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Study With Me - Scoping the Subject ft. Just Eat

2018-10-29 · Study with me · Ali · recording, 7:39 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Learning and studying · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Sponsor segment present, Evidence-based framing

In the first study-with-me video of his MRCOG season, junior doctor Ali scopes the obstetrics and gynaecology syllabus: he lists each subject's topics from memory before checking the specification, flags low-yield topics early, and sets up Notability as a rough notepad and Evernote as a personal revision guide.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Introduction to the new study-with-me season and the start of a day off

  • ★★ Ali, a junior doctor working in Cambridge, is preparing for a specialty exam in obstetrics and gynaecology and starts a new season of study-with-me videos documenting it. — 00:00:00 · Cambridge, Obstetrics and gynaecology
  • ★★ Ali admits this was not the longest study day but, with his obstetrics and gynaecology exam over a year away, cites a quote he came across: consistency is more important than intensity. — 00:00:00 · Obstetrics and gynaecology

00:00:58 — Evernote or OneNote; the personal revision guide; Notability as rough notepad and Evernote notebooks for 17 subjects

  • ★★★ Ali recommends making a personal revision guide for subjects that have no easily accessible summary available at a glance. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Ali used OneNote for his last few years of medical school but is now giving Evernote a try for his personal revision guide. — 00:00:58 · Microsoft OneNote, Evernote
  • ★★ Ali promises a more detailed comparison video of Evernote and OneNote once he decides which he prefers. — 00:00:58 · Evernote, Microsoft OneNote
  • ★★ After looking up the syllabus online, Ali creates an Evernote notebook for each of its 17 subjects and recreates the structure in Notability on the iPad under one obstetrics and gynaecology divider. — 00:01:27 · Evernote, Notability, iPad, Obstetrics and gynaecology
  • ★★★ Ali uses Notability on the iPad as a rough handwritten notepad: for jotting things down while doing past paper questions and for testing his active recall of concepts by writing down everything he knows and drawing diagrams. — 00:01:27 · Notability, Evernote, active recall

  • ★★★ Ali's Evernote notebooks are his personal revision guide, a mini textbook of concise bullet-point summaries for each topic with all his active recall questions for that topic above them. — 00:01:56 · Evernote, active recall

    “my own mini textbook of sorts. I like to call it my personal revision guide”

00:02:26 — Lunch, errands, the gym and unboxing an Apple Watch

  • ★★ Ali promises more videos explaining in detail how his personal revision guide works once he has fleshed it out. — 00:02:26
  • ★ Ali unboxes a new Apple Watch and promises a review of it later on. — 00:02:55 · Apple Watch
  • ★★★ To scope a subject, Ali first writes down in Notability all the topics he thinks belong in each section from his medical school knowledge, then fills in what he missed from the specification in another colour. — 00:02:55 · scoping the subject, Notability
  • ★★ Listing topics from memory before reading the specification forces Ali to think about the big picture and his previous knowledge; copying and pasting the specification would not use his brain at all. — 00:02:55 · scoping the subject

00:03:05 — Scoping the subject: topics from memory first, active recall as a way of life, flagging low-yield topics

  • ★★ While writing each topic down when scoping a subject, Ali runs through a few lines of what he remembers about it: for him active recall is a way of life, used in almost everything he does when studying. — 00:03:24 · active recall, scoping the subject
  • ★★ Ali feels sad whenever he is studying without active recall, such as writing out notes or copying from the internet, and treats that as a signal not to over-rely on note-making that only feels productive. — 00:03:53 · active recall
  • ★★ Ali flags fetal anatomy and embryology, a huge and notoriously hard topic, on the obstetrics and gynaecology specification: he suspects he will need only its very basics. (hedged) — 00:04:23 · Obstetrics and gynaecology
  • ★★★ Ali advises flagging early the syllabus topics that need much less detail than the core ones, so as not to waste time going too deep into topics that are less important or less examined. — 00:04:52 · scoping the subject
  • ★ Ali studies to his Spotify study-with-me playlist of instrumental tracks from films, TV shows, classical music and musicals, which he has curated for six years and which spans about 45 hours. — 00:04:52 · Spotify

00:05:05 — His Spotify study-with-me playlist and the evidence on music while studying

  • ★★ Ali says the evidence suggests it is probably best not to listen to music while studying, and that instrumentals are probably better than music with lyrics, which interferes with working memory processing. (hedged) — 00:05:21
  • ★★ Ali promises another video, later on, about the evidence on listening to music while studying. — 00:05:21
  • ★★ Because Ali wants to enjoy studying, he is more than happy to take the slight efficiency hit of having instrumentals in the background, though he sometimes works without music. — 00:05:21

00:05:50 — A guitar break he calls productive procrastination; finishing the scoping

  • ★ Meaning to take a 10-minute break, Ali spends an hour on his guitar recording part of Ed Sheeran's "Castle on the Hill" for Instagram, which he jokingly calls "productive procrastination". — 00:05:50 · Instagram

00:06:30 — Just Eat takeaway and Catan with friends; sign-off

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Ali says this study-with-me series will document his preparation for the MRCOG, a postgraduate medical specialty exam in obstetrics and gynaecology. — video description · Obstetrics and gynaecology
  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): To a viewer wishing there were an Ali for law, the channel recommends Liam Porritt. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: active recall · Evernote · Notability · Obstetrics and gynaecology · personal revision guide · scoping the subject

Also: People: Ed Sheeran

Works: Castle on the Hill · Catan

Organizations: Instagram

Concepts: productive procrastination

Places: Cambridge

Products: Apple Watch · Boosted Mini S · iPad · Microsoft OneNote · Spotify

Only in the description or credits: Just Eat · Liam Porritt · MRCOG

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