How To Study The Sciences

Orgnic Chemistry
Just categorize the mechanisms into common reactants then categorize them again into common products. Memorize the names of the mechanisms and the reagents needed for each. Then practice some problems.

If you can do that then Substitution and Elimination should be easy. Here's a tip: After figuring out whether or not you're dealing with good/bad nucleophiles, good/bad leaving groups, good/bad bases, strong/weak acids, or strong/weak bases, it's easier to determine what the major and minor products could not be instead of figuring out what they could possibly be.

This is backwards from what is taught to me in class, but I find that it works for me. The SN1, SN2, E1, and E2 products overlap so much with each other. What their products are not don't overlap as much.

Physics
Yesterday I stated that the easiest questions for me on the practice MCAT were the Physics questions. Today I figure out why that is so and it's simple really:

Physics questions in your Physics class are taught to you as passage based questions!

Think back to your own Physics class. Think back to every homework assignment you were ever given. Think back to every time you had a resistor, voltage, and switch in a circuit. Think back to every time you had one train traveling in one direction at a particular speed and another train in a different direction at a different speed. Think back to every relativity question you've ever tackled.

These are all passage based problems. These are exactly the problems that are thrown at you on the MCAT.

It's so obvious that I wish Biology, General Chemistry, and Organic Chemistry were taught the same way. I can almost guarantee you that every aspiring medical student's MCAT scores would be higher. General Chemistry may be taught through passages by a certain extent. But certainly Biology and Organic are both taught as informational classes. Some Biology classes are taught strictly as facts to be regurgitated on to your exams.

The information is sound but it does not reflect the types of problems you'll face on the MCAT.

And by knowing this now, the answer to getting a higher score is simple. Go back through my Biology, General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Physics text books, located the questions within the chapters and at the back of the book, find the ones that describe scenarios or experiments and focus on them!

If it works for Physics why not the rest?

Biochem - seems to be the one that seems to drop the proverbial ball for most folks, so unless you're struggling more in another class, dedicate a little more studying to it. Lippencott's Review has some great flowcharts/diagrams if you're a visual person like myself. Certain profs in the dept will tell you often what to focus on, for example "Santa Claus" puts his "high yield" notes in red on his slides and (other) Dr. S will tell you straight up what to learn. Dr. M has a great set of practice ?s on G-drive as well (from his book I believe)

Histo - Let's face it, Histo in general is not too tough, but their MCQs are typically really detailed and nit-picky. Dr. M will throw in ?s that you would think are highly low yield and Dr. K just likes to see who actually reads every single word in his questions and all the answer choices (i.e. one word in the answer choice makes it wrong and it's very nonchalant), Dr. Y's questions are usually pretty good though, as she always says "Don't worry, you'll all get As"

Anatomy - 1st semester was my only non-A, and I hovered around MPS up until the final. UMich has great practice and usually ends up being "high yield" topics, BRS has lots of practice, and Dr. M's questions on G-drive are great. I learned in 2nd semester, the best way to learn anatomy (at least for me) is to spend lots of time in the lab. It really just helps a lot to see what you're actually learning and gives you a better idea of whats going on. It's not as big of a deal on Mini 1 and 2, but starting Mini 3 (and for the rest of Anatomy), spatial relationships become a major part of the course (i.e. what structures would you find behind the angle of Louis, etc.). As far as Dr. V goes, if you can handle his turning point ?s, then you should be fine for him on the Mini's, they're about the same difficulty and you'll probably see very similar questions (so go back and make sure you understand them).

Physio - Dr. S's questions aren't bad, she is one of the few profs that actually breaks things down so that you can understand them. "Dr. Borat" is hit or miss. I still don't understand Respiratory or Renal physio (everyone's favorite) but I managed to get 90s when he taught, I'm not really sure what the correlation is, but it seems to be the common trend based on what I've heard from most of my friends. Not really sure who else teaches Physio these days, but the BRS is a lifesaver.

http://www.valuemd.com/ross-university-school-medicine/183730-upperclassmen-any-study-tips-1st-sem-2.html

Best way to study for each course

For every class talk to both the professor, and older students who already took the class, about the best way to study.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify…

1. Ruthlessly cull every inefficiency from your study habits for the class. (For Mike, this meant getting rid of the fancy binders and printouts, and capturing the notes rough and dirty during lecture itself.)
2. Then constrain yourself with a reasonable but non-negotiable time limit. (For Mike, this was 2 hours per lecture for review.)
3. Use Computer for designing, managing and reviewing Flash Card (save handwriting time)
4. When reading chapter, and if something really gets you stuck mark it, but continue with the stuff you do understand. Then handle what’s left in a separate session — it’s all about how to efficiently fill in gaps in your knowledge.)
5. Create a cheatsheet - you write out definitions that are important and mini diagrams that relate information together, which forces you to think about how its connected/what it means and also just how to condense it into its simplest form.
6. Get off the not copying everything down mentality. “There are minimal differences in the grades produced by obsessively trying to learn every possible detail and trying to efficiently capture and learn most stuff, fast. Yet, these two strategies induce huge differences in the quality of your life. ” (the 80/20 rule)
7. Don’t worry about being perfect, just get most of the stuff down during lecture.
8. Next, you have to abandon your quest to learn every last fact from all slides from all classes. No one else in the class will do that, and you just have to do better than them on the exams.
9. Instead, set an arbitrary time limit. I suggest 2 hours for each lecture. In this time, try to learn as much of the material as possible. But stick to this limit. This will require that you haul ass, but I think you’ll find that the pressure and knowledge that it will be over soon, will drive you to learn more than you thought possible in this period.
10. Finally, add a shadow course to your schedule and devote 2 hours per week of this time to review a random assortment of past lectures. This ensures that you won’t forget too much of the material between now and the exam.

http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/05/07/the-grade-whisperer-mikes-pre-med-nightmare/#more-623

Motivation for pursuing a career in medicine

1. The challenge and opportunities for growth (as in research, invention, new ideas techniques, its an ever advancing field
2. Intellectual challenge/ intellectual curiosity
3. Versatility
4. There are many reasons one pursues a medical degree including challenge of the field, desire to practice a specific craft (surgeon), degree of independence, intellectual rigor, aspirations for becoming a medical writer or artist.
5. Doc Holiday caught my reason pretty well. Of course I want to help others...but that's not really what doctors do directly. They provide a service for a patient and that's that -- though they may develop a relationship over the course of treatment and provide treatment in a warm and friendly manner. If my life was based around helping people, I would have become a social worker. My personal life philosophy is actually based around overall progression. I love pushing myself to physical and mental limits. That's why being an extreme martial artist in my youth was a goal, and why being a medical doctor(and marathon runner) is the goal that will overshadow my life once I cannot push myself to acrobatic physical limits. I want to have worked through all the hell medical school students go through, I want to be exposed to the wealth of knowledge they are exposed to, and I wish to disseminate that knowledge as best I can. Medical school and a subsequent career in medicine are certainly goals in our society that you can count on to do just that. Challenge. So yes, it may be a bit selfish but those are my true reasons. Of course, I'll do my best to help people('cause being nice to people is just downright satisfying, especially when you have the power/status to do so quite easily as a doctor might) by providing treatment in the most kind way I can. Poop.
6. Blend of intellectual stimulation and having a tangible impact.
7. I think one of the factors that led me to medicine as a career interest was that I believed it was one thing I would be truly good at and was most interested in. The money, job security, and altruistic reasons definitely played in and narrowed my choice from everything in biology down to medicine.
8. Oh, and I'm really interested in the human body.
9. Interesting work, great job security, solid salary, make a diff, versatile degree (MD).
10. See: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/archive/index.php/t-243956.html

Become exceptionally good.

If you want to do something interesting and rewarding — be it writing a novel, becoming a professor, or growing a successful business — you have to first become exceptional.

In other words, there’s no shortcut. If you want the world to pay attention to you, you have to provide a compelling reason. It doesn’t care about your life goals.

Q/E/C Note-Taking

The classical Question/Evidence/Conclusion approach to reading an article.

The Morse Code Study Method

The Morse Code Method is based on the following idea: you should never stop reading until you’re done with the entire article. One continuous pass is the fastest, most energy-efficient possible way to get through a reading. It’s also the least painful.

The Dot-Dash Notation

This begs an obvious question: if you don’t stop your reading momentum, how do you make note of the important points? The answer is to deploy the following notation:

1. If you come across a sentence that seems to be laying out a big, interesting idea: draw a quick dot next to it in the margin.
2. If you come across an example or explanation that supports the previous big idea: draw a quick dash next to it in the margin.

In the end, your article will be a sequence of dots and dashes (like a Morse Code message!), effectively breaking down the reading into a useful sequence: big idea!, support, support, big idea!, support, support, support…

Once you’ve finished reading the entire article, it’s time to take notes. Review the sentences that you dotted and dashed. For the dots that still strike you as important, paraphrase the main idea in your notes, in your own words. (The paraphrase is key: it forces you to processes the idea in your brain, not just reproduce it like a photocopier). For each of the following dashes that still strikes you as important, paraphrase the example or explanation in a bullet point.

Now for the final step. This will only take you an extra couple minutes, but it’s the crucial boost that will transform you from “reasonably familiar with the readings” to “class star”:

• Reviewing what you just recorded in your notes, think for a moment about the following: What is the main question being asked in the article and what’s the conclusion the authors point toward? Record the question and conclusion in your notes.

To explain-on my index cards - this is during live chat (lecture) I write down a key word on an index card then with this method I can just write a dot for an important point and the dash for follow-ups or supports. just one word then when i have the more time i can go back to the places in the archive and pick out what i really need to know for my final paper!