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Study with me + More revision tips - Cambridge University medical student VLOG #34

2018-05-21 · Study with me · Ali, a guest · recording, 12:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Learning and studying · mode: Demonstration and walkthrough · tags: Aimed at students

In his fourth study-with-me vlog, Ali, a final-year Cambridge medical student, spends six hours revising clinical examinations in the Clinical School library a few days before his finals, with tips: test yourself before looking things up, make notes only for mnemonics or categories, use the Pomodoro method as a crutch, go for breadth first, and teach a topic to learn it.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — A change of scene: revising in the clinical school library

  • ★ Bored of revising in his room a few weeks before, Ali went to revise in the Cambridge Clinical School library, about a five-minute skateboard ride from him. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Ali's general tip: changing the place where you revise makes revision a lot more manageable when being in the same place gets tedious. — 00:00:00

00:00:29 — Testicular and pituitary examinations: active recall first, then borrowed notes, mnemonics and categories

  • ★★ Revising the testicular examination and panhypopituitarism, Ali started with active recall, asking what he would say in an exam, found he knew little, and only then reviewed the notes. — 00:00:29 · active recall
  • ★★ Ali does not make his own notes on clinical examinations, since there are many resources online and from students in the year above; he uses notes made by a medic around 2010 that all clinical medics use. — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ Ali makes his own notes only when there is no easily accessible summary, to write down mnemonics, which he loves making for lists, and to categorise things. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ After reviewing a topic, Ali writes questions on it into his active recall spreadsheet to review after lunch, for active recall and spaced repetition. — 00:01:27 · active recall, spaced repetition

00:01:57 — Forest and the Pomodoro method; a latte in the break

  • ★★ Ali manages his study time with the Forest app: a tree grows for 25 minutes and dies if you use your phone, a regimented way to do the Pomodoro method of 25 minutes' work and five minutes' rest. — 00:01:57 · Pomodoro technique
  • ★★ Ali does not use the Pomodoro method much, but finds it helpful when alone in a library and wanting to make revision a game, which makes it more fun. — 00:01:57 · Pomodoro technique
  • ★★ Ali used to feel guilty about buying a £2.50 latte, and still does a little, but thinks in exam term it is worth spending it to increase his happiness and enjoyment. — 00:02:26

00:02:55 — Dermatology by online quiz; tailor the technique to the subject

  • ★★★ Ali advises tailoring revision techniques to the subject being revised, with no need to shoehorn it into a technique someone else uses; for visual dermatology he did an online quiz instead of going over notes. — 00:03:24
  • ★★ Asked on Instagram how to apply his active recall spreadsheet to maths, physics or engineering, Ali says you probably don't: the best way to revise them is practice sheets, problems and past papers. (hedged) — 00:03:24 · active recall
  • ★★ Before looking up the treatment of acne, Ali answered it in his head as if an examiner had asked, then looked it up and refined his answer, which he calls better than just looking it up. — 00:03:53 · active recall

00:04:23 — When making notes helps and when it is a trap

  • ★★ On a new topic Ali has no qualms about making a quick document of brief notes in Notability, the app he uses on his iPad. — 00:04:23 · Notability
  • ★★★ Ali says making notes is not inherently productive: at GCSE and A level he felt productive making notes, but now he treats it as probably suboptimal and uses notes actively to learn. — 00:04:52
  • ★★ If making notes works and gets you results, Ali says, carry on; if you spend hours making notes without the results you want, consider that it is not the most efficient way to revise. — 00:05:21

00:05:50 — Stoma and rectal examinations: breadth before depth

  • ★★★ Ali prioritises breadth over depth: medicine has so much to learn that you must decide what detail not to care about, and in any subject you should get the big picture before the details. — 00:06:09
  • ★★ Instead of getting really good at one topic after another, as many do in chemistry or biology, Ali becomes vaguely familiar with everything and then digs into the detail a bit more each time. — 00:06:38
  • ★ Ali sometimes volunteers to do rectal examinations in hospital or at the GP practice, as a good learning experience. — 00:06:38

00:07:07 — After lunch: the threshold for what to revise; Pomodoro in the flow; an oncology society lecture

  • ★★★ Ali says the threshold for what to revise rises as the exam nears: first the topics that would make you fail, later those where you would get 60 rather than 80, to win the extra 20. — 00:07:36
  • ★★ Ali calls the Pomodoro method a crutch for when you lose concentration: in the zone there is no need to stick to it, and 30 or 35 minutes is fine. — 00:08:06 · Pomodoro technique

00:08:35 — Student supervisors and teaching a topic to learn it

  • ★★ Ali attended a cancer revision lecture by the oncology society that was not on his exam, saying revising material you will not be examined on is useful because it matters in real life as a doctor. — 00:08:35
  • ★★ From his experience of supervising students, Ali says student supervisors prepare you better for an exam, while a professor is better for being pushed in a narrow field and intellectual debate. — 00:08:35 · Supervision
  • ★★★ Ali advises giving a revision lecture on a topic you are studying to your peers or younger students: to teach something you must know it well, so it massively consolidates your understanding. — 00:09:11
  • ★★ When they run supervisions at weekends, Ali often chooses to supervise a topic he is unfamiliar with, because it forces him to spend hours preparing. — 00:09:33 · Supervision

00:09:50 — Evening group revision with friends

  • ★★ Ali ended the day with a relaxed group revision session with friends in his room, revising together so they all enjoyed it more. — 00:10:02
  • ★★ a guest: For biology, an unnamed speaker says answers need the buzzwords the mark schemes look for, so instead of going through the textbook, do exam papers and revise from them. — 00:10:02
  • ★★ a guest: A second unnamed speaker says that with an exam two or three weeks away, free active recall such as writing out everything you know about a chapter is totally pointless. — 00:10:02 · active recall

00:10:10 — Biology exams: past papers and the buzzwords of the mark scheme

  • ★★★ a guest: The second speaker says marks come from memorising the mark schemes: do many practice papers first, then study the mark schemes for buzzwords such as "enzyme substrate complex". — 00:10:39
  • ★ a guest: The second speaker says GCSE and A-level examiners follow the mark scheme to the letter, as they mark huge numbers of papers and it is unfeasible for exam boards such as Edexcel and AQA to hire university professors to mark them. — 00:11:08

00:11:38 — Summary of the day and sign-off

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Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: active recall

Also: Notability · Pomodoro technique · spaced repetition · Supervision

Only in the description or credits: University of Cambridge

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