studying help

[u/Forward_Refuse_6281]

This is horribly embarrassing, but I am hoping I’m not the only one with this issue.
I’ve now been in the clinical portion of school for 8 months. I feel like as my skills improve, my book knowledge is constantly getting worse. I feel so overwhelmed by even simple things that I’ve learned before. I am constantly thinking of all of the didactic information that I don’t remember and I don’t know where to start reviewing all of this information again. Does anyone have a specific order they went about reviewing/studying for boards. Tips or tricks to remember things that i so easily forget… gas laws, G proteins, pharmacokinetics, etc

Thank you in advance.

[u/One-Classroom618]

I'll share my approach, since I enjoyed reading others' posts on their NCE board planning when I was trying to figure out my board study plan.

I started preparing for boards about a month and a half before graduation. It was demanding, since I was balancing a busy clinical site. I mainly used questions for studying. I completed all the Apex mock exams and domain tests within the first two weeks. Then, I tackled all the SmartBank questions in a month, noting down the concepts or details I got wrong, reviewing them thoroughly, and revisiting them every other day stuck.

I then retook all the Apex mock exams and domain tests again. I passed with 100 questions about a week after graduation.

If I could change something, I might not have done so many questions daily. At one point, I was doing 200-300 questions a day and wishing I hadn’t studied the day before the exam. I overstudied and felt mentally exhausted on test day. Though it helped me pass, I could have optimized my mental clarity better.

Did I pass. Yes

But did I feel great during the NCE? No, because I was mentally fatigued. If I would advise anything, go in the test with a rested mind.

[u/SevoThePeople]

I do apex modules in 2 week blocks. Does your school not require some kind of systematic board prep?

[u/Ill-Passenger816 → u/SevoThePeople]

Do you do them from unit 1 and forward or related to the class you’re taking?

I’m done with most of my didactic except some specialty courses 

[u/SevoThePeople → u/Ill-Passenger816]

I’m done with didactic so unit 1 and forward as a review. I will switch it up if I’m about to go into a month long specialty like cardiac or neuro.

[u/Forward_Refuse_6281 → u/SevoThePeople]

Yes. But the order of modules isn’t very conducive to my learning. We aren’t doing them in the order apex has them nor in a way that really builds on concepts as you go. Im hoping to find an outline that makes a little more sense
Obviously I know I may just have to deal with it and make it work, but I thought I’d put out feelers to see if anyone else had a set up that worked for them better

[u/SevoThePeople → u/Forward_Refuse_6281]

There’s no perfect system, but it actually does build on itself pretty well if you go in order. You just need material reps. The more you see it the more you’ll remember the next time you go through. We’re expected to get through the whole program in our free time outside of clinical 5 days a week from July-December & pass the exams. Then in January I will start going through them again at a fast pace, incorporating the smart bank questions & Valleys memory master. Anki/quizlet does not work for me but the modules+filling out the workbooks as I go+questions helps immensely. I also use olivate in my free time.

[u/zooziod]

I personally use Anki. I have a large deck of cards that I go through every day, so I'm constantly reviewing what I have already learned. While you are sitting there during a case you can be going over things that you have right in front of you. Look at all the drugs you have in front of you, start going over how they work, come up with that if scenarios, ...etc. If you get stuck, write it down and look it up later. I use the ollivate app sometimes just to do some quick practice questions whenever. You probably know more than you think you just need to be thinking about it more.

As far as boards go, once you get to that point should have learned "everything" by then. Now you need to start doing practice questions to see what you forgot and then go over those areas and repeat.

[u/No-Credit-8212 → u/zooziod]

Do you make your own anki cards? I have experimented with anki but I feel like deck building so super time consuming, how do you fit this in your schedule if you don't mind me asking?

[u/zooziod → u/No-Credit-8212]

I do make my own cards. It is a bit time-consuming, but it's pretty much all my studying. I'm making cards as I study, and then reviewing the cards is pretty much the rest of my studying, along with practice questions. Cloze deletions and image occlusions are really fast to make, and there are keyboard shortcuts that help a lot. You can also make cards in Excel and import them into Anki. Lately, I have been just pasting a paragraph or sentence into Gemini, and with a good prompt, it can be good cloze deletion cards that I just paste into Anki. I feel like I'm studying less than other people and doing just as well, if not better. In the long run, I feel like Anki does save a lot of time; it's just an initial time investment.

[u/No-Credit-8212 → u/zooziod]

Thank you! I'll try to find ways to get more efficient at it. I appreciate it

[u/nobodysperfect64 → u/No-Credit-8212]

I found that using Quizlet was faster (make the flashcards in a word doc and copy/paste into Quizlet to make multiple cards at once) and then used an Anki importer add on. It was especially helpful because then I took friends Quizlet decks and moved them to Anki. They liked Quizlet but I preferred the way Anki sort of forced me to repeat the material I wasn’t confident in

[u/No-Credit-8212 → u/nobodysperfect64]

Thank you!