Study Skills and Class Success

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StrawHatDMD

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Hi guys.

Just completed OMS I and barely got through this year. Needed some advice on how to succeed in the upcoming year where pathophys will be the dominant subject matter.

I am personally really slow when it comes to studying which is why I struggled. My routine is as follows:
1. Listen to lecture and take notes (over the course of the semester, I ditched OneNote and began printing out slides and taking notes with the good old pencil).
2. Organize notes (this parts takes me some time to complete. The idea is to create my own outline).
3. Repeat repeat repeat!! (Many times, I found myself not able to reach this part)

If there are any tips or advice you can provide me, that would be great. I want to be more efficient with my time. If there is any advice you can provide me regarding pathophys, please let me know.

Thank you

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Doing more questions would be a start.
Or was it something you forgot to mention?
I'd be tempted to say ditch the organizing of notes part if it's absorbing a lot of your time.

Edit; as in doing more questions on a regular basis. instead of re-organizing notes. Alternatively, annotate the lecture slides you're printing out or only pick out the key things.
 
Try the Pomodoro technique. 25 minutes studying, 5 min break, 25 min/5, 25/5 a third time, then take 30 minutes break. Try to average at least 9 Pomodoros per day (12 on half days, 6 when you get off at 5). Get a good night sleep, take Sundays off or half off.

Essentially you'll end up power studying for 1 hour 30 minutes 3x per day. And because you're taking scheduled breaks, you won't feel overwhelmed. I try to stop studying at 9 pm. Get some movie/video game/social time in. If you're still falling behind you can always cut those 30 minute breaks down to 15.

Edit: use Saturday as catch-up and review of what you learned that week. Use the half Sunday or the rest of Saturday if you're all caught up to review previous weeks material that will be on the upcoming tests.

Worry about the board exam only until after you feel comfortable with your study abilities, then come back and ask for advice.
 
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2.2-2.5x speed on all lectures. Bang out Bros deck, board review stuff, memorize more FA and Pathoma, and do qbanks. Flip through all ppt slides for the exam on Sat and Sun before test. These are easy days since I should know 80-90% of the materials via Anki already.
 
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Hi guys.

Just completed OMS I and barely got through this year. Needed some advice on how to succeed in the upcoming year where pathophys will be the dominant subject matter.

I am personally really slow when it comes to studying which is why I struggled. My routine is as follows:
1. Listen to lecture and take notes (over the course of the semester, I ditched OneNote and began printing out slides and taking notes with the good old pencil).
2. Organize notes (this parts takes me some time to complete. The idea is to create my own outline).
3. Repeat repeat repeat!! (Many times, I found myself not able to reach this part)

If there are any tips or advice you can provide me, that would be great. I want to be more efficient with my time. If there is any advice you can provide me regarding pathophys, please let me know.

Thank you
Read this:
Goro’s guide to success in medical school-v.2016
 
Hi guys.

Just completed OMS I and barely got through this year. Needed some advice on how to succeed in the upcoming year where pathophys will be the dominant subject matter.

I am personally really slow when it comes to studying which is why I struggled. My routine is as follows:
1. Listen to lecture and take notes (over the course of the semester, I ditched OneNote and began printing out slides and taking notes with the good old pencil).
2. Organize notes (this parts takes me some time to complete. The idea is to create my own outline).
3. Repeat repeat repeat!! (Many times, I found myself not able to reach this part)

If there are any tips or advice you can provide me, that would be great. I want to be more efficient with my time. If there is any advice you can provide me regarding pathophys, please let me know.

Thank you


I think you need to figure out why you're slow at studying tbh. Listening to lectures and then studying the material shouldn't be taking you this long. It sounds like you're either being distracted by things and as such you're not actually spending the time you think you are or your system of trying to learn is so brute force the first time that you end up staring at a concept and waste time.

I recommend you try multiple passes. First time just familiarize yourself with the big concepts and words. Second time get big details down and some small. third time get the smaller ones.

Likewise I don't think there's any worth in outlining if there are powerpoints. All you're doing is rewriting things that are already broken down and available and as such wasting time.

All I can say is that it sounds like your issue is likely multifactoral for you to be really struggling with timing first year material.
 
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Any suggestions on good resources for practice questions for OMSI? If practice questions are extremely helpful, I'd like to start doing them early on and get into a routine. However, I don't want to ruin resources that would be better used come board time.
 
Any suggestions on good resources for practice questions for OMSI? If practice questions are extremely helpful, I'd like to start doing them early on and get into a routine. However, I don't want to ruin resources that would be better used come board time.

your school will likely provide you a question bank. If not USMLERX is a great bank. I did around 500 questions in it before my dedicated started and I think it has a good level of difficulty. Though I'm not sure how helpful it can be for normal physiology.
 
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I would stop "outlining" your notes, for starters. You miss things when you condense notes and most of the students struggling at my school do this. Set a timer and actually time yourself studying - stop the timer any time you get up or are not actively engaged in studying activity (making outlines, notecards, etc. is not studying). I bet you'll be surprised at how little time you are actually spending learning the material.

The biggest thing is to stop being fancy about medical school studying, the best students aren't magical brain wizards - they make studying simple and spend more time than anybody else learning the material.
 
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For me - the more passes of the material, the better. I consistently scored in the 10% of my class in every block during year 1. Studying was actively reading through the power points and processing each slide. Plus trying to get the same repetition with pathoma and first aid when applicable.
 
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