EXAM REVIEW TECHNIQUE

Make Your Review Easy, Efficient, and Effective! Increase your chances of PASSING that exam! ** Are you having a hard time starting your exam review because you dont know where to start? ** Are you frustrated because you cannot seem to remember everything that you studied? ** Do you get irritated because no matter how hard you study, you still feel that its not enough? ** Do you get disappointed because after all the studying you still dont seem to pass your practice exams? If your answer is YES! To almost all of the questions, read on. And you might just discover a way to solve your reviewing dilemma. Studying Drives Me Insane! Bill O Hanlon mentioned in his book Do One Thing Different, the definition for Insanity is doing something repeatedly and expecting the same result. Sounds familiar? Are you still using the same studying habit that helped you pass high schoo l and expect it to work in medical school or in nursing school etc.? If you dont tweak your studying style you might really end up stressed out and frustrated.or worst in the insane asylum! Tons of Books to read! Where do I start? According to John W. Pelley, in his book Success Types in Medical Education, it is really hard for students to have a starting point in reviewing if they do not have a question to answer. He also added that reading without a question to answer is a waste of time! Trying to review without a question to answer can be compared to trying to look for a missing object, when you dont know what that object is! So therefore the first step or the starting point in reviewing is: TRY TO FIND A QUESTION TO ANSWER! HUH?! You might ask Where the heck should I look for the right questions to ask let alone answer?? The answer is.. In Review books! Most of the time they provide you with PRACTICE QUESTIONS that is very useful in helping you prioritize the most important topics. Why? Becau se as Dr. Pelley mentioned, exam questions are just topics! So if you will know how to dissect those practice questions correctly, chances are you will be touching the most essential topic s that you have to know for the exam. On the other hand, if you are just a regular student who is not going to take some major licensure exam but just wants to study efficiently, you can use the review questions that can be seen at the end of every chapter in a book. The advantage of Using Practice questions It makes Mem orization easier! Do you ever remember a time when you have that question stuck in your head and you wont just stop until you find the answer? And when you do, isnt it a lot easier to recall? That is what practice questions are all about. SUM-UP: **Use Practice questions in review books as a starting point for your review. **Topics contained in the practice questions are usually the most important topics that should be studied **Dissecting practice questions makes memorization easier Starting Point: Dissecting Practice Questions Most of the time when you tell a student to study questions, they will just memorize the answers or try to answer the questions and look for their weak spots and concentrate on those areas. But most of the time this techniqu e leads students to get frustrated, especially when they see their scores are so low. This communicates to them as, You still have a lot of studying to do to pass! When I tried using this method of studying questions, I ended up resenting studying and f eeling a lot pressured. So, I went back to my old way of studying. NOTE: If you are planning to attend a review class, better do question analysis first before enrolling! So.how do I dissect those Practice questions correctly? Dont waste your time try ing to answer the questions. Look at the answer key, find out what the correct answer is and follow the steps below. This is because the practice questions will not be used here to test you but to orient and familiarize you t o important topics.

Question Analysis: According to John W. Pelley, there are 4 steps in analyzing those Practice questions: **IDENTIFYING TOPICS Look at the question as well as the answers, list down the topics that you can find embedded in them. But dont include those that you think is irrelevant or completely not sensible. Remember that in 4 choices presented; only 2 will appear like the real answer. **UNDERSTAND THE CORRECT ANSWERS Remember that I asked you to look at the answer key to find the correct answer? It is because in this step you have to find out what makes the correct answer correct. Or why is it even correct? Explore the topics that you have listed in step 1. Look at how they are related to the correct answer. **UNDERSTAND THE INCORRECT ANSWERS Why are these answers incorrect? If you are able to find out the characteristics of the incorrect answer, you are going to get a much broader understanding of the correct answer. Also, by looking at the wrong answers, you are beginning to expand to far greater topics. Th is means that you are now exploring more topics than you expected. It just prepares you to even more important topics. **REPHRASING THE QUESTION Remember that exam makers are busy people. They do not devote all of their time writing new questions. So wha t do they do? They just rephrase the questions. By doing this step you are preparing yourself to answer not just one question but 5 or 10 more! I have dissected the Practice Questions, Whats next? After, attacking those questions you are now ready to re ad your books. But since you have started with analyzing practice question, you have a good idea of what topics are important to concentrate on. How can I efficiently Read my books? Of course, to effectively & efficiently review for your exam you have to have a system. After all there is a test date to think about, thus time is very essential. And if you are like most students, who most of the time just end up looking at the books instead of reading them.you are in great need of a smart reading system t o get you to finish those topics before the exam date! John W. Pelleys SYSTEM for time wise reviewing: SuccessTypes Time Management Whats good about these stages is that it tends to integrate different faculties for learning: you will get to identify, read write and verbalize all that you are trying to learn which makes it a complete learning experience. **IDENTIFICATION STAGE (DAILY) This involves identifying the materials or topics you dont already know. Remember those Practice Questions topics tha t you have already studied & identified? You will probably have remembered them. So here is how they will help you out: Example: You are supposed to review a chapter on Musculoskeletal System. In the identification stage, you will browse the chapter and look for topics that are not familiar to you and list them down. Chances are if you have effectively analyzed the practice questions, a lot of important topics in the chapter will be familiar to you. Remember not to spend too much time in this stage. Just a llot around 5-10 mins for this stage. Basically, the question you have to answer in this stage is: What is it that I do not know about this topic? **ORIENTATION STAGE (DAILY) If you are attending a lecture, this is the time to look at your list while li stening to the lecture. Also listen for the important topics that you have encountered in your practice exam analysis. If you are reading, this stage is where you do the in depth understanding of the topics you listed. Just read and try to understand the topics. Watch out for the topics emphasized in the practice questions. **ORGANIZATION STAGE (DAILY) This time you are ready to make a sense of what you have read, but in a visual kind of way. This is done through whats called as mind maps. You know ho w people easily remember movies that theyve watch or pictures that theyve seen?

Thats exactly how mind maps work. It creates a visual representation of what you have read: thus, committing the reading materials much more easily in your long term memory. Plus, creating mind maps also engages you into active writing meaning you are actually composing something instead of just copying notes from your books. Active writing differs from just outlining; in the sense that while writing actively through mind maps your mind is trying to figure out relationships or similarities that bests organizes the data you have read. Basically, creating mind maps is the MOST IMPORTANT STEP to perform if you want to etch what you have read into your LONG TERM MEMORY! SoHow do I create Mind Maps? Since this is sooo important I recommend you read the PART II Chapter 7 of John W. Pelleys book: SuccessTypes in Medical Education and absorb it all. It is quite easy to learn & if you really want to get ahead, you better pract ice doing mind maps. Just click this link for SuccessTypes in Medical Education: http://www.ttuhsc.edu/SOM/Success/page_book%20chapters/succ esstypes%20in%20medical%20education.pdf **VERIFICATION STAGE (DAILY) This stage is the verbalization stage. This is done every weekend. You look at your mind maps & try to verbalize what you have organized. If there are topics which are hard for you t o verbalize, you have to refer back to your notes and concentrate on how you can organize it better so that you will be able to verbalize it a lot easier. There you have it! Hope it will help you out. If you are interested in knowing more visit John W. Pe lleys web site: http://www.ttuhsc.edu/SOM/Success/default.htm

MEMORIZATION TECHNIQUES: HELPING YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU STUDY

MEMORIZATION TECHNIQUES: HELPING YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU STUDY Here are some steps that can help you remember more of what you study. ORGANIZING THE MATERIAL YOU ARE STUDYING WILL HELP YOU MEMORIZE IT EASIER. Have you ever experienced trying to look for something in a mountain of mixed -up objects and had a hard time trying to find the object that youre looking for? This situation can be compared to when you are trying to memorize and remember mountain loads of info in 20+ chapters of your book only to be asked 5-10 questions per chapter come exam day. When you are sitting there scratching your head hoping to find the answer, dont you ask yourself is there a better way to navigate inside your head so that you can rememb er the info you need to answer your exam? Now, lets look at another angle of the situation. Lets say you have found a way to arrange all those objects in boxes and able to label them accordingly. Isnt easier to find what you are looking for? Thats exactly the importance of organizing what you are studying! If you are able to organize them in a way that you can see relationships, cause & effect or just group them into something easy to grasp, it will be a lot easier for you to memoriz e and remember all those info. It is just like, looking at the labeled boxes and finding that object you want when you want it. Before You Organize.. Do this step. Of course before organizing anything you should be able to sort out an entire chapter of info: look at them before you could actually decide how to organize them. Look at them meaning READ first. So, I suggest that while you are reading your study materials DONT MEMORIZE YET! Just read and dont try to remember anything. Your job this time is to try to look for relationships, cause and effect, etc. If there are tables in the chapter, read it and figure out how the concepts in the t able are organized. Remember NOT to SKIP this step. Ways of Organizing Study Materials: After you have browsed and sort out the s tudy materials, you are now ready to organize them. Remember that I told you to look for patterns and relationships in the materials? Its because you need that to be able to perform the next step. There are various techniques that can help you organize w hat you study:

MNEMONICS This is probably one of the popular ways of organizing study materials. Most of us have been using this technique since we were kids. Remember when you are 8 and you try to sign your letters with TLC (tender loving care) or JAPA N (Just Always Pray At Night)? If you do, then creating mnemonics is just easy for you. Mnemonics is best to use when you are organizing a list. Look at the first letters and see if you can create an easy to remember word out of the first letters of the i tems in the list. If this is not possible, try to create a funny or wacky sentence out of the first letters of the items on the list. The more crazy sounding the words or sentence the easier it is to remember . Be creative! If you want more info on mnemonic s, try to Google it or if you are patient students, try to wait for my post on mnemonics. MIND MAPS/CONCEPT MAPS Have you ever experienced a time when you are trying to remember something you have memorized and all you can remember is the part of your no tebook where you have written the info? Or better yet, dont you find it easier to remember what a place looks like than the actual name of the place itself? This is because it is easier for our brain to capture image s. That is why people who are able to r emember loads of info are labeled to have a photographic memory. Mind maps help you do just that: create an image of what you are studying through bubbles and diagrams and at the same time organize what you have studied. With your info organized and put i nto an image, memorization and recall becomes a lot easier. Also, mind maps engages you to active writing, meaning you dont only read and look at what you are studying at the same time you get to write it. Helping you commit those info more into your long term memory. If you want to learn more about mind maps see my post regarding How to create mind maps or concept maps. MAKING A STORY OUT OF THE STUDY MATERIAL WILL HELP YOU REMEMBER It is easier for us to remember stories like those we heard in the b ar or something funny a friend told us. Dont you wish memorization can be that easy? Wellmaybe it can be. Why not turn those boring info into a funny story that would be easier for you to remember? The wackier and crazy the story is the better. Try to w ork those creative juices. And if you have a talent for remembering good story lines then, this technique is for you. Let the bacteria be the villain and the WBC the hero of your story! Or you can a lso create a funny scenario that relates to your topic or idea. LINKING WHAT YOU STUDY TO PERSONAL EXPERIENCES COMMITS WHAT YOU STUDY TO YOUR LONG TERM MEMORY Some people find it easier to remember and memorize something if they can relate to it. So, if something is very much like what they have experienced; it will be easier for them to remember. If you are that person then linking is the technique for you. If you have read how I compared organizing what you study to organizing things in boxes in the first part of this article, th at is exactly what linking is all about. I have linked memorization and recall with something that we can all relate to, like trying to look for something in an unorganized area. In that way it will be a lot easier to grasp the concept, making it easy to remember. THE BEST TECHNIQUE OF ALL: MIXING Mix every technique in this article. Try what works best for each topic or for each situation. Dont try to stick to one unle ss it fits perfectly to your needs: Most of the time though you need more than one technique to help you through you r studies so feel free and creative to use all of the techniques. BUT. What makes all the techniques work is your action. Even if you do know the techniques and you feel too lazy to apply them, chances are youll never get the result that you want. So, a ct! Dont be Lazy!