4 Core Study Techniques Every Student Should Know

Summary

In this 'Undergrad Forum' episode, the speaker, a recent medical school graduate, shares four essential strategies for medical students to enhance learning efficiency. These include learning from exams by using the 'backwards method' to focus on high-yield information, practicing spaced repetition to avoid cramming and improve long-term retention, interlacing learning by mixing up study topics for better recall, and creating associations to aid memorization. The speaker emphasizes these methods as key to mastering medical knowledge and performing well in exams.

Takeaways

• 📚 Learn from exams: Use previous exam questions to identify high-yield information and to guide your reading.
• 🔁 Embrace mistakes: When studying, expect to get questions wrong initially; this is part of the learning process.
• 📈 Spaced repetition: Avoid cramming by reviewing material over time, gradually increasing the level of detail with each review.
• 🔁 Interlaced learning: Mix up your study topics to enhance long-term retention rather than focusing on one subject at a time.
• 🤝 Associations: Utilize associations, such as images or mnemonics, to help commit information to memory.
• 🧠 Backwards learning: Start with questions and work backwards to understand the material, rather than just reading textbooks.
• 📅 Plan your study: Use a calendar to organize your study sessions and ensure you're reviewing material at different intervals.
• 🚫 Avoid all-or-nothing: Don't try to learn everything in one go; instead, focus on getting the general concepts first, then add more detail.
• 🔄 Randomize your study: Use random or mixed-up questions during practice to mimic the unpredictability of real exams and clinical scenarios.
• 👂 Listen to advice: Seek guidance from tutors, counselors, or peers to refine your study strategies and avoid common pitfalls.

Q & A

What are the four key strategies the speaker suggests for medical students to enhance their learning?

The four key strategies are: 1) Learning from exams by focusing on high-yield information and using the 'backwards method', 2) Spaced repetition to avoid cramming and reinforce long-term memory, 3) Interlacing learning by mixing up study topics to improve long-term recall, and 4) Making associations to aid in memorization.

What does the 'backwards method' mentioned in the script refer to?

The 'backwards method' refers to the strategy of starting with exam questions or Q Bank questions to identify high-yield information, rather than just reading textbooks or lecture notes. It involves learning from the questions first and then reading to understand the concepts behind them.

How does the speaker define 'spaced repetition' in the context of medical studies?

Spaced repetition is defined as the practice of learning something, taking a break, and then revisiting the material at intervals. This method is intended to enhance long-term retention and avoid the pitfalls of cramming, where information is learned in a narrow time window and quickly forgotten.

What is the benefit of interlacing learning according to the speaker?

Interlacing learning is beneficial because it helps in improving long-term recall of information. By studying different topics in a mixed order, rather than focusing on one topic for an extended period, students can better retain information over time.

How does the speaker recommend using associations to aid in learning?

The speaker suggests using associations to help memorize information by linking concepts with images, sounds, or other memorable elements. This can be done through mnemonics, visual imagery, or any other method that aids in creating a mental link between the information and something more familiar or easier to remember.

What is the significance of learning from exams in the speaker's strategy?

Learning from exams is significant because it helps students to focus on the most important and high-yield information that is likely to appear on actual exams. This approach ensures that students are not just passively reading but actively engaging with the material and learning the most relevant content.

Why does the speaker encourage medical students to expect to get questions wrong initially?

The speaker encourages students to expect to get questions wrong initially because it is a normal part of the learning process. This mindset allows students to learn from their mistakes and focus on understanding the material better, rather than being discouraged by incorrect answers.

What role does the concept of 'spaced repetition' play in avoiding cramming?

Spaced repetition plays a crucial role in avoiding cramming by spreading out study sessions over time. This method helps in reinforcing information and moving it from short-term to long-term memory, which contrasts with cramming, where information is learned in a short, intense period and is more likely to be forgotten quickly.

How does the speaker suggest medical students should approach studying for clinical courses?

The speaker suggests that medical students should approach studying for clinical courses by using the 'backwards method', focusing on high-yield information from previous exams or Q Banks, and interlacing their learning by mixing up different topics to enhance long-term recall.

What is the importance of making associations in the learning process as per the speaker?

Making associations is important because it aids in memorization and retention of information. By associating new concepts with familiar images, sounds, or ideas, students can more easily recall the information when needed, making the learning process more efficient and effective.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Learning from Exams and the Backwards Method

The speaker, a recent medical school graduate, emphasizes the importance of learning from exams and questions rather than just endless reading. They introduce the 'backwards method', which involves attacking questions first to identify high-yield information. The speaker suggests not being afraid of getting questions wrong as it's a part of the learning process. They recommend using question banks and books with questions at the back for both basic science and clinical courses to enhance learning efficiency.

05:01

📅 Spaced Repetition and Avoiding Cramming

The speaker discusses the concept of spaced repetition, advising against cramming by learning and reviewing material over time rather than in a narrow time window. They suggest a gentle approach to learning, where one starts with general concepts and gradually adds more detail with each review. The speaker encourages the use of a calendar to plan daily study sessions, with a focus on reviewing material in a spaced manner to improve long-term recall and avoid the stress of last-minute cramming.

10:02

🧩 Interlacing Your Learning for Better Recall

The speaker introduces the technique of interlacing learning, which involves mixing up study topics rather than focusing on one subject at a time. They argue that this method helps in long-term retention better than studying in large chunks. The speaker suggests studying different subjects in a random order to mimic the real exam and clinical scenarios, where topics are not presented in isolation. They recommend using random question sets in Q banks to practice this interlaced learning approach.

🔗 Making Associations to Aid Memory

The final point made by the speaker is about making associations to help with memorization. They mention that professional memorizers use associations to recall complex information. The speaker suggests using any form of association that works for the individual, such as images, mnemonics, or personal stories, to make learning easier and more effective. They share a personal example of how they remember the influenza vaccine composition through a quirky association and encourage viewers to find their own methods that resonate with them.

Keywords

💡Med school

Med school refers to medical school, an institution that provides education and training for individuals who wish to become physicians. In the context of the video, the speaker reflects on their experiences and learning strategies during their time in med school, which included both medical and business education.

💡Learning efficiency

Learning efficiency pertains to the effectiveness and speed with which knowledge is acquired and understood. The video emphasizes the importance of efficient learning strategies for med students, suggesting methods to enhance retention and application of medical knowledge.

💡Exams

In the video, exams are mentioned as a tool for learning rather than just an assessment of knowledge. The speaker advises med students to learn from previous exam questions to identify high-yield information and to approach studying with a focus on understanding the material that is most likely to be tested.

💡Backwards method

The backwards method is a learning strategy mentioned in the video where students start by tackling questions or problems and then delve into the material to understand the concepts behind them. This method is contrasted with the traditional approach of reading extensively first and then attempting questions.

💡Spaced repetition

Spaced repetition is a learning technique where material is reviewed over increasing intervals of time to enhance long-term retention. The video suggests that med students should avoid cramming and instead use spaced repetition to reinforce their learning over time.

💡Interlacing

Interlacing, in the context of the video, refers to the practice of mixing different subjects or topics while studying, rather than focusing on one subject at a time. This approach is said to improve long-term recall and mimic the way information is presented in real-world clinical settings.

💡Q Banks

Q Banks are question databases used for medical education, often containing thousands of questions that cover a wide range of topics. The speaker recommends using Q Banks for practicing the backwards method and for learning from questions that are designed to highlight important information.

💡High-yield information

High-yield information refers to the most important or relevant facts and concepts that are most likely to appear on exams or be clinically significant. The video encourages med students to focus on high-yield information when studying to maximize their learning efficiency.

💡Associations

Associations in learning involve linking new information with something already known or creating mental connections to aid memory. The video suggests using various forms of associations, such as images or mnemonics, to help remember complex medical concepts more easily.

💡Mnemonics

Mnemonics are memory aids that help in remembering information by associating it with a pattern, phrase, or image. The video mentions mnemonics as a type of association that can be particularly useful for med students to recall information such as drug names or disease processes.

Highlights

Learn from exams by focusing on high-yield information and using the 'backwards method' to enhance learning.

Tutoring experience revealed common mistakes among medical students, such as endless reading without a clear intention.

The importance of not being afraid of getting questions wrong as part of the learning process.

Utilize Q Banks and high-yield books to practice and learn from questions, not just reading.

Spaced repetition is emphasized over cramming for better long-term retention.

A routine of consistent studying with spaced repetition can prevent the need for cramming.

Interlacing learning, or mixing up study topics, is recommended for better long-term recall.

The concept of studying in 'chunks' versus 'interlacing' for short-term versus long-term learning benefits.

Using random question practice on Q Banks to simulate real exam conditions and enhance learning.

Associations as a memorization technique, with examples of how professional memorizers use this method.

The effectiveness of associating concepts with images or stories to aid in recall.

Mnemonics as a form of association that can be personalized to individual learning styles.

The speaker's personal experience and advice on learning techniques, emphasizing their subjective nature.

Encouragement for students to find their own learning strategies by experimenting with the suggested techniques.

The importance of community and discussion in learning, as facilitated by the speaker's Facebook page.

A reminder to enjoy the learning process and to balance study with personal well-being.

Transcripts

what's up YouTube Welcome to another

episode of the undergrad Forum now in

this video I'm going to talk to you

about the four things I think every med

student should be doing to enhance their

learning and make themselves efficient

and Cutting Edge

um as many of you know if you've watched

my YouTube channel or follow me on our

Facebook page I graduated from med

school last week and I'm starting

residency next week so I got this little

bit of Gap time and I spent a lot of

this time thinking about what was med

school like over the last four years for

me five years because I got the MBA with

it but you know what did I learn in the

beginning what mistakes that I make what

did I you know get a good hold of early

on and what did I carry through and use

um throughout all the years of medical

school and business school you know you

can use this learning Notions really in

any kind of field

and I broke them down into four things

the very first is going to be learn from

exams and that may be kind of odd but

I've been doing you know I've been

tutoring all throughout med school and I

still tutor now and the one thing I see

that most incoming Med students have

problems with is that they want to

endlessly read with some degree of focus

but no true intention and that's where I

think you can really fall behind and

that's it that could hurt you so when

I've been you know trying to teach

incoming medicines how to be more you

know higher performing or better the

very first thing I try to teach and I

noticed that almost everyone does it

wrong is you have to learn from previous

exams or learn from questions not just

reading and it's very important to read

but how you do it's important and I call

this like the backwards method I've

talked about it with board exams

and how to use Q Banks but it's the same

concept when you're studying for your

basic science or clinical courses you

can just read read and hope you're

getting all the high yield information

and hope you're ready for the exams and

not have a lot of tests to yourself

um or you could do it backwards um you

know you can read the lecture slides you

can kind of read and get the basics of

what's going on but then just attack

questions and the beauty of that is the

questions are designed to highlight an

important or high yield information and

that concept is core to doing well and

that's cool don't be afraid if you

haven't read anything to attack

questions get them wrong read about it

and learn the important stuff I think

the trend I've noticed you know the most

with myself and working with other

students is that people don't want to

get questions wrong they feel horrible

they're like Oh no I got that wrong and

I keep telling them of course you got it

wrong you didn't really know it we've

just started questions we're learning

backwards so don't be scared getting

questions wrong it's expected with this

technique and it's what's going to make

you better so learning from exams is key

number one and how do you get those you

know if you're studying for boards you

can use any Q Bank you like you can use

like tourio you can use uh you world us

Emily World Kaplan first aid qbank

whatever you want

um and if you're in clinical years and

you're or in the basic science years you

can get any of those like BRS high yield

any of those kind of books and there's

questions always in the back

um all those questions are not gonna you

know prepare you for boards don't expect

every question to be like a step one

step two or step three question but the

important thing is learn how to read

questions learn how to decipher what

questions are asking you be able to

answer it correctly and if you get it

wrong you'll go learn from that question

what are they trying to get at what's

the important learning point and that's

going to guide your reading much more

than just trying to read chapter after

chapter in a recommended textbook so

lesson number one do questions get them

from previous exams if you have access

to them all those like med school high

yield BRS

um quick recall I can't remember all the

brands you know all those books they

have questions in the back and they have

efficient notes to read hit real Q banks

on the boards and the beauty of that is

tell yourself I'm expecting to get

almost all these questions wrong and

anything I get right wow I'm great and

then learn from every question you get

wrong and now you're doing the same

amount of reading and hopefully much

more efficiently now you're focused on

your reading and you're not just reading

aimlessly you're getting a bunch of

Hollywood information you'll be very

efficient you'll you'll do well on your

exam so that's lesson number one

number two is this thing called spaced

repetition fancy name for don't cram

obvious you know sometimes you can't

help it I'm going to give you that med

school is part of life you know there's

a lot of things going on you can't

always be doing Perfect Space repetition

um I'm gonna argue that you can because

I have seen some of my classmates do it

they are machines they are robots I

cannot do that let's be honest every now

and then we've all crammed that's part

of life but

um what you should do is obviously aim

for not cramming all the time if you're

in a routine of cramming and cramming

and cramming and you just can't you know

keep your head above water you're

obviously doing something wrong you

should reach out and talk to someone a

counselor or a learning advisor at your

school or whoever you have access to to

say hey what am I doing wrong hopefully

this video will give you some tips on

what to do but you shouldn't be always

kind of chasing uh the tail here you

should always have a bit of a grasp so

space reputation or space repetition

excuse me is the concept that you learn

something you're read about it give

yourself a bit of a break a day or so

you read again about it you quiz

yourself on it a day later or whatever

else have you so you're not just

learning it in a very narrow time window

you're learning it over time and I had a

hard time with that in the beginning

because

I felt like there was no way to take

everything I'm learning and allocate

that over space repetition and then I

learned there totally is because you

don't have to know everything first pass

you can the beauty of this like space

for petition or looking at the same

material over like a time period as

opposed to a narrow window is with every

time you go over it you can get the

details as you go so first pass you can

just get the general concepts of

whatever you're reading about second

pass you can get some more detail and

third pass you should hopefully get most

of it the beauty there is you're in

cramming you just do one heavy pass and

try to get everything good luck you know

it's like trying to catch a bunch of

water with your hands things will leak

but with you know looking at something

over and over again and getting more

detail as you go so not just heavy

detail every time more detail as you go

along you know in the first pass tell

yourself oh it's okay I'm getting some

of it second pass oh I'm getting more

Etc

and that's the beauty of it so working

you know get like a calendar on you know

and what to study every day whether

you're on especially important on

clinicals and as opposed to basic

science and tell yourself like what am I

going to be reviewing and put like first

pass second pass third pass to let

yourself know how much detail am I gonna

go into when I'm looking at the material

so space repetition and I think the key

to that is to keep you from cramming is

every time you're reading don't try to

get all the details first pass Go Gentle

second pass go heavier third pass go the

heaviest and that way you're going over

the same material more than once and

you're getting details as you go along

more and that's going to give yourself a

much better recall next thing is this

thing called

interlacing your learning

um fancy fancy term and all and I

googled a lot of these terms because I

was like what am I doing and what are

fancy words for it um so if you don't

like the fancy words ignore them all I'm

going to say for this is or what it

means in like easy terms is don't just

study like okay you know I gotta study

cardio today and I gotta do some long

and I got GI at the end don't do like a

ton of cardio a ton of palm and end the

day with kind of kind of GI mix it up

that's what that whole interlacing means

um so study some cards study some Palm

study some GI study some cards study

some Palm g mix it up um the beauty of

that is people will argue that oh no you

know when I'm in cards mode I'm doing

nothing but cards for hours and I'm in

the zone don't get me out of it and then

I move on to lung or I'm doing diabetes

management or I'm learning about how to

do a Whipple I want to do that nothing

else that's fine and the rationale there

I think is supported in short-term

learning but they make the argument and

you know go yell at the NIH publish

articles on I've been not me but they

make the argument and I think they're

right because I did it more accidentally

and there's research supporting it so I

just got lucky that if you mix up your

learning and kind of space it out do

some cards do some poem GI and then mix

it up as you learn it helps you in the

long term to recall the information much

more than in the short so you may have a

short-term benefit if you study you know

content in big chunks but if you have

the capability and you have the

foresight to say you know what I want

more long-term gains mix it up

interlacer learning it's I mean this

honestly goes into just qbank style

learning

um I'll use this as a much more firm

example people who and I've had to tutor

this multiple times so it's a you know

obviously enough students make this

error when you're studying sections on

uworld or qbank or electorial or

whatever you're doing don't just click

cards and click like 46 questions always

hit give me everything make it random

and then give me questions that's the

same concept of interlaced learning you

want to mix it up you want to go from

one topic to the next to the next not

just one after the other the same thing

if that's difficult for you to

understand talk to people about how they

study for boards almost everyone I'm

going to say 99 are probably going to

say always do it in random because

that's how you learn and that's how the

real exam is it's always going to be

mixed up that's how test questions are

and that's how patients are going to be

in the hospital you don't just see you

know they don't schedule six heart

patients in the morning in the lung it's

you get whatever you get so interlaced

learning highly recommend it and the

last thing number four is associations

um

there is a company that I mean there's

countless companies now I think that

have created businesses on this concept

of associations and they can be like

pictures that you draw or images you

remember in your mind or voice

associations whatever it is whenever

you're trying to just brute memorize

something the beauty of it is you can

use associations to help you so people

who are professional memorizers and yes

that's a thing they're a professional

memorizing competitions where like even

like young kids are like memorizing

decks of cards and what cards after the

other and what they will tell you is how

they do it is with associations so

they'll memorize a concept and Associate

it with something else there are

companies like sketchy micro pigmonic

real DZ or something and what they do is

I mean I'll promote sketchy micro

because one of my friends created that

company and it's a super cool company

what they do is like they try to teach

you microbiology and I think now they do

a bunch of other stuff and they like

show you images and they sketch it out

to help you learn and Associate the

concepts with images

um so you but you don't have to do that

with obviously you can do it with

whatever you want

but the idea there is whenever you're

learning things try to make associations

whether it's with someone's name or

videos or images you have in your mind

it just makes learning easier and that's

like a core basic brute memorizing

principle make associations not just

random

um mnemonics or things to memorize

um always works well I mean one silly

one like the influenza vaccine 2A is in

a B I have no idea how I remember that

someone said that I thought it was

catchy I remember the Doctor Who told me

so whenever someone says hey what types

of influenza are in the vaccine I know

it's two type A's and a type B

I just remember the person who told it

to me weird Association but it works

um whatever else you know mnemonics are

considered associations to whatever

works there I'm going to leave that up

to you because that's whatever

creativity or how your brain works for

me it's more auditory and like images I

put in my head but you could have you

know movies or whatever songs or

whatever works for you so I hope this

video helped four key principles that I

think every men's student should be

doing to have high efficiency learning

and that's learn from test you know

don't be afraid you're learning

backwards you're going to get a ton of

questions wrong but it's how you learn

high yield information space out your

learning so it's not all crammed

um

interweave it so you're reading topics

in different orders and that's how you

you know it's spaced and interlacing

them you get better long-term memory

than just short term and lastly make

associations whether they're auditory

visual memory drawing whatever it works

and I think those are four fairly basic

now that I probably tell them to you but

I'll tell you when people come into med

school straight out or they get nervous

in learning situations they revert to

poor strategy use these four please as

guiding principles I hope they help you

as I always say in all my videos this is

my biased and never humble about advice

so take it as you want if you like it

you know try different pieces of this

learning see what works for you see what

you don't like ask other people this is

just my viewpoint and my advice I hope

it helps you guys let me know if you

have any questions Down Below in the

comments you know like or enjoying our

Facebook page so you can join the

community where we ask each other

questions and give each other answers

and as always guys enjoy yourself

studies