Post Block 3 Slump!

Block 3 was a week ago yesterday and I still cannot get my brain back in gear to study for finals. I am not sure if it is that I have the Christmas spirit like Santa's Elves or maybe even Santa himself, or if it is my inner desire to be home with my children, but something has me preoccupied. I feel like I need a long vacation to get myself back in the mood to get back down to business and interested in medicine again.

I have done two hours of Goljan today and sprinkled in "house decorating" and "Christmas idea" blogs.

I know that I had things that I wanted to share with you guys about block exams and finals, but for the life of me all I want to tell you about are these neat little Christmas ornament and gift ideas I have found. So head over to my other blog to find out about those.

Ok, ok, I am ready to tell you about finals. The smart thing to do where finals are concerned is to start at the beginning of the semester. I have been in both the position where my final wasn't a big deal, and I have been in the position where I needed to rock the final. So I can attest to the fact that when you have already passed the class you will be much more relaxed during finals than if you need to really blow the final out of the water. Also, if you have done well on the previous blocks, chances are you know the material and you only have to learn the new material for the comprehensive final. This means much less work. But, what if you find yourself in the place where you need to really do well on a final?

If you are in the position where passing or failing depends on the final the first thing is DO NOT PANIC and drop the class right away. I really believe that there are some classes that you learn from taking the tests and once you have figured out what you don't understand you do better on the final. The way it works for me is just like that. I may make a C on a few blocks and I meet with the professor and find out what questions I missed and why and then I understand the material better. Which then brings me to another point which is to talk to your prof after the test to try to understand why you got questions wrong. You may have just misunderstood the wording or you could have been completely confused about a concept. The first is not a huge problem the latter could cause you more errors later on. So it is important to know why you missed what you did.

Back to final preparation. If you are taking a shelf examination I strongly encourage Board Review Series. I used it for Physio and it was priceless. I also used BRS for anatomy (not a shelf for me, but I used the BRS to study for my block exams). I am using Goljan for my pathology shelf, Ill let you know how that goes later. I try to cover all of the material and questions. I am not going to classes the last week b/c I can study at home (usually) better than being on campus. I am a social person and I tend to socialize when I am on campus. Let's face it only so many people have time to be messaging you on facebook and skype, so there is a limit to how many distractions you can come up with at home (for me anyway, I am not a huge fan of tv so that isn't even a problem.) You may find that you can study better in the library or on campus and that is fine. Find your study zone and go there every day, and plan to study for certain subjects based on the number of days/ hours you need and have to study.

I have five days of goljan to listen to, (kill me now) but I have six days to study, so I am going to do all the lectures every day and spend the last day with more questions, and reading. I find that doing questions after I finish a section helps to solidfy what I have read/ heard.

Basically that is it. The long and short of it is use your time wisely in the beginning, and if not use it wisely in the end. Study until your brains fall out and pick them up and study more!!

Until Next time,

Maybe med 2. studying for block 2 I think. 

Amy Jones