what's your method?

[highlyfavored]

....for studying?? I'm a P1 and I usually study by writing note cards. After antibiotics, I felt like I spent more time writing the cards than learning the material. I just finished a study guide for OTC and it was 24 pages long! The exam is covering ~18 chapters. I know I've got to find a new method to the madness


So what has worked for you?



TIA

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[Old Timer]

Back in the olden days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was in pharmacy school, I recopied my notes every day after class and added examples from the texts and that became my study guide....

 

[mike36]

Making note cards takes a long time. Now that you know that, you need to decide if the benefit you get from the cards outweighs the time you spend on making them.

I usually only make notecards for things that are pure memorization, like drugs or structures. But I make them way before test time gets here so that I don't waste precious study time making them.

I usually do not make notecards though. For me, the act of writing helps me to memorize structures and drug names the best. If I have 50 drugs to memorize, I will break it up into smaller sets to memorize. Then I continually write on a sheet of paper the drug and anything I need to know about it. I also switch up the order so that I am not memorizing the order I have written them since that only does me good if they are put on the test in that order.

 

[kellia]

I first study my notes and *try* to condense them. Then group study seems to work well. Bouncing ideas off others seems to be faster than quizzing yourself and making note cards with the added benefit of hearing others say the answer again and again.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

I used the "stare at powerpoint slides they handed out" method.

 

[rxlynn]

I used the "stare at powerpoint slides they handed out" method.

LOL - I was beginning to think I was the only one who liked that method

There are at least some people in my class who seem to like the write the notes into an outline format to study. That doesn't really work for me. If I have something really rote to memorize (say the therapeutic ranges for 5 anti-epileptic drugs) then I will write that down on scratch paper until I get it in my head (of course, if you asked me now I couldn't tell you, but that is the type of thing that hopefully you will look up if you need to know it).

I also like to talk to myself - it seems like if I get to the point where I can talk my way through a mechanism or system, then I'm most of the way there to learning it for a test.

I have done the group study thing infrequently, and I'm choosy about who I will do that with, i.e. I don't think group study is going to do you much good if your friends are all close to failing.

 

[highlyfavored]

I used the "stare at powerpoint slides they handed out" method.

LOL, I tried that one, too. One of my pharmacology exams had over 300 power point slides. I quickly realized that wasn't going to work.

 

[J ROD]

I used the "stare at powerpoint slides they handed out" method.

while watching TV!

 

[Allure]

I tried the note cards method, but it didn't work for me. I also used some website to make my note cards online cause I can type faster. That's also too much work. Now I just study the slides. It didn't work for me at first cause I barely had time to go over them twice, but if you can go over them at least 4 times, it will stick. It's not just reading the slides. It's actually reading and understanding the slides. I find that every time I go back to read the slides, there are things that I didn't see before. I also highlight a lot. I use many different colors and for some reason, it helps me remember better when I highlight as I study.

There are people in my class who retype the notes and put it in a table format. Some people just rewrite the notes during lunch and then just study from there. I have a friend who writes repetitively until she remembers it. That doesn't work for me cause my hand gets too tired. I still make note cards for important stuff, not everything. That way I can look at it quickly right before the exam.

 

[inquirer89]

I'm reading a book called "How to Become a Straight A Student" by Cal Newport. It's by a recent college grad who interviewed elite students from the ivies, so it has practical stuff instead of useless stuff like how to do the Cornell method. I recommend it.

Yes, I guess I am nerdy.

 

[highlyfavored]

I tried the note cards method, but it didn't work for me. I also used some website to make my note cards online cause I can type faster. That's also too much work. Now I just study the slides. It didn't work for me at first cause I barely had time to go over them twice, but if you can go over them at least 4 times, it will stick. It's not just reading the slides. It's actually reading and understanding the slides. I find that every time I go back to read the slides, there are things that I didn't see before. I also highlight a lot. I use many different colors and for some reason, it helps me remember better when I highlight as I study.

There are people in my class who retype the notes and put it in a table format. Some people just rewrite the notes during lunch and then just study from there. I have a friend who writes repetitively until she remembers it. That doesn't work for me cause my hand gets too tired. I still make note cards for important stuff, not everything. That way I can look at it quickly right before the exam.

I tried the on-line notecard deal and I agree with you....too time consuming. I had the same problem as you with reviewing the slides. I only had time to go over all of them once and that definately wasn't enough. I'm also very visual so highlighting in different colors helps. When I'm taking the exam, I can see the colors in my head.

I did tables for antibiotics and it was helpful b/c there were so many of them. It helped me to pick out characteristics that were shared by a class and characteristics that made a drug stand out. My categories were bacterialcidal (y or n), active for usual organism of infection, spectrum, resistance mechanisms, GI stablility/absorption, GI absorption+ food, distribution/tissue conc., half life, metabolism, exceretion(R/H), adverse effects, drug interactions, unique propeties. It took alot of time to fill out the table, but it was very helpful.

I don't think retyping notes will work for me either. I just look at the note taker's notes for anything I might have missed.

I guess I'll stock up on highlighters, lol.

 

[highlyfavored]

I'm reading a book called "How to Become a Straight A Student" by Cal Newport. It's by a recent college grad who interviewed elite students from the ivies, so it has practical stuff instead of useless stuff like how to do the Cornell method. I recommend it.

Yes, I guess I am nerdy.

Thanks. I might have to check that out.

 

[Wan2BPharmD]

I'm not in pharmacy school yet, so I guess I can't quite compare it to undergrad studying, but this is what I find useful:

Pretend like you're teaching the subject to someone. If you're studying with other students, teach it to them. You have to know it all inside and out to be able to teach it and, even in your head, if you can mock-teach the material while minimally referring to your notes, you should be good.

Oh, and take a day's break and do it over again. And again.

 

[PharmDstudent]

Now I just study the slides. It didn't work for me at first cause I barely had time to go over them twice, but if you can go over them at least 4 times, it will stick. It's not just reading the slides. It's actually reading and understanding the slides. I find that every time I go back to read the slides, there are things that I didn't see before. I also highlight a lot. I use many different colors and for some reason, it helps me remember better when I highlight as I study.

Same here. I have to study the slides or note packets thoroughly at least three times. If I want an A, I have to study the material four or more times. The hardest material to study consists of 500+ slides with additional info from the text (that's my Therapeutics class in a nutshell).

I wish they wouldn't use PowerPoint slides. The slides break up the flow of the material too much. In my opinion, completed outlines and packets are more effective. Everything flows from point A to point B until you have to turn the page.

 

[Jmassey]

Ya, my strategy was to just read my notes. I would try to make at least one GOOD (meaning be able to recall everything on the page in the exact order it was on the page) readthrough the night before the exam. After that I just skimmed the notes reviewing briefly, always worked for me!

 

[gaba101]

I wish they wouldn't use PowerPoint slides. The slides break up the flow of the material too much. In my opinion, completed outlines and packets are more effective. Everything flows from point A to point B until you have to turn the page.

glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. I absolutely refuse to study from slides because I'm a big picture person and ppt slides disrupt the flow of material, and hence my learning, too much. I type study guides--1 or half a page of big picture and then dive into details (tables mostly with a few short short outlines).

 

[Pianopooh]

All of my classes use powerpoint, so in class I would use my laptop and type out notes. Then afterclass I would print out the powerpoints and hand write notes -- condense them at least. I don't use notecards a lot, I only do that for pharmaceutics class and math related with numbers and sigs. For my other classes I just keep looking at it over and over again, and write it out. I use a lot of highlighters and colors to my notes, it helps. I also record the lecture so I listen to it again as I'm rewriting notes. My friend and I type like mad-students in class for notes, and then we compare them after class too. When I'm really tired, I stare at powerpoints instead of rewriting them, this usually happens during finals week or close to finals week, when it would be too much to rewrite.

 

[Hels2007]

I used the "stare at powerpoint slides they handed out" method.

Same thing here. I did jot down interesting things I heard in the lecture by the slides if I were awake, though.

 

[JimblyUK]

Back in the olden days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was in pharmacy school, I recopied my notes every day after class and added examples from the texts and that became my study guide....

This is exactly what I did in my final undergrad year doing Biochem. Re-wrote everything, and added extra info from texts and research papers. Though at that time, the dinosaurs had recently been replaced by mammals.

This method allows you to make sure your notes make sense, and makes you read around the subject. No time like the present to start memory consolidation.