please help me with my study tactics

[amestramgram]

Hi, I am a medical student almost in trouble with my grades (floating C averages right now). I study harder than people who get As, and still borderline flunk my tests.

my studying goes like this:

I go to class and pay strict attention, and absolutely try to understand whats going on. If I don't, I constantly ask the professor questions until I get it, which I do eventually.

I study from 3pm (end of class), to 9pm every day, and on weekends I study the whole day with 20 min breaks.

I make numerous summary sheets (2 or 3 per subject), to give myself a big picture of what I learned.

I make sure to leave around 20 mins of fun time at the end of the day, to play the piano/guitar (one or the other).

I am preparing for a play performance in may, (in which all performers are medical students), which takes about 2-3 hours a week. This is an insignificant commitment I feel.

And I always sleep from 10pm-6am, which makes it about 8 hours usually.

why do I suck at studying so much? Does anybody have any insight for me. I was an A/B student, until I came to medical school.

I am so envious of the people who work so much harder than me, and get As, and also envious of the people who work less than I do and get As too.

I have another point to add: people at my medical school who get grades less than C are forced to remediate their classes, and those who fail more than one class are sent to a committee who they must convince to not kick them out. I am determined not to see them.
thank you!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[BrickHouseMD]

I find that after studying the material to memorize the details, doing practice questions and cases really helps to cement the big picture and help me make the shift from paper to practice. It works better for 2nd year (pathophys) but was also very helpful for the 1st year curriculum as well (seeing cases w/ brachial plexus lesions to help remember the distribution, sensory lesions to remember the brain tracts, etc).

 

[amestramgram]

I do each of the things you mention.
Oh why, can't I just study and know it so well that Im assured of an A or B, like undergraduate days? The subjects I'm studying right now are nearly exactly the same as my undergraduate classes, just with loads more detail (sometimes with the same amount of detail)!!

Why is this so different?

 

[Pinkertinkle]

"I go to class and pay strict attention, and absolutely try to understand whats going on. If I don't, I constantly ask the professor questions until I get it, which I do eventually."

Whoa, you're not doing this when everyone else is there are you?

 

[crocshagreen]

I don't know if you are already doing this, but as you study from 3-9 PM are you being efficient? What I mean, is that many people get distracted while they study by the internet, or friends (when they study in groups or something).
Other than that, I don't really know what to tell ya. Seems like you're working your butt off. In the end, that's all you can do.

 

[TMP-SMX]

I stream lectures at 2-2.5X speed (and procrastinate heavily), go to required labs, read first aid for each unit, read brs, Robbins when I have time (very rarely), do practice questions, read review sheets from previous students, and go through the notes the day before the exam. This works for pathophys. For other subjects it required 2-3 times through the notes but I've found that it works for me. Obviously I don't get much sleep going through all of the notes and doing everything the couple days before the exam but it works. You just have to be extremely efficient. Going through the lecture and reading other sources the concepts should be extremely clear. For subjects in first year, however, memorization is king and my method won't work. You have to go over the notes over and over and repeat. It may not work for you, but I have a pretty good memory and I do a lot of learning during the lecture and take notes in the margins on top of the notes provided to us to organize it to the way I remember. Then I see everything from a different perspective in the different sources and it sticks in my head.

 

[end stage fibro]

if i study passively (eg just reading the notes over and over) i have to put in a lot of effort. i found out summarizing the notes works well for more conceptual stuff, and for things i really need to memorize, I just write the notes in the form of quesiton. For example

note: glucose enters the cell, gets phosphorylated, and no longer exits.
question: how is intracellular [glucose] maintained?

also, integrating stuff works well for me. so i would try to think what kinase did the work, what impact that might have on osmolarity and cell pathways, etc.

also, i "study all the day," but it really works out to 2-4 hours a day with several prolonged breaks. i think i would go crazy studying more than 40 minutes straight at a time.

good luck

 

[WellWornLad]

I go to class and pay strict attention, and absolutely try to understand whats going on. If I don't, I constantly ask the professor questions until I get it, which I do eventually...I study from 3pm (end of class), to 9pm every day, and on weekends I study the whole day with 20 min breaks...I make sure to leave around 20 mins of fun time at the end of the day, to play the piano/guitar (one or the other)...I am preparing for a play performance in may, (in which all performers are medical students), which takes about 2-3 hours a week. This is an insignificant commitment I feel.

I am so envious of the people who work so much harder than me, and get As.

How could anyone be working harder than you? You sound like you're spending every waking hour studying or going to lecture. It depresses me just reading it.

It's hard to tell whether someone is efficient in studying without observing their study habits. In my experience, the people who spend all their waking hours studying and not getting anywhere usually aren't actually studying. They're sitting somewhere with a book/notes open while listening to music and IMing/texting people or looking up Coldplay on wikipedia. If this description doesn't apply to you, I have no idea why that amount of time is insufficient to learn the material for you. Maybe stop going to lectures, they're inherently inefficient.

 

[BrickHouseMD]

Maybe stop going to lectures, they're inherently inefficient.

Agree. If it's not working, for god's sake don't continue to do it. The pace of med school is so fast that there's no time to just go through the motions for the sake of being able to say "I study 12 hrs a day". Start changing it up. Try not going to class, try rewriting your notes, try making summary sheets, try using different resources. Just keep fiddling with it until you find something that works. Use every test/unit as a chance to try a new technique until you find one. I went to every class for the first year and a half and my grades were just fine but I found I was losing so much time in the drive to the school, sitting in between class, watching the class at regular speed, etc etc. So I thought, what the heck, I'll try streaming. Instantly gained an hour from the commute, an hour and a half of in-between class time, and about an hour from watching lectures at 1.5-2x. I now use that extra time to keep my marriage alive and my mind in the happy place.

 

[Isoprop]

Are you learning from your mistakes? Can you go over exam material to see where your trouble areas are?

Can you differentiate between high yield and low yield material? In other words, are you studying the material most likely to appear on the exam FIRST and ignoring material that won't likely be on the exam?

How many times are you going over the material? How have you tested yourself to make sure you are understanding the concepts and memorizing the material? Repetition is key. The more times you go over stuff, the more likely you will memorize the information needed for the exam.

What resources are you using? Perhaps you are using too many resources?

Here are some things other students have found successful:

• skip lectures and study the material on your own
• highlight and annotate instead of making seperate notes to save time (less time making "study guides" = more time for repetition)
• decide what is likely to appear on exams vs what isn't likely and ignore the latter. don't try to memorize/understand everything!
• find varied sources of practice questions from past exams (best) to recommended books

You don't have to do all of these suggestions, but maybe 1 or 2 changes is sufficient to bump you to H's and HPs.

 

[lol.psych]

While I'm not in medschool yet, I do have some study advice to add.
Read the material that'll be covered in class BEFORE class, so you can get the most out of your classtime (getting a differently worded explanation of things, getting more tiny details, etc). I've found that this has helped me in a lot of my undergrad classes. Do practice problems. If you have access to previous years' tests, take those tests without books/etc (as though you were Actually taking those tests), basically get as much of an idea of what will be on the exams in exam format so you can be prepared for the types of questions that'll be asked.

 

[fahimaz7]

High yield > Low yield. Make sure your spending time on the important topics.

 

[amestramgram]

I may study from 3-9, but that includes dinner, and several study breaks of 15 minutes a piece. Only a couple of people work harder than me, but they may use substances

most people work less than I do and get better grades

I must admit that thoroughly going through the lectures (and not trying to passively read them) takes me such a long time - I need to hear something 10-20 times before I retain it at all, otherwise its like amnesia - I have a vague recollection that I saw it but no clear recall. Why can some people read something two times and remember it well?

I can learn from my mistakes, but specifically how should I treat an exam review?

 

[WellWornLad]

I can learn from my mistakes, but specifically how should I treat an exam review?

Well, there's only so many ways you can mess up a question.

1) Had no idea what the answer was - the question didn't even ring a bell.

- Didn't study the right section?
- Zoning out when studying the section?

2) Question seemed familiar, but couldn't for the life of me figure out the answer.

- Failure of active learning. Passively learning material, but not quizzing self or visualizing concepts such that you can approach them from multiple perspectives. Usually happens when you cram.

3) Question was familiar, and had the answer narrowed to 2-3 choices, but chose wrong.

- Most common among your average med student. Multiple causes:

* Poor test taking - picked correct, but not best answer
* Poor wording/ambiguous - frustrating, but study old exams and pay attention to instructor quirks
* Simply not studying material to depth required - maybe misjudged importance of concept the question was addressing

4) Dumb mistake. Happens to the best of us. Slow down, recheck answers during tests.


Figure out where the majority of your errors lie, and you can get a good sense of what you're doing wrong.

 

[amestramgram]

High yield > Low yield. Make sure your spending time on the important topics.

I have one more test left in psychology and its almost half of my grade - I have a low C right now and I cant afford to fail that class.

Psychology is absolutely the hardest topic for me. How do you tell what is high and what is low yield in that class?

thanks

 

[HPSPpayissues]

I have one more test left in psychology and its almost half of my grade - I have a low C right now and I cant afford to fail that class.

Psychology is absolutely the hardest topic for me. How do you tell what is high and what is low yield in that class?

thanks

I used common sense for psych and behavioral science classes. Just by using common sense, you should be able to pass these clasess- even without studying- sufficiently (around 75 to 78%). If you want a better grade in med psych, you should memorize some important terms and statistics. For example, what is the leading cause of death in the US each year and how many people die, etc

 

[TMP-SMX]

Psychology or psychiatry? The important things for psychiatry are the drugs and diagnosing the various disorders. Read a review book as I found that BRS behavioral science was really good for the two exams.

 

[amestramgram]

guys I have read almost no novels as a kid, never babysitted anybody, and my social skills have only gotten to a "standard" level when I got into medical school, which is a recent thing - which means I have little common sense in this subject

Psychology or psychiatry? The important things for psychiatry are the drugs and diagnosing the various disorders. Read a review book as I found that BRS behavioral science was really good for the two exams.

I imagine you get something out of this book and don't just passively read it right? May I ask, what are you doing as you read this book

thank you guys for your support!

 

[amestramgram]

there must be something that excellent students do better than me
can you put in words what that is?

 

[asmallchild]

I've always felt it's about repetition. It seems like your schedule is already jam-packed. But I'd continue to work towards being more efficient and finding some way to review the material you're being taught just one more time each day. And at the end of the week, one more time per week. And before each exam, one more time per block. (This is in addition to what you're already doing)

If you're truly adhering to that schedule, I would suspect your grades are due for an uptick very soon.

 

[amestramgram]

I've always felt it's about repetition. It seems like your schedule is already jam-packed. But I'd continue to work towards being more efficient and finding some way to review the material you're being taught just one more time each day. And at the end of the week, one more time per week. And before each exam, one more time per block. (This is in addition to what you're already doing)

If you're truly adhering to that schedule, I would suspect your grades are due for an uptick very soon.

oh by the way, I go to class Since I have to record the lectures, (it takes 10 mins out of my day), I go to class and use it as "one of my repetitions". It helps me reinforce what I learned - again in my fight to increase my efficiency.

 

[asmallchild]

I went to class too at a time when people were starting to record lectures.

If going to class isn't helping, you could always consider changing things up. I'll admit there were times I would have been better served by sleeping in and maybe running lectures at 2X speed later on. (Instead of snoozing in class with coffee cup in hand)

 

[amestramgram]

I never snooze in class I pay good attention to get maximum use out of it

 

[Ultimeaciax]

I'm not sure if you already do this but what works best for most classes is if you read all the material 2 days before the lecture. On the second day before the lecture, just skim the material and read the headings and a few paragraphs. The day before, read more thoroughly and take notes while you read. Then on the day of the lecture, you will already know the material in lecture. Follow along with the notes you took the day before and if you do not understand something, ask.

Also, maybe you should take a learning style test to see what type of learner you are. Depending on what type you are, you can develop your studying habits around your learning style to optimize your learning/memorizing abilities.

 

[Rutgers06]

Have you tried studying with somebody? A lot of people do well in some sort of study group because they're able to verbally work things out, which is helpful. Like the previous poster stated, try to figure out if there's another style of learning that's better for you.

 

[thebeatgoeson]

I may study from 3-9, but that includes dinner, and several study breaks of 15 minutes a piece. Only a couple of people work harder than me, but they may use substances

most people work less than I do and get better grades

I must admit that thoroughly going through the lectures (and not trying to passively read them) takes me such a long time - I need to hear something 10-20 times before I retain it at all, otherwise its like amnesia - I have a vague recollection that I saw it but no clear recall. Why can some people read something two times and remember it well?

I can learn from my mistakes, but specifically how should I treat an exam review?

Do you attempt to read/hear/input topics 10-20 times?
If that is the case I would say you're not engaging the material. Sometimes I feel like I can barely get through all the information three times before an exam.

It may not be relevant to you, but our physio professor who has been teaching medical students for thirty plus years told our class this excellent (for me anyways) advice. "The biggest problem students have with physiology is trying to use too many sources." Makes sense. The pre-clinical years are pretty standard and very little has changed in the knowledge base. Sit down. Slow down. and Integrate.

You said it takes you a long time to go through the material. That's OK!
As you input the material you should be challenging it, seeing how it fits conceptually, how it makes sense, what other relations it has/could have with other things.

Learn by association. It gives you more "holds" on a topic.

 

[amestramgram]

Do you attempt to read/hear/input topics 10-20 times?
If that is the case I would say you're not engaging the material. Sometimes I feel like I can barely get through all the information three times before an exam.

It may not be relevant to you, but our physio professor who has been teaching medical students for thirty plus years told our class this excellent (for me anyways) advice. "The biggest problem students have with physiology is trying to use too many sources." Makes sense. The pre-clinical years are pretty standard and very little has changed in the knowledge base. Sit down. Slow down. and Integrate.

You said it takes you a long time to go through the material. That's OK!
As you input the material you should be challenging it, seeing how it fits conceptually, how it makes sense, what other relations it has/could have with other things.

Learn by association. It gives you more "holds" on a topic.

yes I will try to see the information in 10-20 repetitions, with reading, writing, speaking, and drawing.

for your other advice: yes I will do those things, thank you

 

[amestramgram]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

there must be something that excellent students do better than me
can you put in words what that is?

 

[TMP-SMX]

I imagine you get something out of this book and don't just passively read it right? May I ask, what are you doing as you read this book

thank you guys for your support!

For BRS read every word, look at the images, integrate it in my brain with what I read previously, and take the short quizzes at the end of the section. For First Aid, I do the same, except that I haven't been reading the First Aid Q&A and I wish I would have because I don't know if I'll have enough time when reviewing for boards to go through the FA Q&A.

 

[DrJosephKim]

I strongly suggest that you invest in a personal tutor. You may need to restructure the way you study after you identify the key areas that need to change.