[Music]
Hey guys welcome back to the channel if
you're new here I'm Sebastian a medical
student from Australia
and today we'll be looking at a bunch of
common study techniques
things like reading your notes making
notes using question banks this thing
called active recall and i'll be ranking
them from
the best to the worst and so i'll be
basing my judgments off a few different
criteria
in terms of how flexible efficient
effective
and my personal experience with that
study technique and before you guys
roast me in the comments and say hey seb
why didn't you include my favorite study
technique at the top of your list
just remember that these are my personal
views everybody studies at their own
pace and everybody learns differently
i'm a visual spatial type of learner so
some of the techniques that i rank more
highly might be biased towards my
learning style
so just remember that it's all about
finding what works best for you
but let's get into ranking some study
techniques and having a look at the
tier list
the first study technique we have is the
pomodoro technique so if you've never
heard of it before it's basically
working in short
focus bursts of 25 or 30 minutes maybe
even 50 minutes long
and then you'll set yourself a little
short break afterwards and then you'll
repeat this process a few times
until you've completed a longer study
session that could be two or three hours
i find the pomodoro technique really
good to get you started if you're
feeling unmotivated and you don't feel
like doing much
by starting in a 20-minute short burst
it might actually get you motivated and
then you'll go from 20 minutes to 40
minutes to an hour
in terms of how effective it is that
very much depends on the content
that you're learning if you're doing say
lectures or seminars
these are usually an hour or two hours
in length and so using this pomodoro
technique can really break your flow
and for some people having this rigid
study style just doesn't work for them
but for me i find that it has its use
cases and it definitely gives you that
punch in the gut to get started and so
i'd put it
as good all right the next one here is
space repetition
so i don't even have to tell you guys
you've probably already heard about this
before
but we all know that space repetition is
going at the top
if you are not using space repetition in
your own study i'd suggest
trying to employ it because when it
comes to learning it's so easy to forget
things if you don't review it in a week
you'll forget it if you don't review it
the next day you might even forget half
of it and so naturally
our bodies will be accustomed to
forgetting things over time and by
constantly reviewing them
we'll be able to stick it in the neuron
as my professor would say
and we'd be able to remember it in the
long term and if you're not already
convinced a bunch of my professors in
medicine have said that space repetition
is the go-to when it comes to
remembering concepts especially in
medical school
and they told me that if you want to
learn something for life then you have
to review it seven times
before it sticks completely all right
next we have anki anki anki anki so
everybody asks me questions about what
decks you use how you use it
should i be getting into anki and i
think it is very useful because it
employs space repetition naturally
into its system the problem with anki i
think is that sometimes it might be hard
to learn concepts from it if you're
trying to understand a fundamental first
principle
you're trying to work out the cell cycle
or maybe the electron transport chain
anki has limited uses in a case like
this because it's really good for
remembering niche facts so if you're
doing subjects like pharmacology or
anatomy
where you have to remember certain
landmarks or you have to remember drug
mechanisms and names
then it's really good for that because
it's going to stick that information in
the long term
so i'm going to put anki as good and
before you guys say
what do you mean i use anki for
everything just remember that when it
comes to working when it comes to
employing your knowledge it's all going
to be concept based and it's all going
to be first
principle reliant and so if you forget a
niche fact that you learn on anki it's
not the end of the world because you can
quickly look it up in a lot of cases
anki is good for exams
but when it comes to the more real world
type of learning i feel that it has more
limited use cases so i'm putting it
as good okay next we have rote
learning rote learning has its use cases
like what i said about
doing anatomy or pharmacology if you're
trying to learn a bunch of different
facts or
certain drug names or landmark names
then you'll have to do it everybody has
to go through this process
but if you want to understand something
at its fundamental level and be able to
employ it in practice
then rote learning is not really the way
to go and in medical school particularly
rote learning doesn't work anymore
because there's too much concepts to try
and memorize that it's almost impossible
if you're going to do it like this
and so i'm going to put rote learning as
meh
because by rote learning you're
memorizing something for the sake of
memorizing for an exam
rather than learning it because you want
to apply it into practice and into what
you're going to be doing later on okay
next one here is
reading notes i think it's good as a
first place to start
is it effective not as much because it's
a very passive process you're trying to
hope that your brain
collects some information but a lot of
it a lot of it you'll forget the next
day
is it efficient i think it's very time
consuming
and another thing with a textbook or the
really dense notes it's easy to get
bored and to get uninterested in the
information and to feel overwhelmed when
you chucked a block of text and in my
personal experience i just find that i
get too disinterested too quickly when
i'm
reading notes or going through a
textbook and again i'm going to put this
on the meh category but
i might change these later on okay so
the next one is question banks or qbanks
and these are a collection of different
questions about different topics
and can help you revise certain concepts
that you weaken and so
question banks i think are excellent
resources and if you haven't found one
that's useful for your studies
i suggest finding one i'm going to put
qbanks as great
okay and the reason why i justify this
is that are they efficient
yes they are because you're putting
yourself in a position where you have to
really think
and you're put on the spot in a it might
be a clinical context it might be a real
life context
of how am i going to apply the
information that's stored in my brain
for this question
i think it's really effective as well
because when you complete the question
if you get it correct you'll never
forget it if you get it wrong you're
going to study as hard as you can to
make sure that you don't get it wrong
again
and in my personal experience question
banks have been like my go-to when it
comes to revision and i use this
resource called PassMedicine all the
time when it comes to doing
medical practice questions okay so the
next one is mind maps
so if you're a visual spatial learner
like me then mind maps are really really
good because for visual learners by
seeing everything on the page
by mapping it out in your brain when it
comes to your exam you're trying to
remember that little bit of information
you're like
oh yeah i remember when it was on that
pathway in the top right of the page
it talked about this drug interaction
and so for some people mind maps are
excellent
for other people who are more auditory
learners or sensory learners
then it might not be as useful and so
mind maps are a bit of a hit and miss
because they can be very time consuming
and they can be difficult and you get
very invested in a mind map
that you spend too much time making it
look pretty so it can be a very
inefficient use of your time
in terms of the effectiveness i feel
that if you can do it properly you will
learn a lot of information but it's just
finding that balance between spending
the time on making a good mind map
versus
doing some practice questions or doing a
past paper which we'll come too shortly
my maps i'm going to put as good and
another thing to note is that mind maps
are good for identifying the bigger
picture or the bigger concept alright so
next one is active recall
active recall and that is the process of
constantly forcing yourself to remember
and recall
information that's thought away in that
brain of yours so when you
are reading the textbook or when you've
sat down and watched a lecture
a lot of the information you're going to
forget about but if i ask you some quiz
questions at the end of that lecture
you're going to force yourself to try
and remember what you just watched and
so by constantly
forcing yourself to do this process it's
going to take that short term memory
and put it into long-term storage and
one good way to use active recall in
your everyday studying
is to write down questions for yourself
as you're learning through a new topic
every time you come across something
difficult ask a question about what it
is
and so if you build this question bank
by the end of your semester or the end
of your term
you're able to have this big resource of
questions which you can look back and
ask yourself
do i understand it can i answer it can i
explain it to my friend or to my family
and if you can do this you're really on
track when it comes to the final exam so
i'm going to put that right at the top
active recall it's effective i find it
efficient so it really is a good study
technique
okay so the next one here is teaching
others if you can successfully teach
someone else a concept it means you're
pretty much at a level of mastery if the
other person can understand it as well
for this reason i think teaching others
is an extremely effective way to learn
in terms of its efficiency it very much
depends on who you're studying with
if you're with a bunch of friends where
you banter too much or you talk too much
and you get distracted
then that's going to be no good but if
you're with a group of motivated
individuals
who all have the same mutual goal of
learning and going over a certain topic
then teaching others can be very useful
and for me particularly in med school i
love
to study with some of my friends they
keep me accountable they keep me
motivated and they keep me on track for
these reasons
i'm going to put teaching others in the
great category
and in the world of online learning a
way to stay connected to your friends
and study together
can be to run a zoom call and so last
year when a lot of my classes were
online i'd meet up with my friends once
a week
and we do a quick fun review session of
some practice questions or go over a few
topics
that we all weaken and we're able to
teach each other and also learn from
each other next one is
past papers so past papers i'm just
going to put it now it is it is great
past papers are really really great and
if you have access to them then
definitely use them and a lot of my
medical school exams they only give us a
limited amount of past paper questions
or past papers in general
and so if you have access to them treat
them as a treasured resource because
that's going to be the exact type of
questions or the structure
that you'll be given on the exam day
doing past papers also uses active
recall
the only thing about past papers to note
is that it's very dependent on the
curriculum
and sometimes the paper that you're
doing might only cover a limited
amount of concepts or theory which might
not always translate into practice later
on
and so you just have to be mindful that
it depends upon your school your
university
or the subject that you're learning so
the next one is studying with music
and for me personally i love studying
with music i will always have a lo-fi
playlist in the background when i'm
doing any sort of revision
when i'm sitting at my desk and so i'm
gonna put this as good
and as long as it doesn't have vocals i
find that it can really make
the whole process a little bit more
enjoyable and a little bit more
comfortable but there have been studies
that have shown that if you're listening
to music with lyrics
then the lyrics can sometimes get in
your head because you're going to be
thinking about them mentally
and it can distract you from the actual
concepts that you're learning
so without lyrics starting with music is
really good but with lyrics i try not to
do that because it can be quite
distracting
so we're going to put it as good on the
good tier all right so next one is
re-watching
lectures so when i was an undergraduate
i used to re-watch my lectures all the
time all i would do
is go to my lectures re-watch them and
that was pretty much
the extent of my learning i wouldn't
really branch outside of the lectures i
wouldn't try to read a textbook i
wouldn't try to look at another video
i'd solely rely on lectures as the
source of my learning and now i've
learned that lectures are not there to
give you a comprehensive overview of
everything you need to know
instead lectures are there to give you
an introduction or to
elaborate on an idea and so in many
cases
the lecturer might overlook certain
information or ask you to review
something in more detail on your own
time
because you can't cover everything in an
hour and it's impossible for the lecturer
to answer every one of your questions
when you're doing it and so attending
the lecture for the first time is good
because you want to really take in all
the information you're being taught
in terms of re-watching them i prefer not
to do that anymore because there's
plenty of other resources that are
online that are more efficient use of
your time
re-watching lectures is like re-watching
another hour that's a very inefficient
way to use your time
and it's not really effective because
again it's a passive process
of just listening and hoping that
everything sticks instead you should be
really
trying to quiz yourself apply the
concepts of active recall
and make sure that you're looking at
other resources to fill in the gaps that
the lecturer might have missed
and because of this i'm going to put it
as an average way to learn and so the
next one here is using online videos to
learn so that could be a learning
platform like youtube or buying a
subscription
to a certain type of learning platform
and i'd say that online videos are
really really great for reinforcement
but sometimes in order to get
the condensed succinct professional type
of videos or professional resources
you might have to pay a little bit i
definitely consult youtube a bunch of
times when i'm trying to reinforce
certain concepts
and so i put this on the good category
okay so lucky last is making notes
and making notes is arguably the most
common way
people study and i personally did it a
lot back in high school back in
undergraduate and while it can be really
helpful
to have this good resource at the end of
your semester which you can look back on
making notes can be quite time consuming
especially if you get held up on things
like the formatting or making them look
pretty
and i'm not putting down people who make
really pretty well formatted notes
kudos to them and there's a bunch of
different study youtubers online
that make beautiful really amazing notes
and i'm super impressed by that
but in a medical school context where
you don't have a lot of time to learn a
lot of information
writing notes just takes too long my
very first block foundations i wrote
notes on
every single lecture and seminar that we
got given and i spent so much time
making this beautiful 100 plus page
booklet that i could look back on
but i never did and i ran out of time
and we had a week before the exam and i
was only just
maybe having a glance at a few of my
notes then when it comes to the world of
medicine
this is too much information if i was to
try to write notes on every
single topic that i come across i
wouldn't have any time for anything else
and so making notes i'd say is a very
average way to learn and so i'm going to
put it
in the average category so that is my
final study tier list
we've got space repetition and active
recall as the big boys at the top and if
you're not using them in your own
studies
use them now they are useful question
banks teaching other people in past
papers
are always good resources and then
having a look at the things at the
bottom
rote learning it has its place but it's
not a good principle to abide by because
you're memorizing for memorizing sake
rather than learning to apply those
concepts into practice
and reading notes is just a very passive
way to learn so if you liked my tier list
and would have had something similar be
sure to like the video
if you didn't and you wanted to change
some things be sure to comment what you
would have changed
and be sure to comment if you have your
own study technique which i didn't
include on this list
that you use in your everyday studies
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i put some playlists of my medical
school vlogs and some other study
related videos on the screen for your
convenience
and until next time this is sebastian
stay sharp!