Study strategies and advice for USMLE

Hello colleagues,

This week we thought about giving some advice for preparing and taking any USMLE exam, as many are familiar already preparing for a USMLE test is something tedious and time consuming with the long hours of study, monumental amounts of information, lots of mnemonics and numerical data and also signs and symptoms, so much information needs a strategy for studying to be able to make long term memories of all that information.

So here are some study strategies and advice that hopefully will help in your preparation:

-Morning Reviews: this means every day before starting with new information you should make a

quick review of the things you studied yesterday, while doing this try to rephrase and anticipate what you are reading as well as remember things you may have forgotten.

This will help increase your retention of information; try to keep as little mnemonics as possible in use since they are confusing for making connections with other information.

-Draw the cycles: Some cycles are important for your exams, so much more because they can be used in numerated diagrams without key components in the case they have some, cycles like Krebs, thyroid function, testosterone formation, and many others can be used in a diagram this of course makes things a little bit more complicated if you don’t know them from memory, here is where drawing those cycles from scratch can be very helpful not only will they remain for one test but you will be able to keep reproducing them while you study for your next exam.

-Make a bullet list of facts from every subject: this is really useful to reduce the amount of reading once you are reviewing a subject already studied, also those particularly useless information facts that are also asked may be found in your own words, for example vitamin facts (yes also the ones that are not really an everyday necessity), abuse drugs relevant (for exam purposes) information, etc. the idea is to have all that particular not so logical information about any subject close to remember in a list, also try to make a one page list for each subject so that you can find more easily what you are trying to remember, even when some courses give you their list, re-write it using your own words this makes them easier to remember.

-Ask a lot: if you don’t understand something, if a particular subject or mechanism is not really clear ask a colleague, ask a friend, ask a resident, ask as many times as needed, might be that using their explanations makes you remember more clearly that information during the exam.

It’s better to have doubts or don’t get something right off and get some help during your preparation than getting confused during the exam.

 -Don’t push yourself: burnout is a reality when preparing, everyone knows that feeling of reading without understanding a word, when you feel tired step away from the table do something useful for you, distract yourself, take a shower, call a friend (social interactions are needed in life), play games, listen to music etc. for some this may take a 30 min. break but sometimes more frequently at the end of the day is better to stop and get some time to recharge.

-Keep your habits: I know it sound weird, but some people like to stay away from their habits while preparing, if you drink coffee, exercise, drink soda, like to study at night etc. keep those habits while preparing, since we are not equal, its ok to have our own habits for studying.

-Review those answers: when doing question banks, take your time, it’s not a race, the important thing is to review the answers and their explanations since that a form of studying. Also remember to start as early as possible doing questions, we always advice to start as early as possible and make them a part of your everyday study session.

-Learn to identify images: it’s really important to understand what you are looking at, many questions you may find will have images from CT scans, X rays etc. so learn to identify the anatomical structures in those images, especially for heart, pelvic, abdominal and brain images.

-Do some math: For some topics you have to actually make calculations, using data from the questions, so don’t just memorize the formulas, try them, make some exercises using that formulas and apply them, doctors don’t like numbers and that’s  ok, but in this case do some math.

 We hope this helps you achieve your goals, wishing you all luck in your exams,

HFY team.

We would love to hear from you, let us know any advice and strategy to prepare for the exams.

Remember to visit our site at www.usmleprepguide.com for more on study guides.

MIND CONTROL FOR USMLE

The thought process is a subject that is rarely discussed and one that can have a powerful effect in your performance during a standardized test, in this case the steps, for many candidates the stress and anxiety builds up from what they are thinking minutes before they start doing the test as well as during the test itself. It is possible to take control of our thoughts and change them into something that will generate our best performance.

It is when you are by yourself sitting in front of that computer that all of this happens, when you make a pause between questions or blocks, ideas start to come up that may generate anxiety or insecurity in what you are doing, I will discuss some ideas that may come up during the exams.

 Thought produce feelings and modify our behavior so it’s important to have a positive mindset during the test, ideas that can limit your performance are related to the difficulty of the test, pressure to get a high score, its importance in your career or the idea that you are not doing very well, these are some examples of ideas that come up while answering questions or in between blocks of questions.

First it’s important to clarify that this is a big test, meaning it has a lot of questions, its common to feel you are not doing well enough since every question you don’t know or when you take a random guess makes you feel like failing, the feeling is greater than reality and this is something you should take with you to the test, you might feel like you are failing but in reality it could be for example because you have made 5 random guesses in a block of questions,  this represents a really low percentage of that block and you don’t know if the next block will have less, although in your mind you think there will be even more and suddenly you may start thinking about overall failure in the test, like a snowball effect, this is a wrong perception that will generate anxiety, and make you feel anxious and desperate about its consequences,  always remember that in these exams you may feel overwhelmed because of its length but it does not mean you are failing at all, it’s just a feeling, replace your idea and it will change what you feel, so instead of thinking there is something you don’t know, start thinking about all the questions you did know and the test will start to feel easier. 

Thinking a step is hard will make it hard, so think about the tons of people already in resident positions over the years and you will see that this is not impossible, instead this is possible, if so many before have done it you can get your goals too, from now on think about the exams as something easy, you can do this, it’s not above your possibilities in fact it’s just a start for what great achievements you will make in your life.

Visualize, this is an important technique for all sports, and it will help you too, to visualize is to imagine, everyone can use this as a tool for better performance, close your eyes for a second and imagine yourself getting your score transcript with and excellent score, it’s a perfect score, now imagine what you may feel about this result, see yourself in a perfect place, doing what you like, in the place that you want to be, imagine yourself walking in the hospital, taking the rounds, see it all as detailed as possible, when you feel all that good things coming your way, open your eyes and continue with what your where doing, this is an important tool that will help you during your preparation and while you are in the test room. Visualize as many times as needed and you will feel more relaxed during your tests.

Focus, we are only aware of  things that receive our attention, this means that for example if I ask you

what’s going on in Denmark, it’s very likely you don’t know and couldn’t possibly know because it was out of your focus of attention, like this example to avoid thinking about anything else focus on each question, not about the last, not about the clock, not about the ones you have left unanswered, just the one in front of you, stay focused during your tests and your performance will be better.

Hopefully this ideas will help you in your exams, if you have other experiences and ideas, please share them with us in the comments, 

Dont forget to visit us at www.usmleprepguide.com and try our tutoring guides for all usmle steps, also if you have any comments or advice for fellow candidates leave it in the comment section.

Using mnemonics in USMLE

Using mnemonics in USMLE

It has become a common habit to study and remember facts using mnemonics while preparing for USMLE series, although some information that is more or less sterile for logical conclusions can be remembered easily using mnemonics like nucleotides in genetics, other type of information requires to actually commit to memory to link to either a logical path or additional information.

Remembering a couple mnemonics is easy but as you continue in your preparation you may find yourself trying to remember more than 50 incoherent although clever words that say nothing about the topic at hand, it is then when mnemonics become confusing and detrimental to your performance in the tests, more so if you consider that you are going to need those facts during an 8 hour test and mental fatigue plays its part.

In our experience mnemonics have been overused to remember facts while forgetting their links or importance, to remember clinical signs and symptoms for a given disease in a tune or a word doesn’t let you recognize the disease when reading clinical vignettes so even when you know the clinical presentation you cannot link it to the patient at hand, take conclusions about a study or remember the appropriate treatment for any given pathology.

While we do not recommend using too many mnemonics they are really usefull for information that is more likely to be used for confusing, or that has no links to other information like the case of which nucleotides are purines and which are pyrimidines, but overusing them may become confusing and trying to recall all those words in the middle of a mentally exhausting test may decrease your performance more so if the mnemonics become too extense or complicated like the ones used to remember brachial arch branches which is better to memorize as they are.

Keep in mind for your preparation not to overuse this resource since it is potentially damaging in the long run, it may be easier to remember something but it is also easy to forget it or to confuse it with something else, it has happened to us to be sitting there remembering only incoherent words without being able to either recall their meaning or make connections to other relevant information.

Tell us what you think, are mnemonics good for preparing and remembering that information for life or are they detrimental in the long run.

Please visit us at www.usmleprepguide.com for complete and detailed study guides.

USMLE MASTER GUIDE SERIES

Hello to all USMLE Candidates:

For all medical students that are not familiar with our guides, Id like to talk about our products for a second as a way of introduction into our newly developed study guides, USMLE MASTER GUIDE SERIES is a detailed and test oriented study guide in which we have included all competent information about the USMLE series of examminations, including how to apply, schedule a test date and all other information involved in taking the exams,

Its very common for medical students preparing for USMLE exams to include all the material that they can possibly find in the least amount of time and expect to achieve a high score, as we have learned some guidance is required since not all information is essential or included in each test, while we do not guarantee a prefect score since that depends on every student and their level of effort, we surely have been where you are now, and we have developed our study guides to include all the relevant information including most up to date topics, high yield content, but also what should be commited to memory, where and what topics you need to memorize as a diagram or chart flow, detailed guide of what to study for each single subject related to every exam.

It is our intend to facilitate the study and preparation of each individual STEP by including in each guide a detailed information about every  topic, high yield content, approach to each content, etc.

If you are interested in getting some guidance for your  USMLE preparation, please visit us at www.usmleprepguide.com ,

Wishing you abundance in success and hapinesss,



HFY TEAM