1. Learn from exams, do questions 2. Spaced Repetition, don't cram 3. Interweave learning - mix it up 4. Associations - have images that refer to other things and images
I used this backwards technique to facilitate my passing of the state licensing exam for clinical psychology. I took about 10 practice exams and any question I got wrong, I went back and studied the material and also examined my erroneous thought process that led to the wrong answer. A very, very powerful way of studying once you have the basic material down.
Doc I just wanted to say- YOU SAVED MY GRADES- I wanted to wholeheartedly thank you for all you video posts. Several years ago I was barely passing my premed courses. I felt that I would understand and be able to explain complex concepts to classmates- but test day came and I would perform poorly. It was crazy frustrating. Then I realized that the problem must be me, my "studying" wasn'T STUDYING. Combined with a lot your advice I made an 8 step approach to succeeding in any class. Thank YOU SO MUCH. I was able to raise my gpa significantly and set curves in my huge classes. You are amazing. If I get into medical school next year, I will be clicking on your videos first thing!!! Thank so much!!! I am now self studying for the MCAT and I feel there is literally nothing I can't learn with all your study methods that I have taken from you. I feel crazy intellectually powerful!!
I was wondering if could make some videos on standing out as a medical applicant or any general advice you would have for soon to be applicants- I know you have ones on interviews but I would love your perspective on standing out or what you did to get in. Thanks so much and you will be an amazing Doc/are an amazing doc! Best wishes man!!!
Sophia Hegedus Hi, I came across this message of yours and where you talked about having an 8 step approach to doing well in any class. I am a high school student and have struggled with having good studying habits. I would greatly appreciate it if you could share those steps with me as it would help me a bunch!
Anam M Hi Anam! I would love to help you to the best of my ability. Yes, I do have a 8 step approach to doing well in any college course- though I am sure its translatable to highschool, too. First off, I would like to get a general idea of your current study habits as to get context into your struggles. Do you have issues with study habits or concentration, or both? Let me know, and I can try to tailor my answer :)
Sophia Hegedus I am currently taking college credit classes such as calculus and ap biology. I think I have issues with both study habits and concentration. I have been trying to read each chapter in the book but at times what i have just read doesn't make any sense. I also take notes in class and pay attention, however when exam time comes I don't do that great. I want to have good studying habits before college time comes.
Mo, I have to say that you are one of the most humble person that I know. so intelligent, smart and even along with your busy schedule you make time to share detailed videos to make a difference in our lives. I salute you sir and Congratulations on your achievement.
Awesome! I can't stress enough how important it is to use questions for learning, not just review. Doing questions during basic sciences gave me extreme anxiety because I would always get everything wrong. But once I learned to use them to guide my studying, that's when I started to see improvement. My Kaplan qbank is used purely for learning, while Rx and Uworld/NBMEs are where I actually test my recall ability. Great vid.
Hey! I haven't really posted before on youtube, but I just wanted to say thank you! I just finished up my Basic sciences years and am set to take my Step 1 in a month. I have been watching you for the past 2+ years now and I can not thank you enough as your advice is invaluable (and probably one of the only resources that helped get me through)! I watched anonymously for so long but I really had to reach out to make it known how amazing your videos are! I hope this find you! Thanks again (and I look forward to more!)
Thank you for all your tips! I'm both thrilled and anxious to start medical school next week but know that I do appreciate all your tips and insights of your journey so far! Good luck with your residency doc!
I tutored MCAT. Tip 1 is honestly the most important of them all. Best way to learn is to be unhappy with a wrong answer and commit to memory why you were wrong
Man, your 2nd and 3rd tips are literally challenging everything I do and most study strategies I use. I always try my best to learn every single detail at the first go and I'm always afraid that interweaving would lead to confusion and "cross-contamination". I got good grades in high school studying that way and that's why I'm afraid of getting worse results if I tried to change them. But he,y I'm only begging at Medicine and you just graduated, perhaps you saw that the amount and nature of work could only be dealt with this way, so I guess I'll give those tips a try and see how well I do. Thanks Doc
also I have learned that it is also important to relate the different subjects together, and to use critical thinking. it is also good to relate all subjects to real life, and the logics behind what you learn
Thank you, this video was the first game changer for my studying. Question: sometimes I rely on spaced repetition and don't explore enough of the nagging questions or big picture. How do you prevent surface learning? How do you write necessary notes? I'd love a practical checklist/practice to apply and trust
Oh my god. I absolutely love this video and the description is AMAZING!! Thank you Dr. Ossareh. I absolutely enjoy your videos and definitely incorporate everything to my studies and even bought some fountain pens. (Lamy Safari is my favorite so far. Got the Fine nib black like you and a White Lamy Safari with blue ink with Extra Fine). Dr. Osserah you have given me so many EXTREMELY helpful good habits and some bad habits lol ( fountain pen obsession). Keep up the great work and Congratulations on graduating Medical School!!!!!!!! Enjoy your Residency!!!!
I just wanted to say that I'm having a hard time in medical college I'm doing occupational therapy and your videos did actually help me !! Thanx for sharing your experience it'll help a lot people and I would like to ask you that after my bachelors I would like to do a MBA so what would you recommend?
Thank you! I will try it. What are your thoughts on taking notes? And what are the advantages and disadvantages of doing it by hand and on the computer? Fie
FINALLY SOMEONE WHO HAS A SIMILAR LEARNING STYLE TO ME!!! thank you!!! I have been watching a guy who does 10,000 anki clozed cards a day and just was not feeling it ... lol!!!
one question with the learning backward method. i have no problem with reading questions and answering them wrong and then learning about them from the textbook, and i know that previous test questions usually highlight important information and that doing this method is going to take you as much time as normally studying, but my problem is that previous tests don't hold ALL important information, so after doing the backward method you'll still have a big chunck of information that was not in the previous tests. how do you deal with that? doesn't that mean that eventually you'll have to read all of the book to know everything? i love your videos btw!
When you said interweave learning, do you mean learning different topics in one discipline? Like going from ACS to Cardiomyopathies? Or do you mean learning wildly different topics like Antibiotics to Pulmonary Edema?
Hi, Doc Ossareh! I really love your advice videos! I currently got in med school in a Portuguese university, but we have no access to previous exames, and we don't have any model questions about the material. In high school, I would study 90% of the time doing practice tests, and it was the best method for me. Now I'm in university and I'm having a lot of trouble in learning, even though I spend nearly every waking hour studying :( I thought about flash cards and trying to study with visual references, but I don't have time to make them.I would like to know if trying to compile a self-made practice test is a good method? Because I can't find any other solutionMy second question is: does making your own notes from books is worth the time you spend making them?I take a long long time compiling my own notes from the teacher's slides and other books and I feel that I don't really know the material at the end...
MiniSophie Same here, my uni doesnt give is previous exam nor the recommended books have those final questions. So what I found that helps is to try to study to find books with final questions, I know they are not recommended but it short of gives you and ideia of what you were studying.
When you say spaced repetition, how many times & whats exactly the schedule for it to happen? like how many times we need to keep revising a concept? and does studying a concept on a week day then studying it again on a weekend apply to this?
I'm starting my medical terminology class in may and I'm really nervous. I've been a nures aid for 20 plus years. and ready for a change. so I'm in row for pharmacy technician school in July. I hope I'm making the right decision..
Hey doc, I'm a first year MD student and in my university they go by the courses system for example genetics we studied it in two weeks and then we had the exam on the last day of the second week so we never go back to it again the whole year. Take one course finish it then move to the next one It's really stressing because you don't have much time to study all the information and it's ALOT So I want your advice on how can I do well and cover the whole study material Thank you !
Doc, I am second semester MD student. I study a lot. during the week I study about 5 hours and one the weekends I get up 6 or 7 am and continue to study until 11 pm. of course I take short breaks. some reason I cannot remember what I studied yesterday. i do poorly on my exams. my classmates who party every Friday get better grades than i do and i know they don't study at all. it is very frustrating. it feels like time is never enough. pls help thank you.
erkanbatti sitting over a book means nothing. Better to study well a few hours than the whole day. There is no way that you can study well for a whole day.
hey erkanbatti , maybe you should start focusing on yourself. It never helps to compare yourself to others. Your friends are probably lying or they study more than you know , either way, focus on you. I don't believe in studying without efforts. you have to care more about wanting to understand. Forget about grades. If you are sincere with what you are learning, results will come along naturally. Remember that you are on a learning curve! Most of all , believe in yourself !! Confidence is the key to most of our struggles ! good luck !! (use the tips given by docOssareh , I couldn't agree more what he says)
1. Learn from exams, do questions
2. Spaced Repetition, don't cram
3. Interweave learning - mix it up
4. Associations - have images that refer to other things and images
I used this backwards technique to facilitate my passing of the state licensing exam for clinical psychology. I took about 10 practice exams and any question I got wrong, I went back and studied the material and also examined my erroneous thought process that led to the wrong answer. A very, very powerful way of studying once you have the basic material down.
Doc I just wanted to say- YOU SAVED MY GRADES- I wanted to wholeheartedly thank you for all you video posts. Several years ago I was barely passing my premed courses. I felt that I would understand and be able to explain complex concepts to classmates- but test day came and I would perform poorly. It was crazy frustrating. Then I realized that the problem must be me, my "studying" wasn'T STUDYING. Combined with a lot your advice I made an 8 step approach to succeeding in any class. Thank YOU SO MUCH. I was able to raise my gpa significantly and set curves in my huge classes. You are amazing. If I get into medical school next year, I will be clicking on your videos first thing!!! Thank so much!!! I am now self studying for the MCAT and I feel there is literally nothing I can't learn with all your study methods that I have taken from you. I feel crazy intellectually powerful!!
+Sophia Hegedus thanks for the message! It made my day. I'm super happy to hear that you're doing well. Keep it up!
I was wondering if could make some videos on standing out as a medical applicant or any general advice you would have for soon to be applicants- I know you have ones on interviews but I would love your perspective on standing out or what you did to get in. Thanks so much and you will be an amazing Doc/are an amazing doc! Best wishes man!!!
Sophia Hegedus
Hi,
I came across this message of yours and where you talked about having an 8 step approach to doing well in any class. I am a high school student and have struggled with having good studying habits. I would greatly appreciate it if you could share those steps with me as it would help me a bunch!
Anam M
Hi Anam! I would love to help you to the best of my ability. Yes, I do have a 8 step approach to doing well in any college course- though I am sure its translatable to highschool, too. First off, I would like to get a general idea of your current study habits as to get context into your struggles. Do you have issues with study habits or concentration, or both? Let me know, and I can try to tailor my answer :)
Sophia Hegedus I am currently taking college credit classes such as calculus and ap biology. I think I have issues with both study habits and concentration. I have been trying to read each chapter in the book but at times what i have just read doesn't make any sense. I also take notes in class and pay attention, however when exam time comes I don't do that great. I want to have good studying habits before college time comes.
Mo, I have to say that you are one of the most humble person that I know. so intelligent, smart and even along with your busy schedule you make time to share detailed videos to make a difference in our lives. I salute you sir and Congratulations on your achievement.
Indeed!!! How wonderful is he. Sharing like this. Blows my mind!!!
Awesome! I can't stress enough how important it is to use questions for learning, not just review. Doing questions during basic sciences gave me extreme anxiety because I would always get everything wrong. But once I learned to use them to guide my studying, that's when I started to see improvement. My Kaplan qbank is used purely for learning, while Rx and Uworld/NBMEs are where I actually test my recall ability. Great vid.
Hey! I haven't really posted before on youtube, but I just wanted to say thank you! I just finished up my Basic sciences years and am set to take my Step 1 in a month. I have been watching you for the past 2+ years now and I can not thank you enough as your advice is invaluable (and probably one of the only resources that helped get me through)! I watched anonymously for so long but I really had to reach out to make it known how amazing your videos are! I hope this find you! Thanks again (and I look forward to more!)
Thank you for all your tips! I'm both thrilled and anxious to start medical school next week but know that I do appreciate all your tips and insights of your journey so far! Good luck with your residency doc!
I promise you have changed the way I approach classes/school/life. A1 advice.
I agree, especially with the "learning backwards" style using practice questions.
Thanks
your friend who made sketchymicro, was seriously a godsend for me in medical school
Being a medical student , please make high yield videos ,as we always short of time 😂
Just started first year medical school and watched a few of these vids on your channel. Its a great help already thanks for the advice!
this is something which I always knew but hardly put up with.. :P thanks for reinforcing it !
I tutored MCAT. Tip 1 is honestly the most important of them all. Best way to learn is to be unhappy with a wrong answer and commit to memory why you were wrong
Man, your 2nd and 3rd tips are literally challenging everything I do and most study strategies I use. I always try my best to learn every single detail at the first go and I'm always afraid that interweaving would lead to confusion and "cross-contamination". I got good grades in high school studying that way and that's why I'm afraid of getting worse results if I tried to change them. But he,y I'm only begging at Medicine and you just graduated, perhaps you saw that the amount and nature of work could only be dealt with this way, so I guess I'll give those tips a try and see how well I do. Thanks Doc
his videos are to the point and very informative
also I have learned that it is also important to relate the different subjects together, and to use critical thinking. it is also good to relate all subjects to real life, and the logics behind what you learn
Win jays Ferrari videos
Thank you, this video was the first game changer for my studying. Question: sometimes I rely on spaced repetition and don't explore enough of the nagging questions or big picture. How do you prevent surface learning? How do you write necessary notes? I'd love a practical checklist/practice to apply and trust
Exactly the best methods Iam using now!
Thanks for the video. I have actually applied these similar ideas to my MCAT studying.
Thank you for your advices! You are very optimistic and i hope your attitude to learning will help to many students all around the world.
Thanks, this helps in the field of the emergency medical care field as well.
This was good! Thanks! I'm a year 1 student and it's overwhelming....the amount of info!
I must say this.. this video is amazing and so 'digesteble' . thank u so much Doctor. Loads of love from a med student
Oh my god. I absolutely love this video and the description is AMAZING!! Thank you Dr. Ossareh. I absolutely enjoy your videos and definitely incorporate everything to my studies and even bought some fountain pens. (Lamy Safari is my favorite so far. Got the Fine nib black like you and a White Lamy Safari with blue ink with Extra Fine). Dr. Osserah you have given me so many EXTREMELY helpful good habits and some bad habits lol ( fountain pen obsession). Keep up the great work and Congratulations on graduating Medical School!!!!!!!! Enjoy your Residency!!!!
Thank you very much. This video helped me a lot. I'm preparing for the South African boards now. All the best with your residency. Cheers.
I have to get busy and start watching all your videos! Good stuff! Thanks
You have been an amazing inspiration and continue to be as I go through my med school years. Hope residency is going well!
This was great. Can you do a video on tips to make an effective study time table?
Congratulations!!! I enjoyed your videos and will be putting your advice to use.
I just wanted to say that I'm having a hard time in medical college I'm doing occupational therapy and your videos did actually help me !! Thanx for sharing your experience it'll help a lot people and I would like to ask you that after my bachelors I would like to do a MBA so what would you recommend?
Thank you! I will try it. What are your thoughts on taking notes? And what are the advantages and disadvantages of doing it by hand and on the computer? Fie
Congratulations and best luck for the residency!
Endlessly reading will hurt you especially with application type test questions. I think there are many students, in general, who are guilty of this.
I am ophthalmology student, i think that you have to motivate yourself in learning, and copy knowledge in daily life practice...
Thank you for your advice, your experience, it has helped a lot. I am grateful.
keep it up Dr. O ! thank u for everything. You are an ispiration for most of us
practice questions, spaced repetition, mix it up, associations
Go backwards
Space repetitions
Mixed it up
Associations
I love your channel and your book reviews dr.
SketchyMicro is on another level. Those guys deserve an award or something cool.
This video is GOLD! Thank you!
Thank you so much.Such a kind soul.
Great vid! What are your tips on understanding complex graphical type questions? I feel like I completely misunderstand them :/
Wow this guy is great
🤗🤗🤗 super cool. Thanks so much. God Bless!! 👏👏👏
Thank you, sir. Your tips are amazing! 😃
Those are awesome advices! Thanks!
Thank you so much, for the videos, would you apply this technique for the mcat, doing questions and learning from exams.
Thank you so much. I am struggling currently but I hope this helps. Would give you feedback in a month.
FINALLY SOMEONE WHO HAS A SIMILAR LEARNING STYLE TO ME!!! thank you!!! I have been watching a guy who does 10,000 anki clozed cards a day and just was not feeling it ... lol!!!
Great advice! Thank you so much 😎
Hello,thanks for your video! It helps a lot :) I have a question for you. Do you listen any kind of music while you study? :)
Very helpful. THANKS SO MUCH
Such great advice thank you 😊👏🏻👏🏻
congratulations i am sure you are going to be a great doctor
valuable techniques.. keep up your good work..
👍👍
This was really helpful! Thanks!
very smart advice ! I couldn't agree more
Thank you so much you are a life saviour!
Thank you! This was great!
I am in clinical years now but I still needs to back to my basic subjects cuz I forget most of them(very sad)
SAAD AQAHTANI same her
Your videos are amazing. thank you 😃
Thank you!
congrats !!
Congratulations 👏👏 and thank you
Thanks for sharing
i wonder if the first advice of "Start doing the problems as soon as possible" apply to maths and physics courses as well??
Good one
Congrats doc!
Thank you so much
you saved my life
one question with the learning backward method.
i have no problem with reading questions and answering them wrong and then learning about them from the textbook, and i know that previous test questions usually highlight important information and that doing this method is going to take you as much time as normally studying, but my problem is that previous tests don't hold ALL important information, so after doing the backward method you'll still have a big chunck of information that was not in the previous tests. how do you deal with that? doesn't that mean that eventually you'll have to read all of the book to know everything?
i love your videos btw!
Any advice on MS1 textbooks to use? I'm looking for questions to do.
When you said interweave learning, do you mean learning different topics in one discipline? Like going from ACS to Cardiomyopathies? Or do you mean learning wildly different topics like Antibiotics to Pulmonary Edema?
"Make it stick" by peter c Brown. this great book discuss all the points in more details . just Google it or watch a youtube video about this book.
Space repetition is major key!!!
Top quality.
Thanks
Hi, Doc Ossareh! I really love your advice videos! I currently got in med school in a Portuguese university, but we have no access to previous exames, and we don't have any model questions about the material. In high school, I would study 90% of the time doing practice tests, and it was the best method for me. Now I'm in university and I'm having a lot of trouble in learning, even though I spend nearly every waking hour studying :( I thought about flash cards and trying to study with visual references, but I don't have time to make them.I would like to know if trying to compile a self-made practice test is a good method? Because I can't find any other solutionMy second question is: does making your own notes from books is worth the time you spend making them?I take a long long time compiling my own notes from the teacher's slides and other books and I feel that I don't really know the material at the end...
MiniSophie Same here, my uni doesnt give is previous exam nor the recommended books have those final questions. So what I found that helps is to try to study to find books with final questions, I know they are not recommended but it short of gives you and ideia of what you were studying.
Thank you so much for this!!
congratulations!
I wanna say THANK YOU
thank you, greetings from Peru
Dr, when you say questions, do you mean clinicalcase-like questions or theory questions?
-[4th year med student}
Thanks Doctor O. Jewels
When you say spaced repetition, how many times & whats exactly the schedule for it to happen? like how many times we need to keep revising a concept? and does studying a concept on a week day then studying it again on a weekend apply to this?
Hello. Are there any free Qbanks? or online free Q banks? or in text?
I'm starting my medical terminology class in may and I'm really nervous. I've been a nures aid for 20 plus years. and ready for a change. so I'm in row for pharmacy technician school in July. I hope I'm making the right decision..
Gene Amigh go with your gut gene, hopefully itll be the right one!
Do you have a video about how to study for the MCAT?
Hey doc, I'm a first year MD student and in my university they go by the courses system for example genetics we studied it in two weeks and then we had the exam on the last day of the second week so we never go back to it again the whole year. Take one course finish it then move to the next one
It's really stressing because you don't have much time to study all the information and it's ALOT
So I want your advice on how can I do well and cover the whole study material
Thank you !
That's some quality content
I noticed you say you did an MBA with your MD. Is your goal to go into physician entrepreneurship?
Doc, I am second semester MD student. I study a lot. during the week I study about 5 hours and one the weekends I get up 6 or 7 am and continue to study until 11 pm. of course I take short breaks. some reason I cannot remember what I studied yesterday. i do poorly on my exams. my classmates who party every Friday get better grades than i do and i know they don't study at all. it is very frustrating. it feels like time is never enough. pls help thank you.
erkanbatti same!!!!!!
erkanbatti sitting over a book means nothing. Better to study well a few hours than the whole day. There is no way that you can study well for a whole day.
i do study a
whole with breaks
hey erkanbatti , maybe you should start focusing on yourself. It never helps to compare yourself to others. Your friends are probably lying or they study more than you know , either way, focus on you. I don't believe in studying without efforts. you have to care more about wanting to understand. Forget about grades. If you are sincere with what you are learning, results will come along naturally.
Remember that you are on a learning curve!
Most of all , believe in yourself !! Confidence is the key to most of our struggles ! good luck !!
(use the tips given by docOssareh , I couldn't agree more what he says)
erkanbatti this is my problem too ,, i really feel bad about myself and cannot continue to study 😔💔
congratulations bro,
very helpful!!
Any further explanations how to make sketch associations? I feel I didn't get the whole point..
great video
You are the best!
Teevee hii
Thank yoi very much doc
But tell ,me plz
And repete again that books that you are telling they have question
Appreciated