Tips for studying directly from a review book without making notes.

[carn311]

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I am a very methodical learner. I have to make my own notes for each block and then review each page of notes three times to commit it to memory.

I've never been able to get as much success when studying right from a text. But I REALLY dont want to have to do this for my review books because they are already condensed.

So, what do you do? Do you read each chapter over more than once? Cover the page to quiz yourself? Do you make quick notes that you will throw out later?

 

[lankysudanese]

it really depends on how much time you have alloted to preparing for step I, and what your list of resources is.

if you have a good list of comprehensive resources and enough time to go through your methodical approach, i would highly recommend that do what has always worked best for you since this will guarantee you a high score.

I set-aside a long period of time for prep, and followed a methodical approach in which I compiled all info from resources (which included Kaplan Home Study Series, FA, Robbins Review of Pathology and several qbanks including Kaplan Qbank, USMLEWorld) into 1 large word document. I read that word document 5 times before taking my test, and did very well.

just do what you gotta do to master the material

 

[Lamborghini1315]

I am a very methodical learner. I have to make my own notes for each block and then review each page of notes three times to commit it to memory.

I've never been able to get as much success when studying right from a text. But I REALLY dont want to have to do this for my review books because they are already condensed.

So, what do you do? Do you read each chapter over more than once? Cover the page to quiz yourself? Do you make quick notes that you will throw out later?

If i were you i would quit worrying about taking notes and just focus on doing more questions and reading through the answers over and over again. This will eventually become second nature and no notes can supplement your mental capacity to retain info. My 2 cents...

 

[spospo]

If i were you i would quit worrying about taking notes and just focus on doing more questions and reading through the answers over and over again. This will eventually become second nature and no notes can supplement your mental capacity to retain info. My 2 cents...

not trying to thread hijack here at all. this area is where i really struggle (going over questions that is). I'm all about doing practice questions, but i have a really really really hard time going over the explanations to questions. i had this problem when studying for the MCAT as well. does anyone have secrets as how to do this better? just practice makes perfect? anyone have any tricks to keeping up motivation w/ this?

 

[Lamborghini1315]

not trying to thread hijack here at all. this area is where i really struggle (going over questions that is). I'm all about doing practice questions, but i have a really really really hard time going over the explanations to questions. i had this problem when studying for the MCAT as well. does anyone have secrets as how to do this better? just practice makes perfect? anyone have any tricks to keeping up motivation w/ this?

The best analogy i can think of is you trying to drive to your destination without directions. The explanations are a way to confirm your thought process, infact i even read the explanations for questions i get right just to make sure i think along the lines of what might be written in a book. Your motivation should be boards, class performance...you really care about doing well then you would go an extra mile compared to your colleagues.