As exam season rolls around, it's important to know how to prepare efficiently. In this blog, recent graduate, Dr Andreas Stavrinou, shares his top tips.
Planning ahead
Unlike many other university courses, medicine requires students to carry out placements alongside attending lectures and completing other course content. This is often challenging, especially during exam season.
Therefore, it’s vital to plan your revision schedule ahead of time. There’s always a lot of content to cover, so it’s important to look at the time you have left before your exam and schedule in weekly revision.
Placement time itself can also be used for revision purposes. If you find yourself waiting for a ward round, a teaching session or to meet with a supervisor, try to fit in a short burst of revision.
How to revise
Every university will have guidance and learning objectives for all components of the course. In addition to this, the new Medical Licensing Assessment (MLA) content map is a great resource for medical students to use when looking at which conditions to cover for each specialty.
You’re often provided with lecture slides and resources throughout placements. Keeping on top of these is key. Writing notes can be useful, but only if they are going to be used in the future. I’ve found it helpful to only include information that I don’t know or I think I might forget.
By using lecture slides, clinical placements and online resources, you have a document of key information you can use to revise when it comes to your exam. This document can also be turned into flashcards using programmes such as Anki to further optimise your revision.
When struggling with a particular topic, mnemonics are an excellent way to embed information in your memory. Mind maps are also great for building knowledge of a topic, especially for visual learners.
Whatever methods you choose, revision can leave you feeling stressed, and sometimes bored. Revising with other students is a great way to make it more interesting and identify gaps in your knowledge. Why not host a monthly revision session with friends? And pizza of course…
How to utilise resources
There are a multitude of excellent resources available to students that follow the format of multiple-choice exams and OSCEs. Whether you use PassMedicine, Quesmed or another question bank, consistent use of these resources throughout the course is key.
Setting a goal for an achievable number of questions to complete per day often helps with motivation. These resources use algorithms encouraging active recall, spatial recognition and identification of gaps in your understanding, helping you to create a wealth of knowledge and clinical reasoning skills in preparation for exams.
Repetition, repetition, repetition
The old medical student folktale goes: "Medicine isn’t that hard, but there is just too much to learn." Therefore, it’s really important not to waste time with inefficient revision.
New topics should be covered using an active method (e.g. multiple-choice questions rather than reading notes), but if these new concepts aren’t covered again in a few days, weeks later they are likely to be forgotten.
Optimising your environment
Being a university student often means living in accommodation with lots of distractions. Letting housemates know when you do not want to be disturbed, closing your bedroom door or going to a university study area are all good ways of reducing distractions.
Yes, revision can be boring at times and you may find yourself switching off. I’ve found using the Pomodoro Technique useful when scheduling my revision time. This involves working for 25 minutes, taking a 5-minute break, and repeating this four times.
Once you’ve completed this routine four times, give yourself a 15-30-minute break. This not only keeps you more refreshed, but also means that the quality of your revision is high and you can cover more content.
It’s tempting to pick up your phone and start scrolling when you are revising – so make sure it’s out of sight!
Self-care
Exams are important, but taking care of yourself always has to be a priority. Make sure you schedule things like exercise, hobbies and socialising. Leave a revision-free day in the week to help you unwind, focus on fun tasks and reset.
When exams are approaching, maintaining good eating and sleeping habits feels more challenging as your time is so valuable. Everyone struggles with this at times, but it’s important to maintain a good diet and sleep schedule to keep your mind and body healthy.
It isn’t all doom and gloom. Make sure you are rewarding yourself with a naughty snack or some scrolling time. Looking at the bigger picture, planning something fun post-exam can help you keep on track and stay motivated – whether it’s a party, a holiday or something else you can enjoy.
Final thoughts
The exam period is incredibly tough. Revision is key and you must make time for this, but in order to succeed, this must be done methodically and efficiently. Make sure you plan in advance, use reliable, well-researched study methods and utilise your free time.