. ie. you couldn't do all of 2 years of med school, when you haven't even had part of it yet.