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Answer the poll!
I'm still M1 but after a lot of trial and error:
Lecture + annotations + mnemonics when appropriate (but not over doing it).
Multiple passes.
What I don't do: Make any type of study aid/flash card/review guide (when I've made them, by the time I'm done with them, the test has arrived and they hardly were used).
Agreed
Because our exams a 85% multiple choice I have found this to be the most efficient method to secure an upper quartile score. I have yet to push myself into the top 10 however 🙁
For preclinical stuff, I just went to class and then, the last 4-5 days before the test, I rewatched all of the lectures at 2x. It worked well for me since I am not really into the whole study every day thing, so it let me condense all of the studying into the last week. By watching the lectures again, it helped me ignore the stupid details that were written on the slides and let me focus on the main points that the lecturer emphasized.
I do the same thing--I just read the read the lecture notes, and finally try to talk through everything without looking at any notes (although this is mentally taxing, so sometimes I just read the notes and that's it). I know you also got the same MCAT score as I did, perhaps we have stumbled onto something here. Teaching method FTW.hmm our entire exam is multiple choice!
i just read over my lectures, and after i do a few slides or so i go back and pretend like I'm teaching these slides to someone out loud
i did flashcards first which was awesome in helping me learn it but not time efficient
then i started writing outlines and that took way too much time
now i actually think about all of the information as i try to say it out loud so i think this is the method i will stick with!
Basically if you're too lazy to make an outline/study guide, you'll just read the slides over and over again. When it comes to exam time, it'll take you forever to review. The people who have an outline, however, can read that sucker multiple times and not waste time searching for little details like oh what slide was that on again, etc. Ironically, the same people who read slides over and over end up using somebody else's study guide (happens in my school all the time). It all comes down to - I don't want to make notes, I want to study notes.
in the end, the guy who made notes has nothing to lose in giving his notes to the guy who gets more out of reading notes over and over... and doing a nice thing for someone is never bad
when i make outlines, i don't retain it nearly as well as teaching it to myself out loud does, and they both take an equal amounts of time
the people who make the study guides do it because the process of compiling the study guide helps the information stick in their heads very well. They get way more out of it themselves than the people they generously share it with. I'm grateful when people share guides with me, but I'd do just fine without it because that just isn't the most important way that I learn things
edit: who would just read the slides over and over without listening to the lecturer at 2.5x speed? that seems stupid
I've found that doing a bunch of practice questions is how I learn best. If, say, the professor posts 50 practice questions I'll answer the first 10 questions and go over the answers, writing out all the ones I got wrong (or guessed and just happened to get right). Then I'll do the next 10 questions, etc. I end up with a list of things that I missed or didn't know and I can usually just study that before the exam.
No one has mentioned using textbooks. Do you guys all study from the slides only?
Multiple passes.
Sooooo true.SoundofSilver said:Repetition is key.
Works pretty nicely. Note: our tests are 66% fill-in-the-blank and 33% MC, so I need a lot more review than some of the above posts...knowing when to write "xeroderma pigmentosum" is really different from knowing when the answer is (A), not (C)...
I read that people here are listening to lectures at 2x the speed? Sorry if this sounds lame, but how exactly do you do that? I have them downloaded onto my ipod/itunes, but I only know how to listen to them at normal speed. Please let me know! And thanks in advance 🙂
- the day before: 5-minute preread (teaching myself is a waste of time, since the lecture is more basic than my self-teaching), very quick
- that day: lecture
- that afternoon: make an outline or flashcards
- that night: review the outline; periodically during the weeks: review the flashcards
- that weekend: memorize
- before the test: review
This applies more to M2 than M1
1. Read chapters in FA and/or Goljan for upcoming lectures
2. Read lectures and do light highlighting
3. Do practice questions, first starting with old test questions and then stuff like Robbins Review. For questions w/o explanations I would go back through lectures and do more highlighting and maybe add notes.
4. Do World questions that correlate with what we are learning
I didn't use flashcards often but when I did it was typically for micro.
Some advice is to find the best method for you. I would never in a million years make outlines of lectures or my own charts or anything like that but I have classmates who did that and it worked for them.
Can you imagine the outliner's out there taking notes for everything for the step1? Jesus that would take a long time. Annotate FTW!!!
1. I don't go to class
2. I only watch/listen to the classes that are absolutely necessary...less than 5 hrs worth every 2 weeks
3. I don't read the powerpoints
4. I don't make flashcards
5. I have BRS, Roadmap and Goljan RR + Audio for Pathology...I pick one after I have read as much as I couldread in a timeframe of 5 days for the particular system in Robbins. If I finished Robbins great, if I didn't oh well, I'll just use it as a reference if necessary. But def won't waste 1-2 days finishing reading it. Not high yield enough.
6. Also use BRS and Roadmap for Pharm
7. Roadmap for Microbiology and also Rapid Review for Micro
8. At some point I get sick of reading so I watch Kaplan videos
9. Day or two before exam I spend entire time doing practice questions from Robbins, USMLE Consult and Kaplan, as well as the practice Q's in all the review books. Also Robbins has great flashcards if I can get to them.
10. Day of exam before the test i take a quick glance thru First Aid, buy some coffee, oatmeal, and a bottle of water.
11. After exam, I drink..... repeat...repeat...repeat...repeat